Gig

Ok so last night was back to the pub for a gig! Great fun and especially brilliant as my darling wife was able to come. I got a nice compliment from the man who at the last gig said he couldn't hear me. It turned out that this time he could and he loved it!

The slight disappointment of the night was that my overdrive pedal broke. I plugged the battery in and there was no life at all in the thing. So consequently, the Harp Shield was no use whatsoever! I plugged it in anyway just to get some use out of it (although I guess, in actual fact, I was really just draining the battery).

Anyway, I've decided to use my birthday money on a Zoom G3 module. It's for guitar but according to the harp site I read, it can be used for harmonicas too. I'm excited at what it may do. I am not going to get the overdrive pedal fixed since this module should be able to do all that and plenty more besides. I am unsure whether the Harp Shield will still be required, I think it will, but we'll see.

On the practice front I've been trying some of Lee Sankey's exercises for improving 3 draw bends and working the major scale in 1st position all the way from 1 to 10 blow. I try to practise on different harps (usually A and F) to get used to how the technique needs to slightly change according to the pitch of the instrument.

Lastly I am going to try and work on We Wish you a Merry Christmas in 1st position (Start 2 draw). The lower octave needs both a 3 draw whole step bend and a 2 draw whole step bend. The upper octave (start 6 blow) is taking me ages to get my head round!

Harp Shield

My Harp Shield arrived yesterday and I love it. Basically it allows for the overdrive pedal to actually make a difference. Very cool indeed. I am hoping that come the next gig I'll be able to use it and switch the overdrive pedal on for solos. Should be good.

Mordon again

Had another really fun gig last night at Mordon. My playing was ok overall and although I forgot a few keys it still sounded pretty good.

Very excited that I get my hands on my new pedal (Harp Shield) next week. I just hope its worth the money.

I have put some harmonica snippets for solos on youtube unlisted here

I've changed the harps I use for gigs over the months. The old ones I keep for messing around with they aren't out of tune yet but they have odd things missing (like screws).

I broke my gifted chromatic when I took it apart to clean it (oops!)

Big River C, Bb, A
Special 20 D
Golden Melody F
Blues Harp G, E

Chromatic

I've been spending much of this summer practicing my chromatic. I play piano at church sometimes and have church music books at home so I've been working my way through some of those songs. I am improving slowly and am getting better at playing in different keys. I still find it very hard to judge big jumps (4ths to octaves) but that's what practice is for! Breathing can be surprisingly tricky, depending on the key, because sometimes it involves a lot of draw notes.

Also I have become pretty good at the 12 blues scales page I've been working on.

Golden Wedding Gig

Played tonight for a golden wedding anniversary. It was very odd. On the one hand the playing went really well and was huge fun. On the other hand there was random drunk woman and people from work. It all went a bit awkward for a while.

At the end a very nice man told me that he hadn't heard the harmonica played so well since the 60s (which he said was his era) and that I should be very proud of myself! Always encouraging to get a compliment. Another lady said I'd done well tonight too.

So all in all, a very weird but exciting gig.