Bob Dylan Harmonica [Paperback]

Bob Dylan (Author), Stephen Jennings (Author)

Book Description

Series: Harmonica | Publication Date: February 1, 1996

The arrangements in this book are aimed mainly at players of the ten hole major diatonic harmonica, or "blues harp", although those tunes that would be beyond the technical reach of most players on the diatonic have been arranged for the twelve hole chromatic harmonica. The tunes have been carefully selected and graded to provide something of interest for all players, from those who have recently started to play, and can play a few tunes and bend a couple of notes, to those who have a little more experience and are looking for melodic material upon which to try their skills. The harmonic is well used as a solo instrument in the music of Bob Dylan, so as well as using these tunes as pieces of music in their own right, you should also use them to sharpen your improvisational skills - the chord sequences used in many of these songs can be very rewarding to play over. It is often a good idea, and more fun than playing alone, to work on the pieces with a friend who plays guitar or keyboards to accompany you, or with one of the many programmable keyboards that are now available into which you have programmed the chords for the piece you are working on.

Product Details

• Paperback: 56 pages
• Publisher: Wise Publications (February 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0711951969
• ISBN-13: 978-0711951969
• Product Dimensions: 11.9 x 9 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #488,527 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This book isn't for the serious fan of Dylan's harmonica., February 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Bob Dylan Harmonica (Paperback)

This book can be described quite succinctly as a dissapointment. Speaking as someone who has spent hours searching the internet and various music stores for transcriptions of Bob Dylan's distinctly unique and reckless harmonica playing, I can say that this book fails to deliver what the title implies. The harmonica has always been an integral part of Dylan's musical talent and his less than precise playing style is something that any Dylan fan who plays the harp has always desired to emulate. The title of this book implies that the book contains transcriptions of the harmonica parts heard in many of Dylan's greatest songs. This title is indeed misleading, as is the indication that Bob Dylan is the author of this book. Although Dylan has copyrights to the songs presented in this book, the arrangements actually found in the book are attributed to Stephen Jennings, and are anything but the solos that can be heard on actual Bob Dylan albums.

While this book does deliver clear and easy to learn harmonica notation, it reduces Dylan songs to simple melodies, ignoring the harmonica solos that characterize many of Dylan's songs. In addition, the book ignores the fact that Dylan's songs were not all written in the key of C and fails to include lyrics. I recommend that any fan of Dylan's unduplicated harp playing who wishes to find transcriptions of his solos and fills bypass this book and look for other titles, such as The Harp Styles of Bob Dylan, by Amy Appleby, which contains complete transcriptions of twelve Dylan classics.

Even if one only wants to learn to play the melodies of Dylan's songs on the harmonica, I recommend that you by a book containing standard song notation of Dylan's music. You will have a larger collection of songs, and any beginning harmonica instruction book can tell you which notes correspond to which holes, making it easy to learn melodies quickly without the aid of harmonica notation. In short, anyone serious about learning to play the harmonica like Bob Dylan should skip this book and continue the search, and if you have any luck finding a complete collection of transcriptions of Bob Dylan's harp playing, contact me. I'm still searching.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not a transcription of Dylan's harmonica., March 5, 1999

By 

Ed Anady - [e-mail] (Poway, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bob Dylan Harmonica (Paperback)

This book contains a transcription of Dylan's melodys not his harmonica solos. Besides that the lyrics were not included making even playing the melodys a challange.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Should have paid better attention to the reviews, December 31, 2007

By 

Anon (NY NY USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Bob Dylan Harmonica (Paperback)

If when searching for this book you typed "Bob Dylan" before you typed "harmonica", this is not the book for you.

It isn't the quality of the book that is at issue -- that seems fine. It's clearly the choices that were made -- most notably the aforementioned decision to transpose all the songs to C. Anyone who wants to learn to play harmonica, even as simply as Dylan does, will probably be willing to buy more than one harmonica -- and changing the keys renders the ability to play along with the records useless.

Changing keys (to make it easy for piano I guess) is a common problem with simple music and tab books. I usually only buy books that say "Authentic Recorded Versions" on them -- and even then I am often disappointed.