blues harp

Announcements 

Win a Voucher for Seydel Söhne Harmonicas

The Good Doctor , , , , ,

Seydel Söhne 1847 Classic[Note: competition now closed.]

Harps down, heads up! Our lovely friends at Seydel Söhne are offering you the chance to win an e-voucher to the tune of €30.00 (US residents $40.00). If you submit three correct answers to our quiz before midnight (GMT) Jan.10 2010 and are one of three lucky names drawn at random from the Harp Surgery’s ugly hat, an e-voucher will be winging its way to your inbox.

All you have to do is study our competition questions, find the correct answers on the Seydel Söhne website and drop us an e-mail, stating your country of residence and your three competition answers (you can also access the Seydel Söhne site by clicking the yellow logo in our Partners menu to the right). (more…)

Harp Tips 

Harmonica Effects 1 – Police Sirens

The Good Doctor 2 Comments , , , ,

Jake, Elwood and The Blues MobileOur Lady of blessed acceleration don’t fail me now

As we know, every Blues Harp player grows twitchy when they hear the sound of Cop Cars in pursuit. Unless, of course, they happen to be driving one themselves. But have you ever tried to imitate the sound of a police chase on the harmonica? Grab your nearest diatonic and we’ll take a look. But before we do, just a few words from our sponsors, fresh from the Mount Prospect City police auction..

  • Jake: The Caddy. Where’s the Caddy?
  • Elwood: It’s been traded for a microphone.
  • Jake: I can see that.
  • Elwood: Like it?
  • Jake: No I don’t like it
  • [Elwood floors the gas pedal and leaps an opening drawbridge]
  • Jake: Car’s got a lot of pickup
  • Elwood: It’s got a cop motor, a 440 cubic inch plant, it’s got cop tyres, cop suspension, cop shocks. It’s a model made before catalytic converters so it’ll run good on regular gas. What do you say, is it the new Bluesmobile or what?
  • [ a brief pause as Jake lights his cigarette with a Zippo lighter – having previously thrown the electric car lighter out of the window]
  • Jake: Fix the cigarette lighter (more…)
Apprenticeship Series Reviews - Books 

Journeyman’s Road by Adam Gussow (Part 1)

Elwood 2 Comments , , , ,

Elwood the Apprentice seeks wisdom in the holy scriptures (of blues harmonica)

[UPDATE: Part 2 of the review is now live.]

Well, as I was saying – it’s the end of a Gussow era but not the end of the Gussow era. There’ll be no more free YouTube lessons, but there’s more Gussow wisdom to be harvested for the apprentice blues player – assuming you’ve not yet read Journeyman’s Road: Modern Blues Lives from Faulkner’s Mississippi to Post-9/11 New York.

“In the skilled blue-collar trades,” writes Gussow, “a journeyman is a way station and job category: no longer an apprentice, not yet a master.”

Well, there you have it. This delightful patchwork of essays, scatter shot and rapid-fire in their wisdom, chronicles Gussow’s journey to becoming a master – and he’s crammed in every titbit of wisdom accrued along the way. It’s like a little street manual on how to graduate from your apprenticeship and start the sometimes weary trudge towards mastery. There are threads on blues culture, threads on jam session etiquette and ‘sitting in’, threads on blues history and blues future. And the result is a palimpsest which, when held up to the light, might just give us new ways to understand ourselves. (more…)

Announcements 

Pencil Full Of Lead – Paolo Nutini

The Good Doctor 14 Comments , , , , , , , , ,

Sunny Side UpI got food in my belly, a license for my telly and nothing’s gonna bring me down!

We’ve only just caught on to this track, but you should have seen the shenanigans around the breakfast table down at the Harp Surgery this morning. The Good Doctor was blowing bass on an empty scrumpy jar, Elwood was harping his little head off, Otis the postman was tapping his teaspoon on the side of his cup and the Riverboat Captain was dancing a maniacal hornpipe around the hazardous waste container. We’ve not had so much fun since last Sunday’s matinée showing of Jungle Book.

We hold our hands up and confess we know next to nothing about Paolo Nutini or his band The Vipers, except they’re from north of the border. Clearly Paolo has been a rising star for some time. For obvious reasons however, one player from amongst The Vipers caught our collective eye. He’s Fraser Speirs, the coolest Laird o’ the Moothie. This man has been a beacon for the diatonic for decades. You can see him in action here with Tam White.

Anyway, we just had to share it with you. So turn up your sound system, grab your G major diatonic (2nd position) and get with the groove! Happy Harping.

And by the way… in case you were wondering, it’s here. And yes he does the Bear Necessities too! For more information on this track and the harmonica content, see our follow up post Pencil Full Of Lead – Which Harmonica?

Announcements 

The Good Doctor’s Patent Blues Remedy

The Good Doctor 0 Comments , , , , , ,

See me, feel me, touch me, heal me.

with Gordon RussellThe Harp Surgery has been live for many months now, crammed with advice about how to do it, who else did it, when they did it, why they did it, where to hear it and what’s good about it. A lot of words for a music site. Well, we think it’s about time the Good Doctor opened his harp case and shared the medicine round. At some point you have to cut the chat and let the music do the talking. People, the Patent Blues Remedy is now live. Close all the doors, slide the phone off the hook, click here and get your fix.

You will hear edited highlights of tracks from both albums by The Blackjacks – What’s The Deal? and High Roller, samples from the Doc’s contribution to The Blue Hearts, The Elevators, Boy Cried Wolf and a secret snippet from a recent commercial music library blues CD.

We look forward to adding further tracks in the months to come and also embellishing the Surgery’s instructional pages with sound bites. Oh, and keep it strictly between yourselves, but there is rumour of the Doc making his inaugural podcast on YouTube. All coming to a PC near you. Stay tuned.

Happy harping!

Harp Tab 

Horn Concerto No.4 in Eb Major (Rondo Allegro Vivace) – W A Mozart [..with tab]

The Good Doctor 0 Comments , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I once had a whim and I had to obey it

Welcome to part two of our Baroque Blues Harp trilogy. The headline might look rather daunting, but don’t be put off. This is a piece we have all heard at one time or another and, once you’ve heard it again, I am sure it will bring a reassured smile to your face. Written in 1786, it is the final movement from the last of Mozart’s four horn concertos. The concertos were composed for his close friend Joseph Leutgeb a master horn player of the period. This finale is written in 6/8 time as a chasse or hunting tune. Consequently there is frequent use of triads in the melody to give a hunting horn flavour and triplet phrasing for a galop effect.

(more…)