Instant Harmonica - play Christmas + Birthday songs now!

Any course in my INSTANT HARMONICA series needs only two things: 

a harmonica (key of C, 10 holes, diatonic) 

and the ability to play single notes - but I'll show you how to do that now in this lecture 

Make your mouth into the shape you might use if you whistle - it's known as the pucker, pursed lip or kiss shape. Allow your lower lip to drop and push the harmonica in a little; the further it goes in the better it will sound! Relax your lips to let the harmonica in and gradually try to get the shape that gives you a single note. 

Some people use a pencil or straw to model the shape you need so try that as well. 

I have a bigger course with five lectures on this subject if you want to go deeper - it's called 'INSTANT HARMONICA - how to get single notes in 5 easy steps' so dive in and take that one if you like

The more complicated way is called 'tongue blocking' but I will not go into it here except to say you use your tongue to block the holes to the left (or sometimes the right) side of the hole you want to play. Here's another of my courses that explores the use of the tongue in harmonica playing - 'Killer Harmonica sounds using the tongue and bending notes'

Learning check - how are you doing? 

Are you getting clear notes yet? Keep working at it please 

Play it with the piano 

What is the transition from the fourth to the fifth note? 

6 BLOW - 7 BLOW. Easy transition; play 6 BLOW and keep breathing but slide up to hole 7 

Now breathe IN for the last note 

Awesome. Sorry, I went a bit American on you there. 

Splendid.

Starting the second line 

Only two notes are different compared to the first line 

The only tricky bit is 6 BLOW to 8 DRAW so work on that transition to get it smooth 

Pause here 

Now run it together in context

Half of the tune is done so let's play it through from the top 

With the chords on piano 

Now the biggest jump othe whole tune - 66 9 all blowing

Back to the one inch jump BLOW 66 9 

Consecutive notes falling down the hill come next BLOW 987 

Very easy 

Now DRAW 7 6 

Pause on the last note to build tension........

That's three quarters done - well done! 

Play it from the top 

Repeat on your own 

Now with piano 

Next two notes are 9 DRAW 

Try to hook up the last two notes of the third line to the first two notes on the last line

Last four notes 

8 BLOW, 7 BLOW 

Play all the last line so far 

Finish it off now and play the whole of the last line 

Add vibrato 

Many types of vibrato - see demo on video

Now you know the tune and can play it to your pals - go for it! 

Keep your harmonica handy and serenade them. 

You are on your own now! 

Come and join the other INSTANT HARMONICA courses and let me know if there are any specific tunes you would like to have taught - I'm sure you won't be the only one so I'll look into teaching it for you all.

Bonus - Victor Borge playing Happy Birthday in the style of his fave composers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8mcYFqs5g4

Should this link fail plase message me and meanwhile just search for Victor Borge Happy Birthday

In this lecture I am introducing the course to you.

You will find out what there is to learn and haw you will learn it.

I'll give you an idea of my teaching method and if you have taken other courses of mine you will be quite familiar with the mix of expert teaching, great harmonica knowledge, a humble yet ironic style, and my English sense of humour - which you may or may not like; I hope you do - it just bubbles up, I can't change it now.

In this lecture you will learn the first few notes of Jingle Bells.

I'm guessing you will find this quite easy to learn.

This is where I have included all the backing tracks and the only pdf of the whole piece written down with standard notation and harmonica tablature so please go to the 'View Resources' tab>second tab in (download icon - down arrow into box) and get all the tracks and the written music now.

You will find four audio tracks: the first is sung so sing it.

The second is played but at slow speed.

The third is played at medium speed.

The fourth is played at full speed. This is the same speed as the sung version.

I suggest you start with singing and then the slow speed.

If you can play already try playing everything down an octave to exercise your bending muscles, or tongue blocked, or both. Or from memory. Or on a different key harmonica for an extreme challenge.

So now we come to the second line.

Please follow the video and copy what I say.

Now let's finish the second line.

If you need to refer back to the written music it is downloadable from lecture 3.

The backing tracks are also there so try playing with the recordings and use the slow version first.

The third line is remarkably similar to the first line so you should have no trouble completing this one!

That's another tune under your belt!

Or is it?

Now you will need to learn the verse part of this tune and I felt that it was too much information for this format so it is called Jingle Bells part 2 and gets published a week or so after part 1.

So have a look out for it and in fact I will notify you when it's ready if you take this course and you don't see it on my page yet.

This 'outro' lecture describes many of the ways you can extend the tune and make it even better that what you have just learnt.

I hope you have enjoyed learning with me - please give feedback on Udemy and you will do me a huge favour if you share the link to your social media groups, I value that support and it's what encourages me to continue making new courses every month in-between teaching at home in the Uk as well as Vietnam, Thailand and India.