Okay,, I’ve started playing blues harmonica for about 2 months now. I’m good at getting single notes and bending on a draw. What should I do next? How do I get from the really beginner level to something a little bit higher? I don’t know what to look for or what to work on to progress farther. Adam Gussow had to start somewhere and I’m wondering how he got to be so good (other than a lot of practise) What should I work on to keep progressively getting better? I know there’s room for criticizing me here, but I’m just asking for some help/guidance at becoming a better harmonica player. I think I found an answer. Hi, Maverick, How is your knowledge of chords and theory? There are many variations on just the 12-bar form to make it interesing, for example, in C: C / Cdim / C / C7 / F7 / F7 / C / A7 / D7 / G7 / C. This is a blues pattern used a lot in early jazz, and it’s a great variation to start with and give you blues playing more variety. Try to have your ideas make musical sense and build on each other – not just playing one lick followed by another. This is what I work on. I’m trying to get my single-note runs down so I don’t always have to fall back on the shakes and trills. I can see this is going to take a LOT of practice in my case. In short, go beyond repeating someone else’s licks and cliches and slowly build your own style. Try working in third position – not just the blue notes (b 3, #4), but the ‘between’ notes, which will give you the full dorian mode, which is great for anything minor. Work on your octaves, blow and draw, so you’ll always execute them cleanly. I’m not an advanced player by any means. The foregoing are just the the things I’ve been working on myself. Good luck.
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