So after my immediate start of learning the harmonica, I decided to research and learn some riffs to get a better understanding of how the instrument works. Riffs are essentially a few harmonica notes strung together to make a quick sound. These riffs and sounds can then be put together in a variety of ways to create blues jazz music with the harmonica. The beautiful thing about riffs is because you can sting them together in anyway you feel fit, it is the basis for free styling and creating your own music with your harmonica. However, I do not feel like I am musically capable, or knowledgeable about how to go about free styling with the riffs of a harmonica.
I chose to start by learning my 3 riffs before I started working on the song Piano Man because I felt it would have been best to understand how the sounds of the harmonica work, before attempting to learn a song. By doing this I have been able to gain a better feel of my own breathe control, location of notes, and overall how the harmonica should sound while being played. These are all very important things because both blowing air and sucking air (blow and draw) through a key in the harmonica makes a different sound, therefore if you were to inhale or exhale while breathing, the harmonica would continue to make noise. Another struggle I was facing was not knowing where all the keys are. When the harmonica was up to my mouth, I can no longer read the numbers above the holes, therefore I didn’t know where to play a note next. But through learning these riffs I can now hear when I am playing the wrong note, and then can change the position of my mouth to fix my error. Finally, because I can now hear the difference in the notes and correct myself, I feel like that was the sign I am able to move on and begin learning Piano Man by Billy Joel.
Also, here is the video that I am using to help myself learn riffs on the harmonica.
Riley
