How to Play Harmonica for Minor Blues

After playing the blues harp for a while, you get pretty good, but you still don't sound like the professionals do on stage or through your stereo. Most books on learning the harmonica, with the exception of anything by John Gindick, aren't much help in anything but getting you blowing "Oh Susanna". Here is a pretty easy trick to get you sounding sweet and soulful when backing up a band or guitarist: minor harp!

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A diatonic harmonica in any major key
• A backup track or other musicians

1. By now, you should know how to play in cross harp, the way to play the harp to sound like the blues. For minor harp, instead of playing a harmonica four keys higher than the band is playing, you play one key lower. For example, in cross harp, if your the band is playing in D, you should play a G harp. In minor harp, you would play a C harp.

2. When playing, emphasize the draw notes. In minor harp, your root notes are 1 draw, 4 draw and 8 draw.

3. Instead of getting fancy, put some feeling into long chords and pucker notes. Add some trill and vibrato to really put some feeling into it.

4. Listen to your band and don't overplay them. Minor harp is about tugging at the heartstrings, adding a full range of emotion to the music. Mick Jagger played minor harp on "Sweet Virginia". If it's good enough for Mick, have fun making the crowd cry!

Tips & Warnings

• We're assuming you're not a beginning harp blower. In fact, if you don't even know what a harp is, please refer to some of our articles on harmonica for novices.
• Don't play the blow notes too much. They're good to skim over, but the real soul of the minor harp comes through in the draw.