Just uploaded the next lesson in my series 1 on Country Blues Harmonica - Lesson 10. Thanks to everyone who is purchasing and watching my videos on Vimeo.
In lesson 10 I try and tackle something that throws a lot people as soon as they start adding licks and improvisation into the mix. And that is simply, maintaining structure and time. Often a solid rhythm or tune just breaks down to chaos when players start diveating from the core idea they've established.
Being able to maintain the pulse and structure whilst being free to improvise around it is not easy. Country blues rhythms provide a way of grasping the idea as structurally and harmonically they can be pretty straightforward. You can use clear 2 bar phrases for example and not worry about chord changes.
When I first began playing the harmonica I would ask to play in the interval at pub gigs. I can't explain why or where the idea came from. I'd only been playing for a couple of years. Yet, I would walk unannounced into bars and pubs around Coventry as a student and ask if the band, irrespective of genre, didn't mind this harmonica player doing a couple of solo tunes. Looking back now I must have been crazy. Unbelievably, pretty much everyone said yes and the audiences were, hmmm, very forgiving. I must have been terrible. The point is, this mad activity, not only gave me the experience of playing to a live, frequently rowdy and drunk audience, but doing so solo, helped me learn to keep the pulse and improvise over the top of a groove. My mainstay was a Sonny Terry esque country blues.
In Lesson 10 I also talk about using walking on the spot as a way to understand the structure and to feel connection between phrasing and the placement of the beat. In a sense, to bring out your internal meter. Kim Wilson and Joe Filisko are great examples of players who use their body movements to keep and express time. Both strut, stomp and sway especially when playing unaccompanied in their shows. Ben Bouman, a Dutch harp player, did a workshop at the NHL last year on this idea and it works really well here. So for a 2 Bar phrase with 8 beats, you can count each beat with a step and feel where a phrase should start and end and where you can revert back to the rthyhm. You can then use a metronome to work on your consistency.
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