The first time I went to see Joe Filisko I took a train from Philadelphia to Joliet Illinois. In my lap was a box full of harmonica prototypes made of brass stock screwed together with these insanely tiny screws, reed plates with the reeds attached with screws and nuts, the result of several years of trying to build a harmonics that would bend blow notes and draw notes the same way, “just like a Marine Band” harmonica.

It turned out i was not the only one who discovered the ideas I was working on. The years marched on, and Rick Epping got the patent for the harmonica now known as the XB-40. The XB 40 uses the same basic idea I was chasing down using  pairs of reeds, two for each blow note & two for each draw note. Close one pair or the other off with valves, and tune them so you can bend blow notes the same as draw notes. Except that it does not sound “just like a Marine Band”.

As so often happens in life, we go looking for one thing and then find something else that is more like what we really want, only we didn’t know it until we found it.

I went looking for a way to build an experimental harmonica, and I wanted Joe to help me. I ended up becoming a harmonica technician and found a whole new world of passion and people obsessed with new ways to play and tweak the harmonica.

For about a decade, Joe and I inspired each other, challenged each other, annoyed each other and generally tested the hell out of every idea we could find that might make a harmonica play better, and ended up with what became known as the “Filisko Method” of upgrading harmonicas.

In the middle of this time period, Jimmy Gordon joined us as a co-conspirator and asked a lot of questions and threw in a mess of ideas that helped refine and advance the art and science of making a harp respond like never before.

Joe also had another passion in his life that he was relentlessly working on. Playing and teaching the harmonica. Learning the classic harmonica recordings and transcribing them line by line, song by song, until he had worked his way through most of the entire recorded history of the blues harmonica one note at a time.

I remember one time visiting Joe and he had a room in his house dedicated to nothing but transcribing recordings into harmonica tab. No distractions. Nothing but  paper, pens, pencils, and various devices for slowing down recordings so he could analyze them in microscopic detail.

Joe has been doing this transcribing for twenty years or so, and teaching regularly all this time as well. He is damn good at playing, teaching, and explaining how you can follow his path to greatness as a harmonica player.

Joe had finally started to make his teachings available online as downloads. This is huge, folks. If you have any intention of getting better as a blues harmonica player, you MUST check out what he has to offer.

And if you go exploring his website, you will find several free PDF downloads with distilled insights on playing the harmonica.

Here is the link to his free stuff:

http://www.filiskostore.com/page/421719578

I can guarantee you that what he has for sale over-delivers. Joe made it a point of waiting until he was more than ready before launching his website.

BTW, Joe did not ask me to do this, and I don’t get any commission for doing this. I just want you to know about great resources when I learn about them.

Enjoy!