5 Common Beginner Mistakes

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Top 5 beginner mistakes on harmonica, and how to fix them!

MISTAKE #5.) Playing in the wrong key

You have to know the key of the song you’re playing.

Here's a position chart:
https://harmonica-resources.s3.amazonaws.com/newsletter/keys.png

If you’re like many, you may be thinking right now, “I don’t even really understand what a position is.” Well if you’re dying to understand it, you can check out this forum thread:

https://forum.harmonica.com/t/what-the-heck-is-a-harmonica-position-and-why-do-i-need-to-know/10118?u=luke

Can you hear the difference between 1st position and 2nd position? (2nd Position harmonica sounds Bluesier.)

AT LEAST 90% of harmonica songs are in 1st or 2nd position, so usually they’re the ONLY ones you need to consider for the first few years playing harmonica.

It’s a cinch to figure out what key to play 1st position in on a song:
key of song = key of harmonica.

When playing in 2nd position it’s easy to get confused:
key of song = 4 letter names above the key of harmonica.

If you wanna understand that better, you can check out my Keys for Beginners lesson.
https://youtu.be/V2aokP8GriI

MISTAKE #4.) Not Listening
LISTENING is foundational to how we experience music.
hands down THE MOST IMPORTANT SKILL you can develop as a MUSICIAN.
Becoming a better active listener will help you in every area of your musicianship, (and your life!)????

Music, at its best, is a conversation between the musicians.

Soloing at an inappropriate time (when someone else is singing or soloing) is a symptom of failure to listen.

If we listen well to others, and always serve the song, people will always want us to play music with them.

MISTAKE #3.) Rushing!
The mistake of Rushing manifests in 2 ways:
WAY #1: Rushing to Get Better.
Most people don’t want to SLOW DOWN, take a deep breath, and be prepared to take as long as needed when working on:
a new riff, a new song, a new technique, getting something up to tempo.
being able to accurately execute a syncopated rhythm.

I’ve been guilty of it a million times! BUT Rushing to learn things does NOT help us GROW FASTER!It’s actually self-sabotage; when we rush to learn, we play frantically rather than smoothly. Slow = Smooth and Smooth = Fast
WAY #2 Rushing our Notes (Premature Articulation ????)

I think we’re all prone to this, and it’s only exacerbated when we get up on stage and the adrenaline starts rushing!

The opposite of playing ahead of the beat is what people refer to as “Playing in the Pocket”.

When we “lay back on the beat” there is a feel and groove that happens that makes people wanna bob their heads, smile, and shake their tail feathers.

The cure for Premature Articluation is to record ourselves playing with some kind of rhythmic accountability, and then listen back critically to hear if we’re playing with good time.

Strive to have 80% of your practice time be with one of these forms of rhythmic accountability: playing along with a record, a jam track, a metronome, while taking a steady walk, or best of all, with other musicians who have a great sense of time.

To turbo-charge your growth, record yourself and listen back critically.

MISTAKE #2.) Playing Tense
Tension is the enemy of mastery
RELAXATION is the KEY to any technique you wanna master.

How many times have I been working on getting a song or a lick up to speed only to realize every muscle in my body is tense! ???? Whenever I catch myself like this I chuckle and think, When will I ever learn?

Invariably, as soon as I relax, I get much better results.

The secret to relaxation is the same fundamental skill for harmonica excellence:

DEEP. DIAPHRAGMATIC. BREATHING.

Taking a nice deep breath, and even better, voicing the exhale with a sigh “ahhh” or something like that helps our bodies to relax, which accelerates our growth on the instrument.

The place beginners most put self-defeating tension is in THE LIPS.

Having the lips RELAXED, and deep on the harmonica cover plates so that the moist inner-portion of the lips is in contact with them, is the only way to get a good lips seal that leads to a beautiful and compelling tone on the harmonica.

MISTAKE #1.) Playing too hard
This is the #1 mistake that beginners make on the harmonica.

Instead of BREATHING through the harmonica, they HEAVE through the harmonica! Remember:

Breathe, DON’T Heave!
????

Try blowing the flame of a candle strong enough to make it move, but not so strong you blow it out, and THAT is the kind of force we wanna have when breathing through the harmonica:

✅ STEADY and CONTINUOUS airflow.

❌ NOT WILD and FRENETIC heaving.

Paul Butterfield, who I think of as a harmonica POWERHOUSE, advised us to practice like we’re trying to play too quietly for people to hear. Why? This fosters BREATH CONTROL.

When you get in front of people, you’re naturally always gonna play harder.