Musical Ramblings

Moanin' (Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers)

I love Art Blakey's (well, technically Bobby Timmons') Moanin' as I've mentioned in the past. In the following video I attempt to play the theme and tab it out for you on a second position diatonic harmonica in Bb. If you like jazz and if you don't already own the album that this comes from, you're missing out on one of the most vibrant jazz records of all time, the aptly titled Moanin'. On this record you will also find the wonderful Blues March which I will tab out in a few weeks (still working on it!)

As usual, this comes with tabs which you activate by clicking on the upwards arrow in the lower right corner of the youtube screen.

Minor Swing (aka Making a Fool of Myself in Public)

Earlier this week I was at a wonderful conference in DC called Freedom to Connect which combined heavy duty considerations about the future of broadband and the internet and musical entertainment by the wonderful John Jorgenson Quintet. The conference organiser had warned me that he would invite me to play something on the harmonica, and this is it, Django and Stephane's own Minor Swing.

My harp playing is full of mistakes - accuracy (especially in the theme and later in a crazy attempt to diddle on hole 3), choking reeds (at the end of my first chorus) and placement at the beginning - but I don't care: I had a load of fun. It's not every day you get the opportunity to play with such talents.

I'm using a G harp here played in A ie. 3rd position. I added the tabs for the opening theme and the closing theme, you just need to toggle them in Youtube to see them.

Volunteered Slavery on a Bb diatonic

Second in what will hopefully be a series of tabbed videos, is Roland Kirk's Volunteered Slavery, from his seminal Volunteered Slavery album. This is a relatively easy tune (2nd position, no overblows) but most of the phrase is played by breathing in, so you need to find the place to expel the extra intake of air.

Now with tabs!

Just wanted to let you know that the video of Days of Wine and Roses that I put up last week now comes with embedded tabs. If you go back two posts and click on the video, you should see the tabs coming up. Ain't that just neat?

Days of Wine and Roses on a C Diatonic

I have a new webcam and I've decided to force myself to work on my harp-playing by producing "how to play" videos of some of my favourite tunes. This is the first one of what will hopefully be many.

Days of Wine and Roses is in F and it's played on a C diatonic, ie. 12th position. There's a single overblow, but the combination of that and the unusual position makes this a two-star difficulty in my book.

The playing is far from perfect here, articulation is iffy, but it's as much a testament for me (hopefully I'll put up better played further takes down the line) as it is a how to for you.