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 lesson resources
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 lesson resources
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!
I am disabled and use a harmonica holder to play my diatonic harmonica I am learning to play again because Multiple Sclerosis affect the right side of my body I am looking for the harmonica tabs What do you say to that by George Strait I want to play this song with a band for my friends wedding. The harmonica holder I use is Hohner HH01 harmonica holder made to hold 10 hole diatonic harmonica do you know if the Hohner Educator 10 Chromatic harmonica would fit in my harmonica holder it is a 10 hole chromatic. Brian Woods
Thanks a lot for the work you do,even my harmonica teacher send me some of your vidéo,easy to understand what we have to do.
And, as i am french, i improve my english.
Hi Brian, I’ve had a look at the holder and it looks like it will only hold a diatonic. The chromatic will probably be a bit too big for it. You might need a bigger rack for the chromatic. Hope that helps. T
Salut Francke, merci pour vos gentils mots 🙂
Great lesson,this i like.thanks Tomlin.It seems every time i practice with your lesson,i can feel more happening when i play my one man band sort of thing with the harp,and it all starts to gell more.Thanks again for your lessons,i really appreciate it.
Thanks
Tomlin, you’ve beautifully described that special sound of the Sonny Terry chug.
But I never could quite get it!
And it’s as simple as lifting the mouth totally from the harp on the TA blow for the first riff. Of course, Sonny used the harmonica as an extension of his own breathing apparatus for over 60 years to get his nuanced appeal.
Your lessons are top quality.
Age quad agis
That’s awesome to hear John 🙂
Cheers Jeremy!
Thanks for the lessons, they are very educational and easy to understand, even if my English is very weak. Congratulations for the good work!
Tomlin……..I love your teaching style. You break your lessons down in such a way that is easy to understand. If someone asked me, if I knew of a great, qualified harmonica teacher, it would be YOU without a doubt.
Oh wow! Thank you John that is super kind 🙂