I’ve tried playing in all twelve keys on the diatonic harmonica and I don’t like the sound of the instrument in keys with a lot of over blows or over draws. The smaller size is easier to work with and carry around. They sound smokier and more like a horn to me. I did this to get the lower three octaves with the extra long reeds. It is an old pre war Hohner 280 16 hole chromatic that I cut down to a 12 hole 270 custom comb. I did build myself a custom chromatic harmonica for this project. It is different than the diatonic harmonica, but still has a lot in common with it. I like the sound of the harmonica, and the chromatic has a sound that I can get into. I picked the chromatic harmonica for playing scales, arpeggios, and songs in general. But if you get familiar enough with these instruments that you can work things out and find the notes you are looking for, they are great tools for understanding music. You don’t have to master the piano or guitar. I can see ideas on the piano that I can’t see by staring at my fingers on a guitar neck. I also play chords on the guitar, but finding the notes of chords on the guitar takes me longer than finding the notes on the piano. If I want to know what a particular chord sounds like, I can find the notes on the piano and play them faster than I can find the notes on a guitar. I have an inexpensive Yamaha keyboard that I have put stickers on that tell me the notes of the keys. The piano is the most practical instrument for this purpose. If your main instrument does not let you play all the chords, then you need to have an instrument that you can play chords on. If you want to understand music of any kind, you need to be able to hear, sing and play musical ideas – riffs, scales, chords, etc. I have been told that if you can play jazz, you can play anything. I play American Roots music – the melting pot that includes fiddle tunes, blues, and popular music from the American songbook. The reason I want to learn jazz music theory is that it will give me a better understanding of all of the kinds of music I want to play. He gave me a clear path for learning the language of jazz on the chromatic harmonica. He said that jazz is a language that anyone can learn.
I talked to Filip about my ambition to learn jazz music theory and he was encouraging and clear about the process.
For example, he sat in on saxophone classes and played the exercises on the chromatic harmonica.
I met him at a SPAH convention a couple of years ago and we had a great jam in one of the stairwells at the hotel.įilip created his own music major focusing on the chromatic harmonica. I took a skype music lesson with Filip Jers – Filip is a wonderful and soulful harmonica player who plays diatonic and chromatic harmonica and studied music theory in Stockholm, Sweden. This is the beginning of a three step process: The next step was to cut the goal down to a size that did not make me want to give up. This gives me room to breathe, room to grow. I now have a path for learning jazz music theory that I can understand and work at that I know will pay off.įirst I had to ditch the identity of “folk musician”. What I lacked was confidence and a good plan. The idea of going back to school to learn music theory seemed too overwhelming. Like trying to understand diminished chords and scales. My attempts at going beyond basic blues on the harmonica and guitar always seemed to run out of gas at a certain point. As a guitar player, I knew major, minor, and seventh chords, and a few of the other “fancy” chords. I started out on Sonny Terry, Bob Dylan, Woodie Guthrie, Hank Williams. I just never believed that I could understand or get good at understanding or playing more sophisticated music. Jump blues, soul music, Ray Charles, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong. I have always been drawn to the place where blues meets jazz. I came to this commitment by a long winding road with many detours over the years. I am doing this as my focus for learning music theory, specifically jazz music theory. One of the projects that I’m working on this year is to learn to play the chromatic harmonica in all 12 keys.