Using Musical Patterns To Increase Our Harmonica Skills Many, many years ago, when I was teaching primary school children how to play a scale, I came up with rather a good and simple idea, which I have developed and would like to share with you now. We started with the notes of C, D, E, and F, and I decided to loop those four notes up and down to create a continual melody. So now we had a loop of C, D, E, F, E, D. Why don’t you try it now? Loop it round and round in 6/8 time using a metronome (or metronome app).
BEN TALKS HARMONICA Ben Hewlett Vice-President
Try increasing the speed. Fun? Yes, I agree. Challenge yourself! Then we looped the remaining notes of the scale and got G, A, B, C, B, A.
Same idea, what a beautiful melody. Try it now: use the beat to lock in and see how it feels to play these loops for a couple of minutes. Interesting? Should be. Now memorise the patterns of transitioning from hole to hole, combined with the changes of breath movement, to call it a fixed pattern. Now play those exact same patterns but starting on different holes – try on all the different holes. What music derives from these patterns? You might recognise or be reminded of a tune or a fragment of a tune. Experiment. Usually when we play music, we are intentional about the notes we want to play, and are not concerned about which hole we need or which breath direction is required, we just want to play a specific tune or a specific improvisation. This approach of playing patterns is completely the opposite. The idea is to exploit the physical aspects of the harmonica to see what music can be created. In other words, by playing patterns we care not a jot about the musical result – we are focusing purely on the physicality and practicality of our instrument. This can be done with any instrument, of course: if you think of a guitar or a piano or a trumpet, what would be the easiest practical things you can do? Does pattern playing produce interesting music? I’ll let you be the judge of that.
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The magazine for HarmonicaUK
