Hello and welcome to this week’s harmonica lesson where I am going to use Sonny Terry’s version of Bring it on home to me as a song study.

Specifically I am going to show how you can learn from a harmonica player’s style. This means that you will be able to steal their tricks and apply them to your own improvisations.

You will need a harmonica in the key of A and we will be playing in the key of E.

Learn the original

If you want to learn the original tune you can click here to go to my lesson.

It is not entirely necessary to learn the original however. We are going to look at some strategies for improvising in the same style as Sonny Terry.

How to study a song

Listen to the song and ask yourself the following questions…

What is the chord progression?

Ask yourself whether the chord progression is a 12 bar or if it is something different.

In this case it is an 8 bar blues which uses the I, IV and V chords. The chord progression is actually written on the tab I did for the tune in my lesson.

What scale and note choices are being made?

Ask yourself what scale is being used and if there are any interesting note choices.

In Bring it on home to me, Sonny Terry is mainly using the major pentatonic scale with an occasional blues scale note added (the 4 draw bend).

What are the key rhythms and phrase styles?

Ask yourself is there are any interesting rhythms or phrase styles.

Sonny Terry has a repeating triplet lick which is played four times throughout the tune.

You can pick your own notes and steal his rhythm and repetition to make your own solo.

Backing track

Practice all of these ideas with the backing track below…

Apply this to any artist

Study as many harmonica players as you can. Ask yourself these questions and see what are the important elements of their playing style.

Thank you

Thank you so much for taking part in this lesson. Please feel free to share it with your friends on Facebook and/or Twitter!

Happy harping!

T

The post How to improvise in the style of Sonny Terry’s Bring It On Home To Me appeared first on Tomlin Harmonica Lessons.

Hello and welcome to this week’s lesson, where I will be showing you how to play 3 easy V-IV-I licks which you can use for your own blues solos.

You will need a harmonica in the key of C, and we will be playing in 2nd position in the key of G.

Click here to download the tab for the licks

What is a V-IV-I?

This refers to the last four bars of a 12 bar blues which consist of the V chord for one bar, IV chord for one bar and I chord for two bars.

There is also often a turnaround in the final bar…

Licks

You can learn these licks and use them to play over the last four bars of your own blues solos. You can also learn them and then change them to be your own!

Lick 1

This lick focusses on playing the root notes of each of the chords.

Slow

Lick 2

Lick 2 follows the chord changes but also adds a nice octave jump.

Slow

Lick 3

Lick 3 doesn’t just play the root notes, instead it adds some extra tasty notes over each chord.

Slow

V-IV-I backing track

I recommend practicing these licks with the backing track on a loop.

Click here to download the tab for the licks

Thank you

Thank you so much for taking part in this lesson. I hope it was useful for you. If you enjoyed it please feel free to share it with your friends on Facebook and/or Twitter.

If you have any questions just send me a wee email.

See you next Wednesday for the next harmonica lesson!

Edinburgh Harmonica Workshop

If you want to find out more about the Edinburgh Harmonica Workshop just click here.

The post 3 Easy V-IV-I licks on blues harmonica appeared first on Tomlin Harmonica Lessons.

Hello and welcome to this week’s lesson, where I will be showing you how to play a 12 bar country harmonica blues.

You will need a harmonica in the key of A, and we will be playing in 2nd position in the key of E.

Click here to download the tab for this lesson

Slow down and don’t rush

Although our goal is to play this style of music nice and quickly, you need to spend some quality time practicing the breathing pattern nice and slowly. Really make sure that you are playing everything perfectly even if the metronome is super slow.

Most people try to speed up too soon and lose the punchiness of the articulations “te-te-TA-te”. This leads to a rhythm that sounds slurred. There is no shortcut – you need to practice it slowly for a long time until the muscle memory has built up. Then you can speed up and maintain your accuracy.

Lick 1 – Main groove

Slow

Lick 2

Slow

Lick 3

Licks 3 and 4 are based around the major pentatonic scale which is a great choice for this style of blues – it makes everything sound a lot more melodic.

Slow

Lick 4

Slow

Turnaround

Slow

Click here to download the tab for this lesson

Take your time

I really recommend that you take your time learning this tune, especially the main riff over the I chord. I took about a month before I started getting comfortable with it…

Thank you

Thank you so much for taking part in this lesson. I hope it was useful for you. If you enjoyed it please feel free to share it with your friends on Facebook and/or Twitter.

If you have any questions just send me a wee email.

See you next Wednesday for the next harmonica lesson!

Edinburgh Harmonica Workshop 21-23rd July 2017

There are less than 80 days to go until the Edinburgh Harmonica Workshop with David Barrett, Will Wilde, Liam Ward and myself.

Click here to find out more about the weekend and to book your place.

The post 12 Bar Country Blues Harmonica Lesson appeared first on Tomlin Harmonica Lessons.

Hello and welcome to this week’s lesson, where I will be showing you how to play some awesome V-IV-I licks with heavy bending and serious overblows!

You will need a harmonica in the key of C, and we will be playing in 2nd position in the key of G.

Click here to download the tab for this lesson

Lick 1

Slow

Lick 2

Slow

Lick 3

This lick uses some overblown so if you don’t know how to overblow fear not, you can click here for my overblow lesson.

Slow

Backing track

Click here to download the tab for this lesson

Thank you

Thank you so much for taking part in this lesson. I hope it was useful for you. If you enjoyed it please feel free to share it with your friends on Facebook and/or Twitter.

If you have any questions just send me a wee email.

See you next Wednesday for the next harmonica lesson!

Edinburgh Harmonica Workshop

In July, I will be joined by Will Wilde, Liam Ward and David Barrett for a weekend of awesome harmonica performances and workshops. Click here to find out more.

The post 3 Awesome V-IV-I Blues Harmonica Licks appeared first on Tomlin Harmonica Lessons.

Hello and welcome to this week’s lesson, where I will be showing you how to play some tasty country style vamping licks.

You will need a harmonica in the key of A, and we will be playing in 2nd position in the key of E.

Click here to download the tab for this lesson

What is vamping?

Vamping is where you have a repeating rhythmic part which you add licks and riffs to.

For this lesson I have given you a bunch of different licks and variations to learn. However, your longer term goal is to be able to make your own up and improvise around this kind of rhythm.

Base Lick

This is the ‘vamp’, i.e. the part that you repeat.

Slow

Lick 1

The first variation consists of changing what single note you are playing during the rhythm. The rhythm itself stays exactly the same but you will be adding in alternative single notes.

You should be especially careful when you play a blow note because you will probably want to play blow chords afterwards – don’t!

Slow

Lick 2

The first half of lick 2 consists of swapping the second half of the vamp for a 4 note run using 1/16th notes.

1/16th notes are notes that last a quarter of a beat so that means there are 4 per beat.

The second half of lick 2 does two beats worth of 1/16th note runs.

Slow

Lick 3

Slow

Lick 4

This lick introduces the idea of playing a longer ‘run’ of notes. You will be playing 3 beats of 1/16th notes so 3 sets of 4 notes.

Slow

Lick 5 and 6

These two licks show how you can vary the vamp itself by replacing the ghost ‘ta’ with some single notes.

Lick 5 – Slow

Lick 6 – Slow

Click here to download the tab for this lesson

Improvising around this

All of the phrases I played in this lesson use notes from the major pentatonic scale. This gives everything a nice melodic country feel. However, you can also try experimenting with notes from the blues scale to give it a more bluesy feel.

Thank you

Thank you so much for taking part in this lesson. I hope it was useful for you. If you enjoyed it please feel free to share it with your friends on Facebook and/or Twitter.

If you have any questions just send me a wee email.

See you next Wednesday for the next harmonica lesson!

Edinburgh Harmonica Workshop – 21-23 July

I’m so excited about this year’s Edinburgh Harmonica Workshop where I will be teaching with Liam Ward, Will Wilde and David Barrett.

Watch the video to find out a little bit more about it!

Click here to find out more about the workshops.

The post Tasty Country Blues Harmonica Vamping Licks appeared first on Tomlin Harmonica Lessons.

Hello and welcome to this week’s harmonica lesson.

First of all, apologies for not putting out a lesson last week. Everything is now back to normal. Thank you for your patience.

Today’s lesson is going to point out five of the most common mistakes I see beginner harmonica players making.

1. Playing Too Hard

When we start playing harmonica, we watch videos of passionate players who look like they are strangling the instrument. However, the truth is that to get a good sound you need to play lightly.

Warning Signs Of Playing Too Hard

* Strained sounding notes
* Excess air sounds
* Running out of air
* Unable to focus your airflow on a single hole

How To Fix It?

You can fix playing too hard by breathing naturally rather than forcing air through or sucking.

Imagine that there is a baby sleeping in the room next to you; if you play too loud you will wake it up.

If you want to play really loud, use a microphone!

2. Playing With One Hand

We want to look nonchalant and cool when we play harmonica. Playing one handed makes it look like you’re a pro and know what you are doing. However, it also makes it very easy to make mistakes.

Warning Signs Of Playing With One Hand

* You have a beer in one of your hands
* You are making silly mistakes when moving between holes
* You sometimes move too far when moving between holes

How To Fix It?

* Place your right hand on the right hand side of the harmonica

3. Moving Head Not Hands

This is a very common one. If you move your head rather than your hands you often end up the harmonica at a different angle to your mouth. This means that even with a clean starting note, once you have moved up or down the harmonica you will have your mouth open across multiple holes.

A lot of people do this without even noticing…

Warning Signs Of Moving Your Head

* Nice clean notes progressively getting worse
* You end up looking over to one side
* Elbows leaning on the table in front of you while you are playing

How To Fix It?

* Watch yourself playing in the mirror and try to not move your head
* Stare at a fixed point in front of you and try not to lose sight of it while you are playing
* Don’t lean on the desk in front of you

4. Looking At The Harmonica

The harmonica is known as a ‘blind’ instrument. This means you can’t see what you are doing. However, it is very tempting to take it out of your mouth and look at what hole you are aiming for.

As you get more technically proficient you will find less and less time to look at the harmonica which means you will hit a roadblock in your improvement. This is because you won’t have learnt where the holes are by feel.

Warning Signs Of Looking At The Harmonica

* Going cross-eyed
* Long pauses between notes while you look for them
* Taking your harmonica out of your mouth

How To Fix It?

* Close your eyes
* Keep the harmonica in your mouth
* Hit the wrong hole and make adjustments

5. Rushing Ahead Before They Are Ready

The biggest and most common mistake is rushing ahead before you are ready. In the early days of your playing, harmonica will be extremely exciting and extremely overwhelming. You will come across all sorts of technical terms like overblows, vibrato, positions and whole step. This will make you feel like you need to work on everything at once. Don’t!

Work on the foundations bit by bit and don’t jump from lesson to lesson until you are ready.

Warning Signs Of Rushing Ahead

* Buying a custom harmonica after you have been playing for 2 days
* Watching 10 harmonica lesson videos back to back
* Worrying that you can’t overflow after playing for a year

How To Fix It?

* Do one thing at a time and nail it
* Take my self-assessment test and see where you are in your playing and only do lessons at that difficulty level
* Don’t worry about where you are on the path to harmonica greatness, just take small steps…

Conclusion

These are all very common mistakes so if you make one or a number of them, don’t worry, we all have and some of us still do! Just spend a little time trying to fix it a little at a time…

Want some more help?

If you would like a little more help with getting your foundations sorted then check out my 4 week beginner harmonica course.

Click here for more details…

The post 5 Common Mistakes Beginner Harmonica Players Make appeared first on Tomlin Harmonica Lessons.

Today’s harmonica lesson looks at how to bend for complete beginners or people who are struggling with this technique. I am using a harmonica in C.

1) Tilt Bend

Literally what it sounds like. You play the 4 hole draw and maintain it while tilting the harmonica up.

2) eee-ooo

Make the sound ‘eee’ when you are playing a normal note and slowly transition to ‘ooo’ to initiate the bend.

3) Strong muscular tongue

You do not want your tongue to be flapping around in your mouth. It needs to be strong and muscular.

4) Don’t pull too far back

If you keep pulling your tongue too far back then you might hit the bend and slide off of it. Slow down and listen to what you are playing. If you hear a bend you should stop moving rather than continuing to pull back.

5) Keep the harmonica tipped up

Whenever you are playing harmonica, not just when bending, it is good to have it slightly tilted up. This means that your top lip will be covering quite a lot of the top cover plate and your bottom lip will be covering a little of the bottom cover plate.

6) Don’t play harder

Bending on the 4 hole is not a feat of strength. You should be able to bend with the same amount of air as normal.

7) Don’t drop your jaw

Although you are using vocalisations you want to make sure that your jaw does not move, only your tongue.

8) Keep tongue facing forward

Keep the tip of your tongue pointing forwards.

Thanks for taking the time to check this out. Don’t forget to share it!

12 Easy 12 Bar Blues Course

If you are a relative beginner to harmonica and want some learning some key blues techniques such as chugging, bending, warbles and other things then you will want to check out my 12 Easy 12 Bar Blues Course.

The course lasts 12 weeks and each week you will learn a new 12 Bar Blues Tune introducing new techniques and styles.

Click here to find out more.

The post 8 tips for how to bend on harmonica appeared first on Tomlin Harmonica Lessons.

This week we are continuing the theme of first position blues with the Jimmy Reed classic “Bright Lights Big City”

You will need a harmonica in the key of A.

It uses the 1st position blues scale. If you missed that lesson just click here to go to; introduction to 1st position blues harmonica

Click here to download the tab for this lesson

Blow bend inflections

You will notice that this tune uses a lot of inflections on the blow bends. Just like on a draw bend this means hitting the bend and quickly releasing it. In order to do this you can try saying “kwee-kwee”. Most importantly, you will need to make sure that you are keeping a nice even pressure on the hole.

Hitting those bends straight on

Lick 3 lands on an 8 hole blow bend which you then release and re-hit. Practice hitting it straight on slowly. Remember to keep the pressure even.

Hitting the 10 hole blow bend straight on

In lick 5 you are going to playing all the hardest blow bends straight on; the 9 blow and the 10 blow. Just slow this lick right down until you can play it perfectly before you attempt to speed it up.

Spot the lick from second position

A lot of you will recognise this lick as a lick I love playing in 2nd position. Starting on the 9 blow bend which you quickly release and glissando down to 7 hole.

Lick 1

Slow

Lick 2

Slow

Lick 3

Slow

Lick 4

Slow

Lick 5

Slow

Lick 6

Slow

Backing Track

Click here to download the tab for this lesson

Thank you

Thank you so much for participating in this lesson. As always, if you have any questions just leave a comment or drop me an e-mail.

Learn how to improvise

If you are keen to start improvising over a 12 bar blues I will help you in my Introduction to Improvisation eCourse.

The post How to play Bright Lights Big City on harmonica appeared first on Tomlin Harmonica Lessons.

Hello and welcome to this week’s harmonica lesson, where I will be teaching you how to play the Sonny boy Williamson classic Checking up on My Baby. You will need a harmonica in the key of D, and we will be playing in 2nd position in the key of A.

Get the tab and backing track here

Lick 1

The tune starts before the start of the 12 bar progression. The 1st phrase starts on beat two of the bar before bar 1 of the 12 bar.

Lick 2

Lick 3

Lick 4

You also don’t need to play loads of different notes. Lick 4 just has two different notes and sounds really tasty!

Lick 5

The last lick is a different rhythm to the others and uses a classic Sonny boy Williamson trick. This is the repeated 4 draw bend, release, 5 draw lick. You will hear him using this in lots of different tunes.

Backing Track

Full Tune

Thank you

Thank you so much for taking part in this lesson. I hope it was useful for you. If you enjoyed it please feel free to share it with your friends on Facebook and/or Twitter.

If you have any questions just send me a wee email.

Happy harping and see you next Wednesday for the next lesson!

Edinburgh Harmonica Workshop

If you want to find out a little bit more about the most exciting weekend in my calendar then click here to find out about the Edinburgh Harmonica Workshop.

The post How to play Checking up on my baby by Sonny Boy Williamson appeared first on Tomlin Harmonica Lessons.

Hello and welcome to this week’s lesson, where I will be showing you an idea for how to develop a harmonica solo using different parts of the instruments.

I am using a harmonica in the key of C and will be playing in 2nd position in the key of G but you can apply this idea to any key.

Gradually increase the energy

A great way to keep your harmonica solos interesting is to ration how much of the harmonica you use.

Start at the bottom

At the begging of your solo you could use the lower notes, maybe holes 1,2 and 3. Don’t go above them until the middle of the solo.

Add in the 4 hole

All too often we head straight for the 4 hole draw at the beginning of a solo because it is such a strong sound but then we don’t have any strong notes left. With this in mind I recommend you gradually add it into your solo around the midpoint.

Head up to the 6 hole

In the final part of your solo you can open your harmonica all the way up to the 6 hole and increase the energy.

A beginning, middle and an end

Think of all your solos as being a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. Try to gradually increase the energy so that you finish with a big explosion!

Improvisation strategies

If you want some more ideas for improvising then click here.

Thank you

Thank you so much for taking part in this lesson. I hope it was useful for you. If you enjoyed it please feel free to share it with your friends on Facebook and/or Twitter.

If you have any questions just send me a wee email.

See you next Wednesday for the next harmonica lesson!

The post Developing a Harmonica Solo Using Different Areas Of The Harmonica appeared first on Tomlin Harmonica Lessons.

Hello and welcome to the final harmonica lesson of 2017! It is not actually a lesson. It is the gag reel from the last year of all the stupid mistakes I make while filming my lessons.

But, first of all I want to thank you for being so wonderful and supportive this year. I couldn’t do this without you so truly and from the bottom of my heart;

Thank you!

Christmas break

I’m going to be away from the 20th December to 8th January so there won’t be a new lesson up until the 10th January.

Merry Christmas and much love to you and your family!

Tomlin

The post Tomlin’s last video of 2017… appeared first on Tomlin Harmonica Lessons.

Hello and welcome to the first lesson of 2018! Happy New Year!

I hope you had a good break over the festive period and are all excited about starting up again?

Because it is the first lesson of 2018 I thought it would be a good idea to set some personal goals for your harmonica practice this year.

Click here to get the work sheets for this lesson…

What are the three steps to achieving your goal?

Step 1 – What do you want to achieve this year on the instrument?

It is easy to set open-ended goals like “be better on the harmonica” or “be awesome” but they are not concrete enough. Instead you need to set a concrete and achievable goal.

Here are some examples –

• Sit in at a blues jam session
• Learn a song from start to finish
• Learn to play in 3rd position

Once you have a goal, write it down on your goal sheet.

Step 2 – Work out what steps are necessary

Big goals are achieved by mastering a number of “micro-skills”. This is why it is important to write down all the smaller steps you need to take to achieve the goal.

So, if we take the example of sitting in at a blues jam, here are some smaller steps that will get you there;

1) Learn the 12 bar blues structure
2) Understand how the 12 bar structure relates to harmoncia
3) Improvise using root notes
4) Learn the Blues Scale
5) Use Blues Scale to spice up your root note improvisation
6) Learn 3 great licks
7) Learn about keys and positions
8) Practice with a microphone
9) Find a jam session and talk to the organiser

Once you have worked out the smaller steps required to achieve your big goal write them on your work sheet.

Step 3 – Commit to a regular (and realistic) practice schedule

Little and often is the best way to practice and achieve what you want quicker but because of how life is we tend to end up with a largish practice session every week or so rather than more smaller regular sessions.

Try to fit in a little bit each day because sleep is an essential component of practice.

Use your practice sheet to keep track of your daily practice sessions and what you are working on.

Click here to get the work sheets for this lesson…

Thank You!

Thank you so much for taking part in this lesson. I now want you to write down your goal in the comments below. Commit to achieving it!

The post New Year Harmonica Resolution – Start As You Mean To Go On! appeared first on Tomlin Harmonica Lessons.

Hello, today’s lesson is all about playing a full tune including accompanying a singer and taking a solo. I will be showing you how to do this with the Jonny guitar Watson classic Gangster of Love.

You will need a harmonica in the key of A. We’re playing in 2nd position which means we are playing in the key of E.

Get the tab and audio here

Accompanying the singer

Lets look at what we are going to play around the singer first…

Hook

The first lick is a ‘hook’ and sounds very similar to the Hoochie Coochie Lick. You will need to make sure that the 3 draw is bent down to the blue 3rd. Furthermore, you also need to make sure that the jump from the 2 draw to the 4 blow is accurate. It doesn’t feel like a lot of space but it is very easy to fumble.

Listen to what the guitar does in the backing track because you will be playing exactly the same thing.

Lick 1/h2>

Lick 2/h2>

Lick 3/h2>

Turnaround/h2>

Soloing

During the solo section, the guitar actually follows a standard 12 bar progression. This is very common for this kind of blues. You have a 16 bar progression for the verses then a 12 bar for the solo.

Solo Lick 1

Solo Lick 2

Solo Lick 3

Solo Lick 4

Solo Lick 5

Solo Lick 6

Solo Lick 7

Solo Lick 8

Solo Turnaround

Playthrough

Backing track

Get the tab and audio here

Thank you and now you can do something for me!

Thanks so much for watching this. If you have any questions just leave a comment. Now, I have a request for you. Please share this on Facebook or Twitter by clicking the Facebook or Twitter buttons below. Thank you very much!

The post How to play Gangster of Love – Accompanying a singer appeared first on Tomlin Harmonica Lessons.

Hello and welcome to this week’s lesson, where I will be showing you how to incorporate some chugging into a solo 12 Bar Blues piece.

You will need a harmonica in the key of C, and we will be playing in 2nd position in the key of G.

Click here to download the tab and audio clips

Not sure how to chug?

If you are not comfortable chugging on the harmonica yet, check out my complete beginner’s lesson on the subject – Starting to chug

Lick 1

Slow

Chugging

Slow

Lick 2

Slow

Lick 3

Slow

Turnaround

Slow

Play-through

Full Speed

Click here to download the tab and audio clips

Thank you

Thank you so much for taking part in this lesson. I hope it was useful for you. If you enjoyed it please feel free to share it with your friends on Facebook and/or Twitter.

If you have any questions just send me a wee email.

See you next Wednesday for the next harmonica lesson!

The post Chugging over a 12 Bar Blues Harmonica Lesson appeared first on Tomlin Harmonica Lessons.

Hello and welcome to this week’s lesson, where I will be showing you how to play a fun static harmonica vamp with some simple chugging.

You will need a harmonica in the key of C, and we will be playing in 2nd position in the key of G.

Click here to download the tab and audio

Vamp

Slow

Lick 1

Slow

Lick 2

Slow

Lick 3

Slow

Lick 4

Slow

Ending

Slow

Play-through

Click here to download the tab and audio

Thank you

Thank you so much for taking part in this lesson. I hope it was useful for you. If you enjoyed it please feel free to share it with your friends on Facebook and/or Twitter.

If you have any questions just send me a wee email.

See you next Wednesday for the next harmonica lesson!

The post Supervamp Chugging Blues Harmonica Lesson appeared first on Tomlin Harmonica Lessons.

Hello and welcome to this week’s lesson, where I will be talking about an important aspect of musicianship which is Stamina.

This is a lesson for all levels of player and to play along with the examples you will need a C harmonica.

Click here to download the tab and audio

One of the most important things to develop as a musician is the stamina to play through an entire song. All too often as harmonica players we get hung up on just playing a solo over a 12 bar portion of a song. However, other musicians will not be impressed if that is all you do.

If you are a singer then you will be forgiven for only playing a harmonica solo but if you are not then you will be expected to do some work…

Breathing Problems

I regularly receive emails from students asking me for advice about breathing because they keep running out of air and while there are ways to fix it by improving your technique, necessity is one of the best solutions.

What do I mean by necessity?

Well, as animals we have evolved to do everything we can to keep breathing otherwise we write ourselves out of the gene pool. So, as a harmonica player you are not actually going to run out of breath. In fact, if you have to keep going your body is going to do everything in its power to keep you going. DISCLAIMER – please try not to pass out while playing harmonica…

Building up stamina

Ok so I don’t actually want you to start hyperventilating because that would be silly but I do want you to push yourself by trying to play through a whole tune.

This is a relevant exercise no matter where you are on your harmonica journey.

Some examples of good exercises to build stamina and concentration

Not only are we trying to build stamina to be able to play harmonica all night but we also want to maintain concentration. Here are some tunes which I want you to try…

Beginner – ‘I’m a man’ Riff

Practice playing this riff with the backing track below and try to play for the whole duration…

Advanced Beginner – ‘Shape Your Hips’

Practice playing this riff with the backing track below and try to play for the whole duration…

Intermediate – ‘Descending Box Shuffle’

Click here for the full lesson. Practice playing the bass line over the whole backing track.

Advanced Intermediate – ‘Country Blues’

Click here for the full lesson. Practice playing it 4 or 5 times in a row without stopping.

Click here to download the tab and audio

Fighting Boredom

You are quite likely to feel bored at first because you are not taking a solo but practicing this kind of thing and making yourself play through a whole song will do amazing things for your timing and your musicianship in general.

Good luck and thank you!

Good luck with building up your stamina and thank you so much for taking part in this lesson. I hope it was useful for you. If you enjoyed it please feel free to share it with your friends on Facebook and/or Twitter.

If you have any questions just send me a wee email.

See you next Wednesday for the next harmonica lesson!

The post Most harmonica players don’t have enough stamina… appeared first on Tomlin Harmonica Lessons.

Hello and welcome to this week’s lesson, where I will be showing you how to play the Blues Scale in 2nd position above hole 6 so that you can unlock the upper octave!

You will need a harmonica in the key of C, and we will be playing in 2nd position in the key of G.

Click here to get the Blues Scale tab…

Blues Scale in 2nd Position

What does it sound like?

You don’t need the 7 overdraw

Personally, I don’t usually bother playing the 7 Overdraw, instead I just leave it out. This turns our Blues Scale into a Minor Pentatonic Scale which is the important bit.

I know a lot of other harmonica players who also leave that note out so don’t feel bad if you can’t play it.

How to start using the upper octave

Once you are comfortable playing the Blues Scale or the Minor Pentatonic Scale above the 6 hole how do you start using it?

Well, I suggest that you take some of your licks from the lower octave and work out how to play them higher up.

This will really solidify your mental “roadmap” of the harmonica.

Click here to get the Blues Scale tab…

Thank you

Thank you so much for taking part in this lesson. I hope it was useful for you. If you enjoyed it please feel free to share it with your friends on Facebook and/or Twitter.

If you have any questions just send me a wee email.

See you next Wednesday for the next harmonica lesson!

The post Unlocking the Upper Octave and How to Play the Blues Scale All the Way Up! appeared first on Tomlin Harmonica Lessons.

Hello and welcome to this week’s lesson, where I will be showing you how to play Miss You by The Rolling Stones.

You will need a harmonica in the key of D, and we will be playing in 2nd position in the key of A minor.

Click here to get the tab and audio…

Minor Keys

Because we are playing in a minor key you need to make sure that you are playing the 3 draw 1/2 step bend properly. Do not play the clean 3 draw instead as it will sound horrible.

Why does it sound horrible?

Well, the 3 draw is a Major 3rd which you can’t play over a minor chord progression instead you need to play a 3 draw 1/2 step bend which is a Minor 3rd.

Lick 1

Audio

Lick 2

Audio

Play-through

Click here to get the tab and audio…

Thank you

Thank you so much for taking part in this lesson. I hope it was useful for you. If you enjoyed it please feel free to share it with your friends on Facebook and/or Twitter.

If you have any questions just send me a wee email.

See you next Wednesday for the next harmonica lesson!

The post How to play Miss You by The Rolling Stones appeared first on Tomlin Harmonica Lessons.

Hello and welcome to this week’s lesson, where I will be showing you how to play Love Me Do by The Beatles. This is a great tune for complete beginners on the instrument to learn because it is relatively easy to play and will provide good practice for playing clean notes!

You will need a harmonica in the key of C, and we will be playing in 2nd position in the key of G.

Click here to get the tab and audio…

Struggling to play clean notes?

Playing a single clean note on the harmonica without bleed from adjacent holes is one of the most important skills to master at the beginning of your harmonica journey.

If you struggle with this, just click here for my lesson on it.

Lick 1

Slow

Lick 2

Slow

Lick 3

Slow

Lick 4

Slow

Play-through

Slow

Full Speed

Click here to get the tab and audio…

Thank you

Thank you so much for taking part in this lesson. I hope it was useful for you. If you enjoyed it please feel free to share it with your friends on Facebook and/or Twitter.

If you have any questions just send me a wee email.

See you next Wednesday for the next harmonica lesson!

The post How to play Love Me Do by The Beatles appeared first on Tomlin Harmonica Lessons.

Hello and welcome to this week’s lesson, where I will be showing you how to play La Grange by ZZ Top. This is a great guitar tune which is also fun to play on harmonica.

You will need a harmonica in the key of D, and we will be playing in 2nd position in the key of A.

Click Here to Get The Tab and Audio Clips for this Lesson!

Lick 1

Slow

Lick 2

Slow

Play-through

Click Here to Get The Tab and Audio Clips for this Lesson!

Thank you

Thank you so much for taking part in this lesson. I hope it was useful for you. If you enjoyed it please feel free to share it with your friends on Facebook and/or Twitter.

If you have any questions just send me a wee email.

See you next Wednesday for the next harmonica lesson!

The post How to play La Grange by ZZ Top appeared first on Tomlin Harmonica Lessons.