Hi! My name is Fredrik Hertzberg and I live in the south of Sweden. Blues Harmonica Kaizen is my site to help people becoming better blues harmonica players.
I have always been interested in music. When I was about six years old I really wanted to play keyboard but my parents never put me in any classes. No matter how hard I bugged them about it. I did get to learn a little bit of recorder instead, not really as exciting.
The first taste of blues harmonica
Somewhere along the way my fascination for instruments that are not in the spotlight all the time started. The first thing I remeber of this is that I was more interested in the bass players than the guitarists. When I joined my first hard rock band at the age of 10, it was as a bass player. As a pre-teen I won a really expensive Warwick Streamer bass from a Norweigan magazine. That opened up for playing a whole lot more. I also started practicing much more. A few years later blues harmonica came in to my life. I heard Sonny Terry for the first time and I knew then that this was the instrument for me. In 1987 I got a Hohner Pro Harp for Christmas and my journey into the wonderful world of blues harmonica started.
The need for Blues Harmonica Kaizen
The first problem I ran into was that there was no courses to take, diatonic harmonica was considered a toy. There was very few books to find and the ones I bought didn’t really help me a lot. It wasn’t until I bought Charlie Musselwhite’s CD “Ace of harps” and I started to playing along with it that things started moving. For many years I was developing my playing by listening to records and trying things out and once in a while come across the odd helpful book. As there were very few harmonica players around it was very difficut for me swap ideas with anyone and I had noone to challenge me and push me to become better. I know that I would have benefited from a site such as Blues Harmonica Kaizen when I started playing.
Becoming serious
The next big step for me came in 2005 when I met Dick Sjöberg from Malmö (creator of the Masterharp Sjoeberg tuning table) who had been teaching harmonica for many years. Through him I found many like minded friends and he introduced me to the real world of TONE. From then on I understood that everything you do on the harmonica affects the sound and there are no short cuts to the amazing sound of Little Walter, Sonny Terry, Sonny Boy Williamson and Big Walter Horton. It was also through Dick I came in contact with David Barret and Joe Filisko who now are my two biggest sources of inspiration and knowledge.
I started playing in 1987, became serious in 2005, fanatical in 2008 after visiting Harmonica Masters Workshop in Trossingen and in 2014 I started teaching other people. I feel very fortunate having found this passion and I want to share it with the world. Bringing the knowledge I have gained to as many people as possible is my mission. That is why I now post YouTube videos, share tips on Facebook, teach classes, teach one-on-one and create online courses. In 2017 Blues Harmonica Kaizen has taken more of my time. I plan to keep adding more material.
I hope this site will bring you both joy and the knowledge you seek. To keep updated sign up to my email list so that I can send you helpful information. As a bonus I will send you a 75% discount code to my Udemy course.
Harp on!
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