Introduction

The diatonic blues harp is probably one of the most simple melody instrument you can learn how to master.

*This small course gives you an overview of how to get started. The material is divided into

• Diatonic dance music
• Blues harp

It is easy to start to learn to play the harp. Just buy one and try. . With this course you should be able to learn to play a melody within a week.

The video is from a course I use to do every year at the island of Lyø in Denmark.

The course does not cover the cromatic harp, which is a litle bit more difficult to learn.

Harmonica is a great instrument

Compared to other instruments it is pretty inexpensive to by. It sounds great when you master how to play the blues. You can always carry it with you in your pocket, allowing you to play for your friends at any time without having to show that you brought it. Bringing an other ínstruments, shows your intentions and may be a litle embarrasing if the evening did not give any opportunity to play. The harmonica is a good friend at a buisness trip. It makes you able to entertain when appropriate. The blues is today the internationally best known music, and you will always be able to find musicians in almost any part of the world who knows the blues scheme and will make it possible to "sit in with the band " and play one or two melodies.

Spirit of this course

The idea of this course is to get help you getting going. Learing playing from the web without a teaher is a challange that some people master, others not. It is required that you really want to learn how to play. If you have never tried to learn an instrument before, you should know that it takes a lot of efforts to learn how to play, and you have to be consistent. What you are doing will not sound good from the start, but you will have to know what way to strive. I try to guide you, but you have to listen to yourself. You have to learn to appreciate the advances you make and above all, you have to learn to copy other musisians. I learn from one single record by Sonny boy Williamson, and this course will contain YouTube examples from his playing that you should use. Try to copy small fragments, and make those fragments your own fragments after.

The course has some background music which are required if you want to learn how to lay blues. The player is a good practicing guide. This is a starters course, when you have gone it thorugh you are on your own. Pick your favourite music to copy and/or develop your own style. Remember that good musicians stand on the shoulder of other muscisians. All musicians starts by copying the sound of others, when you got the basic technique, you can start develop your own style.

The melodies for this course was picked for a Danish audience. Oh Sussanna is international, but the dance melodies are simple Danish songs, I may change that in the near future, as I get further with the translation.