Harmonica and Vocals, a Great Combo

When I started playing harmonica playing solos was what I wanted most. Since then I have become much more interested in other aspects as well. In this article I want to push for combining harmonica and vocals. There are advantages you maybe haven’t considered.

Who is most important?

When I have been to workshops with Joe Filisko he has often told the class that as harmonica players we have to count on being considered the least important person on stage. It may not be very obvious all the time but I can certaily realte to this statement. I think this partly comes from the fact that many people see the harmonica as a secondary instrument and a bit of a novelty. A great way to get around this is to add vocals to your repetoire. If you also sing you are instantly transformed to the most important person on stage. This reason alone is enough to warrant combining harmonica and vocals.

Getting rid of air

For blues players the harmonica is primarily an inhaling instrument. Singing is of course done exhaling (at least mostly). The combination is a good way of getting rid of air for more harmonica playing and getting air into the lungs for singing. Because we use the air differently this makes for an easy combination and is therefore also less complicated than people think.

Better phrasing

Vocals and harmonica share a lot when it comes to the expressiveness for music. If you practice singing you will notice interesting ways of phrasing lines that you can tranfer to your harmonica playing. Well executed phrasing and use of dynamics can really enhance a harmonica performance.

Fill practice

If you combine harmonica and vocals you will also automatically need to become better at fills. When you yourself is the singer you cannot step on the your own vocal lines. The improved fill skills will be appriciated when playing with other singers.

Harmonica and vocals summary

As you can see there are great advantages for combining harmonica and vocals. The last one I would like to mention is that it is fun. You are already putting yourself in the spot light as a musician, why not take full advantage of that spot?

Let me know how it works out for you and don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

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Harmonica Rehearsal Gone Bad

I have previously written on what is important when doing covers and how to practice and prepare properly. Now it is confession time, let me tell you what happens when your harmonica rehearsal routine is not up to par. A few weeks ago I was preparing for a gig with my trio “Worn Out Soles” and felt very confident. Not all results were as expected though.

Preparations

The preparations started out pretty much as they always do. We made a list of our repetoir and started playing around with the set list. This time I wanted to add a new song, namely SBWII’s “Help me”. I have had my eye on that song for some time but haven’t felt quite up to it. Now I felt it was within my powers to play so it got put up on the set list. I wanted the chords bombs to be there, solo close to SBWII and the bass line hook played by one of the guitars. The more we practiced the better it sounded, the chord bombs were aggresive, the solo was coming along and there was a nice groove.

At this point Pirs, one of the guitarists/vocalists said “hmm, we really should practice with all the gear”. Me and Magnus, the other guitarist/vocalist, agreed and then we kept doing what we were doing. At his point I should have recognised that I was heading for harmonica rehearsal one bad.

The result

To be fair we were practicing the way we usually practice and it has served us well so far. What I didn’t realize was that this song, “Help me”, required different microphone technique than what I had practiced before.

When it was time for the gig we felt prepared and did a nice job overall (if I can say so myself). However, when we got to “Help me” that was at the end of the set I quickly realized what I had missed in my preparations. I was singing and playing harmonica acoustically into a Shure SM58 and I wanted to keep my mouth close to the mic so that my voice didn’t sound too thin. This meant however that I had very little time to move my head back, bring up the harmonica, do the chord bomb and reset for singing. Since I hadn’t practice this, it really shook me up. Basically I messed up a whole bunch of the chord bombs, some of the vocals as well as part of the solo. I half panicked in the heat of the battle.

harmonica rehearsal with all equipment is important

The microphone that caused me problems.

The lesson

Overall the audience was happy and we got great feedback. For me, however, the experience was tainted by the fact that I could have done a much better job. Fortunately I can now take this as a learning experience and not skip realistic harmonica rehearsal with ALL equipment next time. If you are not rehearsing ralistically I suggest you start now!

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