February 21st, 2017 When I first started listening to the blues, I found myself traveling back and forth between worlds. It was a bit like changing my diet. I remember times when I ate a lot of candy bars and fruit would taste weird, like it did not belong in
If you never heard of D. H. “Bert” Bilbro, I’d like to introduce you to one of the most fascinating harmonica players I have ever heard. In 1928 Bert recorded a steam train imitation on the harmonica that was done in one take, that at times sounds like two
I’ve been re-reading Stephen Pressfields book “Going Pro”, and he tells this story about how Rosanne Cash had this disturbing dream about trying to join a conversation with Bonnie Raitt and some guy named Art, and Art dismissed her as a dilettante… This dream kept haunting Rosanne, and caused her
“It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing” You can take what you already know, tighten up the timing, clear out some space here and there to create tension, hit accents like you mean it, and BOOM! you catch on fire, your friends won’t know what got
What you are looking at above is a photo of my new improved practice space. My goal is to do a short practice that uses: A time limit (7 minutes) Focus on one thing (the tab on the page in the practice journal) A metronome (using the metronome for the
The Harmonica Collective- Indianapolis Indiana, April 24th – 27th, 2013 If you would like to do some deep work on your chops and fill up your tank with new inspiration, come to Indianapolis April 24th – 27th for the Harmonica Collective: Winslow Yerxa, Jason Ricci, James Conway, RJ Mischo,
The Practicing Mind If you want to get a new lease on life and music, check out this book: “The Practicing Mind” by Thomas M. Sterner. A fellow harp tech turned me on to this book because it was written by a man who is a musician and a piano
Would you like to have a way to deep clean your harmonica reed plates without expensive devices or scary cleaning chemicals? I did, and here are the results of my research…. I just did a youtube video: on cleaning harmonicas. I will give you a shopping list here for my
This is one of those songs that has been kicking around in my head for years. I heard a version of this by the Modern Jazz Quartet many years ago and they used a repeating riff to set the mood. I have played with this on long car rides, on
I just got an email from a slightly nervous new customer. He just got his custom harmonicas and did not want to play them in a way that would damage them. His question was: what is the best way to break in a custom harmonica? I don’t believe you need