I’m guessing many people have the same awakening I did not long after deciding to get serious about learning Harmonica… that it takes much longer than expected to develop serious skills . a day comes when you start questioning if it’s all worth it or not and you should just give up. after two+ months I’ve managed to persist, grow, and get past those moments of doubt, and I attribute that, (aside from just being bull headed) to learning to not rush it, have a little fun, and enjoy the ride. so with that in mind maybe others have similar ways they continue to learn, but have fun (perhaps having a laugh at themselves in the process) doing it. I ran across this the other day and his enthusiasm for having fun made me smile so I figured I’d share :
Thanks. Yes he’s great.
This book recommended by Luke says all that and more about letting go of structured classical learning to release your inner artist. Its a general book about improving your playing not any particular instrument. I chose the audio book version so I can listen in the car. See picture. After reading your post I’m sure you would enjoy it.
Thanks @toogdog I haven’t done any structured learning, so it looks like I’m ahead of the game. No need for me to let go of it. Is there a takeaway pearl of wisdom that grabbed you and you can share with us?
I have generally 3 or 4 skills I’m focusing on at once.
These are skills i’m personally motivated to get better at not because they are on some curriculum. That’s an important distinction. I’m not going to practice something I don’t feel like learning. If a skill is important then the motivation will come when I need that skill to accomplish something musically that I want to accomplish.
I begin the practice session with targeted practice on skill 1 (the newest or most difficult in my current rotation). When I feel fatigue OR frustration (usually after 5 minutes or so) I then then switch to skill 2 for a few minutes. Depending on how much time I have i will do one or two round of this which is 15 to 20 minutes of targeted practice in these skill areas.
Examples of these skills can be things like throat vibrato, switching between octaves and single notes, blow bends and overbends. A lick I think is really cool but i still need flub up on.
Right now the skills I’m working on are: fast staccato between the different bends on hole 3; Picking a lick in a minor key and replicating that lick in 3rd, 2nd, and 1st position in every octave; arpeggiating the common major and minor chords of a key without losing momentum where there are hole skips.
I do the hard stuff first, because when concentration fatigue sets in you’re less likely to get productive results by putting hard stuff later in a practice session.
Then. depending on time orvwhat i feel like, I will do some ear training where I try to copy the harmonica or saxophone or guitar of whatever songs I’m listening to. This part is fun for me because i feel like im building more language and keeps my soloing ideas fresh. I almost never learn a song start to finish. I pick the bits i thought sounded coolest and figure those out. Sometimes I’ll wind up learning the whole song, sometimes i get what i want out of that song just from a few sections.
Then I finish the session by jamming to jam tracks. This is my consolidation phase, the tying it all together.
This is where I work in my new language into solos, I listen for chord changes and try to repeat my licks in different positions to match the changing chords, and just generally have fun. This is exploratory time, experimentation time ("what if I play the D blues scale over a G7 chord? Ooh sounds kind of Phrygian, neat!) in the jamming phasecif im getting frustrated working in a new skill I back off on it and just groove to the jam or switch to a more fun track. The primary goal for the jamming phase is enjoyment. Ending on the fun keeps you wanting more practice.
So why the first two phases? Why not just spend my whole time jamming?
They are there to avoid or break through plateaus.
If you want to get better at chess, just “playing chess” will only get you better up to a certain point, then you plateau. If you want to get better at basketball just by playing basketball at a certain point you will plateau and not get measurably better. Golfers tend to hit a certain handicap, then stay there.
What is needed to continue improving is deliberate practice: identifying specific skills that you want/need to improve on and focusing on improving those skills with targeted exercises and short feedback loops. Working on them a few minutes at a time, every day to help your brain create and reinforce those neural pathways.
Identify your gaps, work on them when you are freshest, as you fatigue move to the more fun parts of practice, enjoying the skills you have already built.
When I first started practicing I was just out of the hospital. I’d bought a flat on a new build estate and I was the only person on there so I played and played sometimes for whole days and nights, I finally got a part time job working at a night club that had live music acts. I learned a lot from the few artists that played there, including Steve Marriot who took me under his wing and then later on Lee Brilleux. Still on my own on the New build I was now armed with a few genuine techniques to work on and I kept going 8- 12 hours whenever I could practice I did. It was fun because it was new and exciting and it was helping me heal. Nowadays I live with my wife, and we have a chap downstairs who works shifts so I have to work on quality and not quantity. And of course today we have apps like this and amazing teachers willing to divulge what they know, like @Luke and @davidkachalon which I never had. This is what makes it fun for me finally knowing what a technique is called and learning it properly and also becoming a bit obsessive compulsive about it. I could do a lot of things before this app and YouTube and now I can do a lot of things a lot better than I was doing them before. Guess work can be fun but knowing is better.
I started playing steadily late in life, like almost 80. I try to play in short sessions throughout the day. Since I am retired I have plenty of time, but there are other things that I need to spend time on as well. For me it’s very important to stay active, try to get over 11000 steps each day. Winter is quickly coming around and I will be walking more indoors. Have an unfinished basement and I walk laps down there stopping every little bit to play the harmonica. I’m playing just for my own entertainment, trying to be more relaxed and just get a better feel for finding notes and play with some feeling. I wish I had started this sooner in life but everything has it’s time and place I guess. I do enjoy this forum, like everything else I just have to work it into my daily schedule.
I enjoy practicing about two hours a day. Great Way to beat the heat, rain and cold.
Here is the way I look at it. If I learn something while practicing I add another link to the chain, which I want to be a long necklace. The more you learn the larger your necklace. Just an analogy. I expect to put in about five years before I can play a tune correctly really well. If the harp was easy everyone would be very good.
On occasion I play fairly well. The more I play well the more fun it is and the percentage of my practice sessions will be enjoyable. Even when I have one of those off days its still fun.
I have the persistence but patience is not a virtue. Over the long haul I/M/O the harp is a great way to have fun and exercise the muscle above your shoulders. I like it and the ability to play way to have fun day or night, hot or cold. Cannot say where my journey will end but hopefully its when my ticker won’t tick.
I received the book, Effortless Mastery, @toogdog mentioned yesterday. I’ve never been much of a reader but I’m already on about page 60. this is an excellent read. very well written to hold my interest and the lessons shared are right up my alley. highly recommend to other growing players as well as general life lessons.
I think what’s under the surface of this thread is a deeper question, “how to continue enjoying the harmonica after you’ve already got the low hanging fruit and now aren’t seeing some rapid improvements”
it’s FINE to be an okay-ish player. Learn to enjoy being “okay-ish” for a while - that’s the difference between those that give up and those that don’t.
This is one of those lessons that applies to language learning also, where there is this “gulf” after you’ve already learned the basics but aren’t proficient, so it seems like you are “stuck”
For me, I use the harmonica to primarily relax/unwind, not to “have fun”, this is a subtle yet crucial difference. Some people use vapes/cigarettes - I use the harmonica.
Set goals. I won’t elaborate- you must find them yourself.
I think you hit the nail on the head. I’m currently procrastinating some hard-to-learn skills. So I need to strategize around making it enjoyable enough that I’ll enjoy it.
These are skills that have no glamour, which was helpful when I learned to overblow.
I think I need to break them down into smaller bits and chew on them one day at a time.
@toogdog I’m so glad you are listening to and enjoying the book! Yes, you have summed up the book well:
And ridding ourselves of the fear of playing bad is difficult if we are kidding ourselves that we don’t actually have the fear. Sometimes fear is subconscious. For me personally, those guided meditations were helpful at one part in my journey.
@dominico what a freaking fantastic post my harmonica brother. Thank you so much for sharing what you are working on. Very cool stuff!
I found this to be an exceptionally practical tip for all of us when it comes to practicing:
I also love that you do things in short bursts.
My metronome app on my phone has a built in timer, which I generally have set for 5m.
Every time the metronome stop, it’s like someone checking in with me: What are you doing man? You wanna go another 5 on that? Wanna shift gears?
This is really helpful for me. Otherwise sometimes I go down rabbit holes and lose track of time (of course, rabbit trails ain’t always bad! Sometimes you get to explore some cool Wonderlands going down rabbit holes. )
I love that you conclude your practice sessions with jamming along with a jam track. So smart. I don’t know why I have such a hard time including that - I need to do more of it. And I always have a blast when I do it!!
@wproct - I highly recommend trying playing WHILE you are walking! One of the BEST ways to practice for so many reasons:
@fallonsteve291 Yes, yes, yes! You have hit the nail on the head here:
I subscribe to Shane Sager’s sub stack. (Shane has been on tour with Sting for the last 5 years.) One of his recent articles had a quotes:
“It’s rarely a mysterious technique that drives us to the top, but rather a profound mastery of what might be a basic skill set.”
That inspired me to really work on my minor pentatonic and blues scales. For me right now, specifically in 2nd position on my Parrott-tuned harmonicas (I bought 7 from Joe Spiers tuned this way.) I noticed that for me playing -5 6 -7 is really foreign because I never really did that very often before getting the Parrott-tuned harps. I’m looking forward to seeing if getting to a new level of mastery with these scales opens up more expressiveness at my gig this Friday.
@RussSkyman so cool you’re reading Effortless Mastery! Good stuff man! I’m not 100% with all the Eastern mysticism, but I’m definitely 100% with all the relaxation and letting go!!!
@Hogie.Harmonica sounds like you’re on the cusp of a breakthrough. Between breaking them down to the smallest first component, and then making it SUPER-acheivable (how about 3m/day?)
Interesting your comment on “skills that have no glamour.” Glamour, of course is in the eye of the beholder. The harmonica community does seem to be infatuated with overblows, lol, and with playing lots of fast notes. But often times chords, and draw bends produce something much more pleasing for most people to hear than do fast notes and overblows, lol.
But I think ALL technique, in the LONG run has glamour - in the sense that it WILL INCREASE YOUR EXPRESSIVENESS on the instrument. It will make your playing more glorious.
I applaud you for what you are doing, my friend. Very cool pivot. The timing is kind of ironic, but that’s what it means to be an ARTIST: you HAVE to follow your INSPRATION. Period. Keep up the good work.
I think part of it is that I’ve really leaned into the “play” aspect of playing the harmonica for a long time, meaning just having fun. But my background means having that fun still creates some good music. But it’s a bit like working out just your glamour muscles.
But I gatta tell you it’s humbling to need to work so hard to play things that I can easily play on several other instruments, and have to REALLY break it down.
A famous story about Rachmaninov is that he would practice so slow people could not recognize the tune he was playing. That’s what I need to do.
I think the cusp I’m on is being a more serious student of the instrument(s). I’m keen to not repeat the practice mistakes I made on the piano (trying things that are too hard too soon, focusing on maintenance playing, etc)
I’ve been Learning Greasy Gravy by William Clarke on Chromonica today, while my wife was out. And I’ve nearly got it. I was having problems with the last part of the phrase where the slide goes in and out quickly for that sort of Jazzy turnaround, I just got it as the wife walked in the front door, now I’ve done it once I can do it again. I’m really pleased. William Clarke is one of my favorite players especially on the Chromonica. I’m looking forward to tomorrow so I can get it better and better.
As somebody who is still learning the instrument after all these years, even back when I was a mediocre self-taught player, I would tell people that there a couple of things that helped me out when I’m learning. One is that you shouldn’t be afraid about asking for advice, but at the same time, take Facebook comments with a grain of salt if you want to ask for help there. I remember in recent memory that the only help I could get for getting to sound the way that I want was to ask for feedback on Facebook groups. However, it was mostly a bad idea as a lot of them don’t have the nicest intent for helping you out and would rather bully you for every choice you made, especially if you ask a lot of questions. Even if you play the whole song as intended, there will always be one troll to bring you down. Yes, that actually happened to me once. It’s better to, if you have one, ask your teacher/mentor or even some of your harp playing friends about it as you can get a more honest opinion.
Another thing I do is that on my days that I can’t play (like if I’m too busy or too sick to do practice), I like to do active listening of my favorite players through immersion. I actually created a Spotify playlist a few years ago of my favorite harmonica player, Terry McMillan, and I use that to find ideas for licks that I want to play. I’m still adding songs to it as I keep finding more of them for inspo.
I quit Facebook years ago. My wife did the same. She has been stalked twice. We don’t do any social media now. I gauge my playing from my audience if they like it then I’m happy.
. a day comes when you start questioning if it’s all worth it or not and you should just give up. after two+ months I’ve managed to persist, grow, and get past those moments of doubt, and I attribute that, (aside from just being bull headed) to learning to not rush it, have a little fun, and enjoy the ride. so with that in mind maybe others have similar ways they continue to learn, but have fun (perhaps having a laugh at themselves in the process) doing it. I ran across this the other day and his enthusiasm for having fun made me smile so I figured I’d share 
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