How to Shuffle With a Harmonica

To a lot of musicians, the harmonica is an instrument without a lot of complexity. Skilled harmonica players use improvisation and technique to create good-sounding, complex music on the instrument. The shuffle is one of these techniques. It's a tempo-setter, a backbone for the blues, and an all around good skill to have for inspired harmonica solos.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Locate your notes. You'll be using the notes you select in a rhythm to form the "shuffle." Try a few different notes and listen to how they sound with each other. For a lot of shuffles, players tend to use notes a step apart. These notes are formed by blowing in or out through the same harmonica pipe.

2. Find a way to alternate them in a nice pattern. You can do some of the following with 2 notes, A and B: for example, A A B A or A B A B. Your note sequence is a part of what makes your shuffle unique.

3. Build up your bar. Practice playing your note sequence in rhythmic "bars", starting out slow, then going faster, until you can hear the shuffle becoming a background line for a song.

4. Keep your shuffle going while you prepare to improvise over it. When you think you have your improv notes, break from your shuffle just long enough to create the sustained wail or walking line you're looking for.

5. Come back to your shuffle notes in the same rhythm, either before the end of a bar or at the end of a bar. It's important to "land on your feet," creating a seamless transition from the shuttle to the improv, and back to the shuttle again. Practice until you are adept at using rhythm to become a really good harmonica player.