Like the title says. Where are you at in your technique, and what are your near-term technical goals? What do you want to be able to do?
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I always want to be better, Iām never satisfied with where Iām at. I watched @davidkachalon teach vamping and super vamping on a vid the other day. I could already vamp to some degree ( I had no idea it was called vamping and as for super vamping!! No never heard the term) I have been practicing the super vamping but Iām not entirely sure Iāve got it yet Iām close and keep plugging away, but my neighbor downstairs is on late shift this week and I donāt like to play too much when heās sleeping in the day.
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I would like to be able to pick up a harp and join other musicians playing a song with some improvisation without memorizing entire song/melody. But this is my first instrument and only 7 months playing. Technically I am getting better in draw bends and started learning Blow bends. And I would like to be able to use vamping/slaps for some rythm during melody but there is not much resource on this topic. So probably big goals I would say. 
But still i donāt know which style of playing I like the most so itās still evolving.
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Iāll never be what I want to be as far as the harp goes. I am a year and 2 months into my journey and am satisficed. I used to have a bit of a temper and have yet to let a harp fly. I am making progress buy not in a straight line. Iāll play something well for the first time or bend all 3 -3 bends. Other days the force just is not with me. I feel it will take around 5 years before someone MIGHT play to hear me play as opposed to the present where a person is more likely to pay me to stop.
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Hi @scott4, I have been playing for about the same amount of time and can empathise with your comments. Not a straight-line improvement. There are days when I play OK and there are some flat days when Iām just not feeling it. I seem to have plateaued, adding a new tune every month or so but not playing any better. Thereās a couple of songs Iām trying to learn, and Iām stuck on a few lines, I just canāt get them bedded down, despite playing them over and again while looking at the tabs. Yet thereās another song, āThe first cut is the deepestā that I played without looking at a single tab, just picked up the harp and played it. I canāt explain that to myself, let alone to you.
In regard to payment, I sat near to a busker yesterday and was chatting to him between songs. Busking is not valued in Australia as it is in other countries, we donāt have a tipping culture here, but he was doing very well. There were a few 5 and 10 dollar notes being dropped into his guitar case. I wondered how much money would fit into a harmonica case and whether anyone would pay to hear a solo harmonica player. On reflection I think itās probably a match.
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You canāt go wrong if you take a look at @davidkachalonās vid on Vamping and SuperVamping been following that for about a week, and itās coming along nicely, I found I could hear it better on my 12 hole Hohner though and Iāve transferred that to my Lucky 13ās Iām very pleased with how itās going
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Hi @PapaCurly donāt worry yourself too much about having good days and bad days, I know for a fact that most musicians have them even pros, I know this because my old guitar teacher told me heās a finger stylist and heās played with some pretty well known people. I went in the one day after having a terrible practice session in the morning, I said I really donāt know what goes on some days everything just comes together and on other days nothing works at all. He looked at me and smiled āwe all get that, and when you do just put it down for a bit come back to it, youāll find it worksā Now I went to him when I hit a plateau on my guitar mostly Iām self taught. I can play a lot of instruments I just have a knack and an ear. But there are days I balls everything up. Itās part of what we call human, we are utterly falable
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Excellent to hear this!
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It really is a brilliant teaching video, I watch a lot of Sonny Boy Williamson II vids on YouTube and I was always trying to figure out the Super Vamping he does it so smoothly itās hard to spot plus I hadnāt even heard the term. And your excellent vid was clear concise and easy to follow Iāll be forever grateful. Still not confident itās good enough to do live but Iām getting there.
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Oh man. Thank you. You inspire me to make more!
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Please do, I think they would be very valuable to a lot of people on here
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In my technique? Iām still learning to hole switch, applying to a hole. Vamping comes in handy. The one sure texture for sealant.
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I feel very comfortable in my technique as I love to play the music that I enjoy the most. However, I often feel peer pressure from other harmonica players that I have to do tongue blocking only instead of being mostly a lip purser or that I need to play blues and very old country music instead of following my own sound. I have almost disappeared from the forum because people were constantly saying to beginners who want to explore their own sound that they should only be playing tongue blocked. Hereās a reality check. I donāt need to tongue block because the music that I play doesnāt call for it. They could claim ālip pursing is limitingā and āyou can play anything tongue blockedā, but Iāve never seen a 100% tongue blocker play like Terry McMillan despite their claims.
There was one person a long time ago who I met online and was very mean towards me. She believed that because I donāt ālook autisticā and can communicate with neurotypical people, that she thinks that I should stop trying to be a musician and āget a real jobā when Iām unable to. She also believed that my audience wants to hear Charlie McCoy style fast playing and melodies, but she was incredibly wrong in hindsight. A few months ago, I got up on stage and played with a band for the first time. I was super nervous about what to play, but I stole the show as soon as I got on that stage. The band and I were playing āWhat I Like About Youā by The Romantics and I decided to do a bluesy harmonica solo for it. As soon as the song was over, everybody started cheering for me and telling me what an amazing job I did there. There was no need to play like Little Walter or Charlie McCoy at all for that song, but I did a little more than what the song had in terms of harp. Iāve proved all of my haters wrong that night.
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Embouchure:
Iām getting past having a little fun, stretching my tongue. Iām aware of the mechanics of harmonica.
I really hate also. Is when, āsort of influenceā
Burns down the street and dictates your practicing, in my neighborhood. At three oā clock in the morning. For instance.
Alright @Andy2 ā¦I am self taught, and come from playing low brass. Whatās a vamp?
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Itās basically tongue blocking chords by placing the tongue down and getting a slap sound, you can also pull the tongue off itās sort of reversed to supervamp or reverse tongue slap, Iāve only just learned to do it properly if you look on the technique section @davidkachalon does a brilliant vid on this subject. I was aware of the technique but couldnāt figure out how to do it right the vid clarified it for me
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@Hogie.Harmonica aw man I could literally write for like a half-hour about this, lol!
Technique is what I need in order to be able to freely express myself on the harmonica, and like a million things pop into my head that Iām actively working on, but Iāll just list a few.
Iām working on Adam Gussowās āwarm-up exercises (with overblows)ā which are mostly all triplets and have overblows - they are WONDERFUL and are opening up all kinds of new ideas for me.
I paid the $150 for all of his lessons, which is a bargain for everything heās ever done - honestly just that one lesson has been worth the price of admission for me - EASILY.
I havenāt been satisfied with my improvisational funk vocabulary on one-chord E funk jams that a guy whoās been hiring me like to usually do a huge mash-up of a whole bunch of songs. So Iāve been working out some ideas on that - kinda inspired by the Gussow āwarmupsā but adapted for Parrott-Tuned harps, and Iām finding actually the riff from Rhapsody in Blue works really well as a jumping off place.
Iām trying to work on my big tone train chugging speed with a metronome every day for 5m. Iām kinda getting comfy with 120 BPM, sometimes pushing to 130. (@davidkachalon sounds like heās going about 200!)
Working out arpeggios on some challenging tunes on diatonic - Europa, Blue Bossa, Little Wing. Again these are tunes my boss plays at his gigs, and Iāve got a couple more on the book with hime, so itās great incentive to work on it.
ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS -3ā and -3" intonation. I donāt think Iāll ever stop wanting to improve at this.
Sliding up into the 10". This is something I heard/saw Adam do in the aforementioned lesson. Never thought to do that, and itās not easy. So working on that.
Overblows/Overdraws. Specifically - I love the -7od (theoretically) I mean who doesnāt love the b5, right??? But specifically when Iām doing that overdraw, and then go back to regular playing I end up having reeds choked. I started noticing this at SPAH jam sessions, which was really the first time started trying to use these in solos. And noticed it again on a few gigs since returning. It actually made me reconsider if I even wanna keep using the overdraws. (And I was tempted to blame the tool of course! 
) But the other night in the practice room I realized itās actually a technique issue!!! So this is a big part of where I want to be.
Iām working on soloing over Sweet Home Alabama in 3rd position (major) on a C Country Tuned harp. This works awesome, and needs more work. I did Tod Parrottās 3rd position major workshop at SPAH, and it opened up a whole new world.
Walterās Groove (thereās this -3ā and -3" intonation issues again) and The HoneyDripper (tongue slaps) by Big Walter Horton from his Canāt Keep Loving You album.
Blowinā the Family Jewels by William Clarke. Iāve transcribed it all to memory - the 2nd chorus is a serious ass-kicker. Talk about a tongue-blocking workout!
Game Changer button in, working on chromatic neighboring ideas, especially with splits in 2nd and 1st position.
Another thing Iāve been thinking about is that on the guitar, I can play all the intervals up and down through a scale. I say āa scaleā because practicing these frees you up the same in any of the modes positions (1st/major, 2nd/mixolydian, 3rd dorian, 4th natural minor, etc.) And on guitar I can do Major 3ds ascending up and down, descending up and down, alternating ascending/descending up and down, alternating 2 ascending and one descending up and down, doing with chromatic aproach tones. And I can do them also with 4ths, 5ths, 6ths, and 7ths. THATās something I definitely would like to be able to do on the diatonic harmonica. Iām not worried about chromatic approach tones, Iād just like to be able to play ALL the intervals in ALL the directions across the entire harmonica.
I could keep going, but I canāt spend the whole day writing this post!! Think of all the practicing I could have gotten done while writing this instead.
What about you @Hogie.Harmonica and others? What are blockages youāre wanting to see removed in your playing?
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Man I love that you have a detailed list like this.
My technique hitlist is like this:
- Intonation: Improve my ability to be accurate with 10 hole bent a half-step. Iāve put a lot of time on this, including using it during my performance at SPAH. Similarly, improving half-step bends on 2 and 3 hole. This is a never-ending thing to work on.
- Overblow Fundamentals: increase my ability to accurately bend overblows while tongue blocking. 7 and 9 overdraw tongue blocking. Currently only getting the 7 very weak. Keep smoothing out approaching from above until it can be used in a traditional 1st position melody with chords.
- Traditional Playing: Iāve been working on classic 2nd position stuff in the Sonny Terry vein. Iām working to integrate overblows into it without breaking the style. Iām close. Going to make a video of it when Iām done.
- Fluency: Scales, modes, arpeggios.
Though I consider this musicianship rather than technique, it is time to go deep on jazz chops. Iām tired of staying in my āpentatonic but also using all the other notesā approach which is rather horizontal. Time to get solid at vertical improvisation with idiomatic lines.
And lastly, classical chromatic. Taking lessons from Bonfiglio right now. He is very, very good at the technical aspects of classical on chromatic, had even published a book of virtuoso exercises before I was born. So those will be part of the daily technique practice.
As far as blockages, the main thing is Iām at a stage where Iām feeling like a beginner again. It is a great feeling, but it is humbling. When I stepped in his seminar and heard Bonfiglio play, my mind snapped right back into the concert hall, the life I prepared for (as a director) but abandoned. And realized that even with all my skills and knowledge, Iām a baby. And so the main thing is to stop thinking āyeah this is awesome!ā while Iām playing. Time to return to my classical roots - dissecting a piece, the technique needed to play it, hard focus on articulations, and playing slow with a metronome.
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I used to have that same problem with overdraws. The issue is likely relying on breath speed rather than tongue positioning.
And do blame the tools. Unless you are playing on something modified by a high-level customizer, most likely it is indeed the tool (in my opinion).
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Yeah Iām playing a $300 Joe Spiers harmonica. Thatās how I know it aināt the tool! 
Itās just me. Iām the problem. 
And point well taken. Probably wouldnāt hurt to spend a little time practicing some pianissimo long tones.
I could be wrong but I think to play ob/od in the pocket, that do require a little bit faster air. Not sure if thatās it exactly buy just like looping -3ā -3" -2 real fast, the embouchure has to change on that -2, same with ob/od. Gotta get back to that relaxed neutral state on the regular holes.