Customer Reviews

Blues & Rock Harmonica

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This is a great book - probably the best book I've read so far. It has alot to offer for both beginners and people who know their way around the harmonica. You don't have to be able to read music because chords, riffs and notes are explained in terms of steps in the scales. There are alot of nice riffs and 17 solos to practice to and the book comes with a Cd that helps to understand the riffs, solos and techniques I think it was a bit complicated to understand the way he explained the notes in terms of steps, but I learned a great deal about how you can translate the way of thinking in one key to another. He explained very well how you can think when you play a solo. The riffs and solos gave me hours of practice - and still does. This book is a book that I comes back to from time to time because the more I learn to play the better I can understand some things in the book. He explaines how blues- and rockmusic are build and the differences between them. There is a great discography in the end with good examples of great harmonica records. If you never have played the harmonica I would recommend that you try to find another easier book to start with. But if you are willing to study and willing to get a great lesson in blues- and rockharmonica this is a book for you!

Virtually all available blues harmonica books and materials are *way* too overly simplistic. And the title and lame cover illustration of this book led me to believe that this was just another generic book showing me how to achieve a single note, bend, play some beginner tunes, introduce the I, IV,V, etc.

But this turned out to be exactly what I've been looking for. This book has the information on performing blues I've seen nowhere else:

* which degrees of each scale are blues chord-tones (1, 3, 5, and sometimes others) and non-chord tones

* the eight ways in which non-chords can be used in a blues riff (passing tone, neighboring tone, appoggiatura, etc).

* what the chord line of the tune is (not just the melody)

* how to improvise over the "chord of the moment."

* how to not get lost while improvising

This is the "meat" every harmonica player *must* eventually get to if you seriously want to play real dynamic blues. It's also one of the not-so-fun elements of the harp if you're coming from a non-musical background. Glenn admits that the harmonica is a poor vehicle to learn theory on because of it's design. But he does a wonderful job of demistifying all of it.

I'm sure this is the next step for countless harp players out there that have the technique down but just don't know how to get up there and blow some real mesmerizing blues.