The Complete Idiot's Guide(R) to Playing the Harmonica [Paperback]

William Melton (Author), Randy Weinstein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2001 | Series: The Complete Idiot's Guide

The Complete Idiot's GuideA (R) to Playing the Harmonica will be the ultimate learning text for the aspiring "harpist" (as harmonica players are called). The reader will learn to play the harmonica in three bsic stages-beginner, intermediate, and advanced, with a heavy emphasis on actual practice exercises. The book will emphasize blues, rock, bluegrass, folk, and jazz; it is designed to appeal to the broadest possible cross section of players. Additional chapters will cover purchasing the best harmonica for you, harmonica maintenance, the art of playing with other musicians, and profiles of master harpists.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

William Melton received his musical training at the Conservatory of Music at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He is a multi-instrumentalist, having played clarinet, French horn, and classical accordion professionally. He toured Europe twice playing French horn with symphony orchestras. His current instruments are the harmonica, accordion, and keyboard. Randy Weinstein is a nationally known professional harmonica player and has performed in a number of international music festivals. He also teaches music theory and can be heard on several jazz CDs.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Alpha; 1st edition (October 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0028642414
• ISBN-13: 978-0028642413
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #941,414 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

118 of 119 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Surprisingly good instruction, May 12, 2003

By 

Joanna Daneman (Middletown, DE USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Complete Idiot's Guide(R) to Playing the Harmonica (Paperback)

If you tried Jon Gindick's harmonica technique (he wrote a simple method and bundled it with an inexpensive harmonica in the Klutz books series) you might find you are interested in learning more. There are a lot of books on harmonica method, and they range from too simple to too complicated.

This book is surprisingly good. It covers what harmonicas to purchase (and the advice is good, the listing of brands fairly complete.) There is a section on bending notes, an essential technique for getting more notes out of a diatonic harmonica and for creating a bluesy sound.

The best chapter, for me, was on the structure of 12-bar blues with an explanation of the "call-and-response" structure. It's easy to understand and essential for structuring your blues riffs to make musical sense. There's also a fine chapter on the etiquette of jamming with harmonica when you join up with a guitarist, singer and other instrumentalists. The harmonica plays support, mostly, but does get to solo. When should you chime in and when do you fade to the background? This chapter tells you how not to make a fool of yourself.

The only thing this book doesn't have is a CD with guitar or piano for jamming along with. If you are getting started in harmonica, especially blues harp, you will need some CD's, especially of the greats like Little Walter and Charles Musselwhite, to provide examples. You can't listen enough to get the ideas down. But this book is a really worthy text to go along with your practice.

96 of 98 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not Just for Complete Idiots, August 19, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Complete Idiot's Guide(R) to Playing the Harmonica (Paperback)

This book is surprisingly good for a book written for "complete idiots". I expected something very basic but it covers just about every aspect of learning to play a harmonica up to a pretty high level. It goes way beyond simple techniques. One thing I found unique is that the authors treat the harmonica like a real musical instrument instead of just a toy. They explain concepts and techniques from the standpoint of real music but it doesn't get bogged down or complicated. They even give you the option of learning to play the harmonica by reading music or by the more standard tab system, and the chapter that teaches you how to read music is extremely easy to understand. It also includes some information not usually included in harmonica books such as the history of the harmonica, buying and repairing harmonicas and how to play in a band. There are other books that may be better on individual topics, but this is by far the most complete soup-to-nuts harmonica instruction book. I recommend this be the first harmonica book you buy and then you probably won't need to buy any others.

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good...but could be Great, May 18, 2006

By 

Carl A. Barlow III (Chula Vista, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Complete Idiot's Guide(R) to Playing the Harmonica (Paperback)

I've read music, sung, and played piano and violin, so your mileage may vary, but I was playing some simple songs the first and second day I had the book. I think it's organized well, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much is covered in the music theory chapter.

Two things that would really help a lot: (1) A CD so you can hear the examples, and (2) Proof read the music! There are many mistakes, not only on the songs that are written out in tablature, but even in the samples that are written in standard music notation. Very frustrating to have to wonder on each example what I'm doing wrong, only to eventually experiment and find the RIGHT note (usually just the difference between a blow and draw on the tab versions) and correct the music. I also agree with a previous post that it would have been nice if they had continued supplying suggestions on which notes should have chords underlying the melody and which should not, but I'm not really bothered by that omission.

Here's the good news: the author/publisher could go a long way towards solving BOTH these problems without even issuing a new revision (although that would be ideal...I'd buy the book again if it was accurate and had a CD): they could post an errata page and post mp3 files for the sample music (I know, I know, copyright laws, mechanical licenses, etc., but many of these songs like Shenandoah are public domain, some are originals, and I'm not suggesting to post the original ARRANGEMENTS anyway...just files where you could listen to the melody).

I still found this book valuable, but I'll definitely need another book of music for my practice sessions--preferably one with an accompanying CD.