Harmonica For Dummies [Paperback]

Winslow Yerxa (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 9, 2008

Are you hankering to play the harmonica? Harmonica For Dummies is an easy-to-read practice guide that gives you step-by-step instructions and gets you making music in no time! Even if you’re an experienced harmonica player, this jump-in-anywhere reference is packed with tips and playing techniques that will take your skills to the next level.

This fast, fun, hands-on guide helps you choose your first harmonica and shows you how to hold it, make your first sounds, and keep it clean and working well. Helpful diagrams show you how to shape sounds using your tongue, throat, and hands. Before you know it you’ll be playing melodies, chugging out rhythms, and bending notes with ease. You’ll also pick up some basics of music theory and learn how to read the notation and tablature for all the music in the book. Discover how to:

• Play right out of the box with little or no experience using an inexpensive diatonic harmonica in the key of C
• Make that wonderful wailing sound
• Create exciting rhythms and play solo
• Understand how the harmonica works
• Play all of the music on the Bonus CD
• Read tablature, educate your eye, and develop your ear
• Breath correctly while playing
• Bend notes up and down
• Play one harp in many keys
• Develop your style in blues rock, country, folk, and more
• Play with other musicians
• Work with a microphone to create great sounds

So stop dreaming and start playing! Harmonica For Dummies will get you wailing in no time!

Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The fun and easy way to make the harmonica sing and perfect your playing technique!

Are you hankering to play the harmonica? This easy-to-read, practice-oriented guide gives you step-by-step instruction to get you making music in no time! Even if you're an experienced harmonica player, this book is packed with tips to take your playing to the next level.

• Explore your first harmonica — learn how to hold a harp, make your first sounds, and keep it clean

• Find your rhythm — play single notes and simple melodies; shape your sounds with your hands, tongue, and throat

• Bend notes with ease — make that wonderful wailing sound

• Grow beyond the basics — play one harp in many keys, hone your abilities with challenging melodies, and learn how to overblow

• Play popular music styles — from blues and rock to country, folk, and Celtic

• Take it to the streets — develop a repertoire of tunes, play with other musicians, amplify your sound, and perform for an audience

Open the book and find:

• The basics of music theory

• Helpful diagrams of tongue and mouth action

• Music notation and tablature for all the music in the book

• Tips for playing chords, scales, licks, and riffs

• Advice on making simple repairs and upgrades

• Info on nifty accessories

• Harmonica resources and groups

• Tuning layouts for all 12 keys of diatonic harmonicas

Bonus CD Includes

All the musical examples from the book, so you can play along and hear the sound you're striving for

Audio files that let you either play along with the recorded harmonica or play solo with the backing band

About the Author

Winslow Yerxa is a harmonica player with thirty years' experience in a wide variety of musical styles. He is also known internationally as a teacher, author, musical arranger, and recording artist, and is former editor of HIP (the Harmonica Information Publication).

Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: For Dummies (September 9, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 047033729X
• ISBN-13: 978-0470337295
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,266 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #39 in Books > Arts & Photography > Music > Instruments & Performers
  • #70 in Books > Arts & Photography > Music > Theory, Composition & Performance

More About the Author

Winslow Yerxa is a harmonica player, performer, author, inventor, and teacher centered in San Francisco, California. His lifelong quest to understand the harmonica (and help others do the same) began early on, when he couldn't find a teacher. While exploring such wide-ranges styles as blues, jazz, Caribbean music, and the traditional fiddle tunes of his native Canada, he has published the magazine HIP - The Harmonica Information Publication, transcribed John Popper's harmonica solos to musical notation and tab for the songbook to the Blues Traveler CD, four, contributed to Howard Levy's Out of the Box instructional DVD, authored the book and CD combination Learn Blues Harp Effects in 60 minutes, and the new book Harmonica for Dummies.

As a performer, Winslow plays nearly every type of harmonica, in addition to composing, arranging and conducting. Currently he performs with the San Francisco Harmonica Ensemble, in a duo with violinist Tuula Tossavainen, and with the San Francisco Scottish Fiddlers, in addition to small acoustic ensembles.

In addition to teaching privately, Winslow currently teaches at the Jazzschool in Berkeley. He has taught at David Barrett's Harmonica Masterclass and Jon Gindick's Harmonica Jam Camp and at harmonica festivals such as SPAH and the Buckeye festival, and takes an active role in organizing the annual SPAH convention. He contributes a regular column on chromatic harmonica to the online harmonica magazine harmonicasessions.com, and has contributed articles to Harmonica World, Harmonica Happenings, American Harmonica Newsletter, and Echos France Harmonica. He continues to contribute to the understanding and appreciation of the harmonica through such online forums as Harp-l and Slidemeister.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

59 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended, October 10, 2008

By 

Steven R. Webb "Steve Webb (harp player)" (Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Harmonica For Dummies (Paperback)

Winslow Yerxa's book "Harmonica for Dummies" should be titled "Everything You Need to Know About Harmonica"
Winslow is one of the most highly respected members of the nation's harmonica community. He has forgotten more about harmonica than most of us will ever learn. As I told him, if this book had been available 30 years ago when I started playing harmonica, I would be a real player now. Anyone interested in harmonica will not find a book with more information, and concise, easy to understand instruction, than this gem.
If you have any urge at all to learn how to play this fascinating little instrument, this will be the best money you have ever spent.
I play harmonica in a band and I can find all kinds of things in this book that will keep me learning.

45 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Basics to Fairly Advanced, Superbly Written, January 22, 2009

By 

New England Yankee (Northern New England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Harmonica For Dummies (Paperback)

This book is truly well-written. It is crystal clear, follows a progressive course of instruction from end-to-end without any out-of-place interruptions, has no errors that I've been able to find, and actually covers more than most beginning players really want or need to know initially (e.g., playing in other than the first and second positions).

The accompanying CD is also excellent. While the tunes, in typical instruction book fashion, aren't anything you'd want to listen to for entertainment, as they are the usual folk tunes long out of copyright, they are well-recorded and each track is played in exactly the manner needed to illustrate whatever playing principle is being demonstrated. The backing instrumentation never overwhelms the harp, and the harp is played with only the techniques and ornamentation (bends, articulation, wah, etc.) appropriate to the topic. The tracks are already in MP3 format, so there's no need to rip them down to your PC for your iPod.

If you already play an instrument, there is material in this book that you can bypass, including notation, basic (very) music theory, and the like. It doesn't dominate the book and for the most part is contained in the first few chapters. Speedread through this material for the few harmonica-specific comments.

The book has few pictures or illustrations - but those it has are spot-on. Hand positions are illustrated. Tongue and mouth positions are illustrated. There are pictures in the repair and maintenance chapters. That's about it, but that's all that's needed, and I never felt the need for more. In fact, I particularly appreciated the embouchure (mouth and tongue) illustrations, which were better than I'd seen elsewhere to-date.

Harmonica for Dummies will occupy a beginner for a long time. This isn't a book you will buy, zip through in a week or two, then toss aside wanting more. Plan on spending many weeks - or months. If you come out at the other end having mastered all the material in this book, you'll probably be a better player than most non-pros you will meet.

Were I to wish for anything different in this book, it would be more of a blues and rock emphasis. The book is positioned as a generalized harmonica instruction book, however, so a variety of types of music and playing styles are presented.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For Dummies and Smarty-Pants too!, October 15, 2008

By 

David R. Fertig (Pasadena, California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Harmonica For Dummies (Paperback)

Winslow Yerxa and team produced what may be the best book about harmonica yet. He really covers the whole range of issues with harp which I've encountered in my almost 40 years of playing blues harp purely from feel, and he demonstrates with words that which normally defies explanation.

Yerxa's intellect and humor animate the organization, writing, and tone of the tome, making it both entertaining, and eminently readable, even for a poor book-learner such as myself!

Congratulations on creating a super-resource for our fine and enigmatic instrument!