I want an diatonic harmonica book that teaches how to take a melody and turn it into a full sounding arrangement. Adding chords/partial chords, octaves, fill-ins etc. Such books, for the guitar are plentiful, but for the harp?
For example, I recently bought “The Big Harmonica Book” and it contains a great collection of melodies, but if I was playing these tunes, by myself, for a audience, I feel that they really would need “fleshing out” otherwise they would come across like simply playing a tune on the piano, one melody note at a time.
Now, the book I envisage would show various alternative ways of enhancing a melody to produce a fuller, more interesting/entertaining/exciting piece of music.
Does such a book exist? And, if not…why not?
I’ve never come across one, I find Harmonica tab pretty hard to read, Let alone write. I tend to work everything out by ear. Are you playing Chromatic or Diatonic, I think you may have more chance with Chromatic arrangements as Classical and Jazz are played on those. But off the top of my head can’t think of anything
I bought Harmonica For Dummies and it was very helpful. Just about everything is covered from start to finish. I fit the title from a music knowledge standpoint and never played any instrument and it was just what I needed. Hope this helps.
No I don’t think such a book exists. Of course we are greatly limited with the amount of chords that we have.
But Joe Filisko’s study songs Deford’s Dream, Chasin’ Lost Sonny, and his new Mississippi Blues all scratch that itch for me of being good repertoire for playing unaccompanied solo harmonica and having it be interesting.
Taking the Fox Chase style presented in Deford’s Dream and then improvising around that has been a source of countless hours of joy for me on my “harmonica walks.”
