Is it possible to improve your harp chops in just 5 minutes a day?
There’s a question I’ve been pursuing for years. Is it possible to improve your harp chops in just 5 minutes a day? If you’re extremely short on time, what one harmonica exercise gives you the most bang for the buck?
After years of seeking & experimenting, I’ve found a proven winner for beginners and pros alike, and I made a video about it here:
The single biggest problem that most beginner harmonica players have is weak tone, and
it’s a big problem because shaping tone is a huge part of how we convey emotion.
Cool licks don’t matter, if the tone production sucks.
Tone will make or break a performance.
How do we develop great tone?
THE BIG TONE TRAIN.
Developing great tone is the obvious benefit of this drill (it’s literally in it’s name) but I go over 3 other ways the Big Tone Train will dramatically improve your harmonica game:
- Level 2: Getting in Rhythm
- Level 3: Unlocking Breathing Secrets
- Level 4: Developing Treomolo & Vibrato
I’ve taught the basic Big Tone Train before in my lesson Your First 7 Days on Harmonica, where I showed how to approach the train as a performance. In this lesson we turn our attention to how to use the Big Tone Train for 5 minutes a day to maximize our growth on the harmonica.
“But Luke,” you say, “I only have 5 minutes a day. I don’t have time to watch a 20 minute video!”
Level 2 is the the crux of what the magic 5-minutes-a-day drill is all about. You can watch around 6:00-11:00 in the video learn all about the gears, the metronome, the tap button, and how to find your cruising speed.
Your daily exercise is to set a timer for 2-3 minutes,
and play along with the metronome at your cruising speed
WITHOUT breaking the groove. EVER.
Then each day you can increase your tempo by just 1 BPM. Here’s some rough tempo markers for playing the Big Tone Train in 3rd gear:
- 40-80 Beginner
- 80-100 Intermediate
- 100-130 Fast
- 140-150+ Jedi
But listen up - the goal is NOT to just play as FAST as possible as SOON as possible.
Work on playing with good time and good tone, keeping the dynamics low and controlled.
For me, the greatest treasures here are on the subject of breathing, located in the video between 13:00-16:00. So excited to get to share these amazing secrets. And big thanks to Joe Filisko and @davidkachalon for sharing them with me!