Playing the Blues on Harmonica

Video Transcript

" This is Jim Luke. This lesson is about blues licks. Once you get past the melodic type of stuff the melodies we were talking about earlier; probably the next thing you are going to want to do is to play blues licks. Blues licks are also used in a lot of rock and roll music and can be adapted to almost anything that people play in a modern vein today musically. Now, blues licks are of really two different kinds. One of them is strictly a turn around where you are playing, which has to be played by most everybody in the band most of the time when you play a blues fast or slow you are playing the turn around. Now the rest of the time you’ll be playing single note runs that complement what the singer’s singing; and usually it’s like a call or response kind of thing. If the singer sings my baby done left me she left me all alone you’re going to play something like to kind of complete or respond to what that vocalist is saying. One good thing to always remember don’t play when the vocalist is singing. Nobody wants to hear a harmonica player who plays too much. So get out there and do the best you can."