Description

Check out the site for the full Harmonica Lesson, plus Tabs, plus Backing Tracks! By Sandy Weltman.

Transcript

[Demonstration] Hi everybody, welcome to www.onlinelessonvideos.com. My name is Sandy Weltman and you just heard me playing a very challenging arrangement of an old fiddle tune called Old Joe Clark which we’re going to be learning today. This lesson today is designed for the harmonica player at levels three on up, three, four and five. And if you haven’t already printed out your tablature, go ahead and do that and then we will go ahead and get started. For today’s song Old Joe Clark, we’re going to playing in the key of A which is where the fiddle usually plays this song. And we’re going to be playing in 2nd position. So, we will be playing on a D harmonica. The form for this song is A-A-B-B. You play this section twice and then the B section twice. The first thing I'm going to do today is show you how to play just the basic simple melody. But then I've also put together two really fun and challenging variations of each section for you which you heard me playing in the opening part of this video. A lot of my students asked me questions about how they can increase their lung capacity or how they know when to take a breath when they’re playing a song. And usually what I tell them is to practice playing fiddle tunes. So, I arranged this fiddle tune for that very reason. There are not a lot of places to take a breath in here. You really have to work hard to find that and by the time you get done playing this tune and learning it really well, you'll have a much better idea of when you can take a breath in it’ll probably help increase you air capacity and your lungs as well. So, let’s go ahead and take a look at the first just the basic simple melody of Old Joe Clark. So, let’s take a look at the A section first. I'm going to go ahead and play it slowly for you with the metronome, kind of follow along and then maybe when I get to the 2nd time in the A section, jump in there with me and try playing along with me. Here we go. [Demonstration]