Hello, welcome to this weeks lesson. We will be continuing from last weeks lesson on the blow bends on holes 8, 9 and 10.
You will need a G harmonica for this.
I will be showing you how to play blues in 1st position as against what we have been playing in before which is 2nd or 3rd position. This means that you will be playing in the same key as the harmonica comes in (in this case G) so if you try playing this scale over a 12 bar blues in the key of G it will work well.
Click here to download lesson resources
The blues scale
7 blow, 8 blow bend, 9 draw, 9 blow bend, 9 blow, 10 double blow bend, 10 blow
Trying to hit the 10 blow bend straight on is going to be quite difficult at first but if you persevere for a few weeks you should start seeing some great results.
Let’s look at some blues licks that you are familiar with already and transpose into 1st position
It’s a really good idea to try to play some licks you are already familiar with in 2nd position transposed into 1st position.
Here are some good examples –
• Spoonful
• Hoochie Coochie Man
• One chord blues
Homework; workout your favourite second position licks in first position!
Next week I will be showing you your first full 12th of blues in first position.
Thank you
Thank you so much for reading/watching this lesson. Please feel free to share!
Hello Tomlin,
Your homepage, your lessons and all the support are really very good. I have learnt very much so far and i think I ‘ll be attending the 5 weeks e-learning course in July.
And It would be a pleasure for me to help you improve your on-line-school. I am aware of how much all the technical equipment and support might cost. For this reason, I would like to send you a donation. Could you please communicate your bank-account-no. (IBAN + BIC). Playing harmonica changed my life when I began three years ago … and all the people I have learnt to know so far have such a compassion and such joy for this kind of music. And your are expressing this enthousiasm and joy so well. Thank you, it was pleasure to find you and, by the way, the recommandation of another blues-harp-player.
Kind regards from Cologne in Gemany,
Ernst “Ernest” Kirchhoff
Thank you so much for your kind words and thank you for your kind patronage 🙂