What Did You Miss This Week? (Week 604 #650)

Nothing!
Old Town School is now closed due to the corona virus.

Joe is happy to evaluate audio or video for students during the weeks that the school is closed. Email him your material. And in the meantime, be sure to be working on your train! Joe's newly updated Train Rhythm and Imitation Guidelines is up on his site now. Use it and his instructional train video to improve your train. (Be sure to listen carefully to all the tonal and dynamics variations he demonstrates in the video too.)

Class Notes

• No classes for now. Stay safe everyone and use your time at home to practice!
  
• YMM will likely take a break along with the school unless there's news to share. Follow our Facebook page for quick updates. 

- Grant Kessler, B1 Blues Crew

What Did You Miss This Week? (Week 603 #649)

Fundamentals.
You get the biggest return on investment practicing your harmonica train imitation.

Joe talked about the train as a crucial Fundamental and reviewed how to work at it:

• start and end with a whistle (usually 4/5 draw)
• play 2 inhale then 2 exhale breaths
• always include holes 1 and 2
• play from your throat; no articulation

If you've ever been told you have rhythm challenges, or breathing challenges, or want to be a serious player, practice your train at least 5 minutes every other day.

And remember too that while you play the train, you should be working at varying your mouth tone. Many people pick up the harp and lock into ONE mouth tone and that's all they have. Great players improvise with tone. Move the back of your tongue and reshape your mouth to vary your tone while working on your train. It gives you those authentic train variances and will make all your blues playing better!

Class Notes

• Thanks to all who came out to the Harlem Avenue Harp Party last week. It was a big success.
  

- Grant Kessler, B1 Blues Crew

What Did You Miss This Week? (Week 602 #648)

Fundamentals.
Fills are hard. They are an advanced accompaniment technique but one that everyone jumps right into without solid prep. It's easy to end up doing "blues lite" stuff with your fills, so Joe urges you to recognize that is accompaniment work you should not be tackling until you've mastered the other fundamental techniques.

So he started a review of those last night, filling in more detail on the first two, organ sustaining and train whistle sustaining.

Organ sustaining is low chords or splits, generally following the chord tones of the song form. You can easily play the I and IV chord and a piece of the V chord, or use a second harp to accomplish the V. And hey, the audience will be immediately impressed by your playing multiple harps! Play this chordal effect smoothly in long sustains, focusing on holes 1, 2 and maybe 3.

Train whistle sustaining are higher chords on the harp - splits, dirty notes - that are NOT chord tones. This is a technique that introduces dissonance and your chordal effect choices are shakes, tongue shakes, rapid vamping, throat tremolo, etc.

Next week - shuffle chording!

Class Notes

• Register now! The new session started this week - don't wait to sign up. 
• The Harlem Harp Party is tonight, March 3 at 8:00pm at the Harlem Avenue Lounge. Be there and play!

- Grant Kessler, B1 Blues Crew

What Did You Miss This Week? (Week 601 #647)

Fundamentals

Take a look at the twelve bar form. Count the number of one chord bars; now the four and five chord bars. Leaving aside the turnaround for a second, you find that 11/12ths of the time, you're playing over I and IV chords...the two most readily available chords on your harmonica!

This leads to the first fundamental - organ sustaining. This is an accompaniment technique Joe's been teaching for a while now and is just comping or padding by playing a sustained chord quietly under the other musicians. The key is that you have to make the chord changes with the band. This teaches you to "play the right chord (or part of a chord) at the right time". And mastering this has two benefits. One, you're able to accompany tastefully and two, you are learning to internalize, count and hear the song form and changes. This is a critical skill that Fundamental #1, Organ Sustaining, will get you.

Fundamental #2 is the train whistle sustain - similar, but it adds a blues dissonance to your accompaniment. The 4/5 headshake is the most common example.

And Fundamental #3 is hard shuffle chording. This is very similar to Walter Horton's accompaniment on If It Ain't Me and it adds a rhythmic element to your accompaniment playing.

Know and master your Fundamentals!

Class Notes

• Register now! New session starts next week - don't wait to sign up. 
• The Harlem Harp Party is next week, March 3 at 8:00pm at the Harlem Avenue Lounge. Be there and play!

- Grant Kessler, B1 Blues Crew

What Did You Miss This Week? (Week 600 #646)

Joe's back and we dug into a review of the difference tone last night. Practice adjusting the resonance of your mouth while playing dirty notes until you hear it.

Joe also dedicated some time to the practical matters of setting up a vocal mic stand correctly. Having it droop during your musical masterpiece is not what you want to have happening and the responsibility for preventing that is all yours. Learn how a mic stand and boom mic stand works and take the time to set it up to support you, not embarrass you!

Class Notes

• Harmonica Hoedown 2020 is TONIGHT! Looks like there are still tickets available! The show is at Martyr's featuring Joe Filisko & Friends, James Conway, Bob Kessler & Graham Nelson Trio, and the Lucky Ducks. 
• Register now! Next week is the last class of the session so be sure to get signed up now. 
• The next Harlem Avenue Harp Party is March 3. Hold the date and be there!

- Grant Kessler, B1 Blues Crew

What Did You Miss This Week? (Week 599 #645)

Joe was away at a workshop this week, so Grant filled in. He taught his "Anatomy of the 12 Bar Blues" in the Level III classes and Performance class was, well, a lot of great performances!

Joe's back next week and all classes and private lessons run as normal.

Class Notes

• Harmonica Hoedown 2020 tickets now available! The show is Feb 18 at Martyr's featuring Joe Filisko & Friends, James Conway, Bob Kessler & Graham Nelson Trio, and the Lucky Ducks. 

- Grant Kessler, B1 Blues Crew

What Did You Miss This Week? (Week 598 #644)

Difference Tone!
Call and response began this week with a focus on the throat tremolo, and then turned to a dive into the elusive difference tone.

When you play a note like the four draw and let in a little of the five draw, you get lowdown blues, of course, but what else is going on there? When you combine just the right small amount of that "dirt" of the upper note with your melody note, you hear a third tone rumbling underneath both. This acoustic phenomenon is called a "difference tone". When you nail it, especially amplified, you effectively "enshroud the melody note with a smoky fuzz of dirt and difference tone".

Joe also points out that adjusting your embouchure can amplify and enhance that difference tone...or squash it if you have your mouth tone wrong. So spend some quality time listening for this and adjusting your mouth tone to get the best difference tone you can. Then play through your amp and hear that deep, bluesy rumble!

Class Notes

• Harmonica Hoedown 2020 tickets now available! The show is Feb 18 at Martyr's featuring Joe Filisko & Friends, James Conway, Bob Kessler & Graham Nelson Trio, and the Lucky Ducks. 
• Joe's away next Monday - Grant is covering his group classes. 

- Grant Kessler, B1 Blues Crew

What Did You Miss This Week? (Week 597 #643)

For the first time in forever Joe went home under the weather yesterday afternoon, so Grant filled in on the later classes. We did call and response in Level III plus a little practice at getting the tempo right in your head before you count off. And the Performance class was, well, performances! Good chance for people to pull out second songs and we had a good night.

Class Notes

• Harmonica Hoedown 2020 tickets now available! The show is Feb 18 at Martyr's featuring Joe Filisko & Friends, James Conway, Bob Kessler & Graham Nelson Trio, and the Lucky Ducks. 

- Grant Kessler, B1 Blues Crew

What Did You Miss This Week? (Week 596 #642)

This week was about continuing to strengthen use of the fills Joe talked about last week: the root (2 draw), the full 2 draw bend (b7 and even flatter) and the dirty half step draw on the 3 (b3) and the short phrasing choices that connect them.

Why are these powerful? Because often when we hear something "bluesy", it's not the note so much as the sound, and these have it. Remember, keep that b3 a little on the sharp side for dissonance. And you're reinforcing poor bending habits of you're telegraphing the bends with unnecessary movement of your face, jaw and eyebrows! Stay relaxed and bend in your mouth.

Class Notes

• Harmonica Hoedown 2020 tickets now available! The show is Feb 18 at Martyr's featuring Joe Filisko & Friends, James Conway, Bob Kessler & Graham Nelson Trio, and the Lucky Ducks. 

Talkin' Blues Podcast: Shoji Naito Interview
The Talkin' Blues Podcast's Mako Funasaka has a great interview with Shoji Naito. Find out how he goes from kids' melodies in Toyoto, Japan, to three blues cassettes to being a member of the Eddy Clearwater Band in Chicago: podcast.

"There's something about playing live music. When you see somebody playing that same music live, somehow it's more powerful than listening on Spotify or YouTube."     - Shoji Naito


- Grant Kessler, B1 Blues Crew

What Did You Miss This Week? (Week 595 #641)

Hearing the need in class to strengthen peoples' fills game, Joe spent some quality exercise time last night building that foundation. He urged people to start with some rudiments we've been hearing in call and response - the root (2 draw), the full 2 draw bend (b7) and the dirty half step draw on the 3 (b3).

With the exception of over the V chord, you should be proficient using these three notes to build powerful fills behind a singer.

A couple notes on the b3 note. For one, if you are going to err, do so to the sharp side. A slightly sharp half step bend is arguably more dissonant and bluesy than the correct pitch. And secondly, remember that it's powerful too to add that dirt on the b3. It's a full, rich, bluesy sound you need to master and milk in your fills.

Class Notes

• Harmonica Hoedown 2020 tickets now available! The show is Feb 18 at Martyr's featuring Joe Filisko & Friends, James Conway, Bob Kessler & Graham Nelson Trio, and the Lucky Ducks. 

Westmont to Chicago: Tribute to Eddy Clearwater
Shoji Naito's new CD is out now in tribute to the late Eddy Clearwater. This disc features Eddy himself and members of his band, along with B1 member Ginny Morin and our good friend Lee Kanehira and more! And of course, great harp playing by Shoji.

Available at CD Baby now (and in the Old Town School's Different Strummer store if you want to pick up a hard copy so you can enjoy the graphic design work of our own Grant Kessler!)

- Grant Kessler, B1 Blues Crew

What Did You Miss This Week? (Week 594, #640)

2020 in B1 kicked off with a dynamics tweak to call and response as well as a new commitment from Joe to address the "Foundation" harp players need.

You'll notice dynamics in Joe's playing as he dishes up call and response phrases to you. Play back to mimic his notes, phrasing, timing and now also volume. (Hint: you shouldn't be blowing hard anyway and this will just get you that much closer to the 9 second inhale target!)


And as you build upward in your playing, adding things, it's important to keep fundamentals in mind to have a firm base that holds it all up. This foundation work is something Joe's going to be working with us on this year. More soon!

Class Notes

• Register now for the new session!
• Harmonic Hoedown 2020 tickets now available! The show is Feb 18 at Martyr's featuring Joe Filisko & Friends, James Conway, Bob Kessler & Graham Nelson Trio, and the Lucky Ducks. 

- Grant Kessler, B1 Blues Crew