Product Description

Are you hankering to play the harmonica? Harmonica For Dummies is an easy-to-read practice guide that gives you step-by-step instructions and gets you making music in no time! Even if you’re an experienced harmonica player, this jump-in-anywhere reference is packed with tips and playing techniques that will take your skills to the next level.

This fast, fun, hands-on guide helps you choose your first harmonica and shows you how to hold it, make your first sounds, and keep it clean and working well. Helpful diagrams show you how to shape sounds using your tongue, throat, and hands. Before you know it you’ll be playing melodies, chugging out rhythms, and bending notes with ease. You’ll also pick up some basics of music theory and learn how to read the notation and tablature for all the music in the book. Discover how to:

• Play right out of the box with little or no experience
• Make that wonderful wailing sound
• Create exciting rhythms and play solo
• Understand how the harmonica works
• Play all of the music on the Bonus CD
• Read tablature, educate your eye, and develop your ear
• Breath correctly while playing
• Bend notes up and down
• Play one harp in many keys
• Develop your style in blues rock, country, folk, and more
• Play with other musicians
• Work with a microphone to create great sounds

So stop dreaming and start playing! Harmonica For Dummies will get you wailing in no time!

Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2959 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 360 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780470337295
• Condition: USED - VERY GOOD
• Notes:
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From the Back Cover

The fun and easy way® to make the harmonica sing and perfect your playing technique!

Are you hankering to play the harmonica? This easy-to-read, practice-oriented guide gives you step-by-step instruction to get you making music in no time! Even if you're an experienced harmonica player, this book is packed with tips to take your playing to the next level.

• Explore your first harmonica — learn how to hold a harp, make your first sounds, and keep it clean

• Find your rhythm — play single notes and simple melodies; shape your sounds with your hands, tongue, and throat

• Bend notes with ease — make that wonderful wailing sound

• Grow beyond the basics — play one harp in many keys, hone your abilities with challenging melodies, and learn how to overblow

• Play popular music styles — from blues and rock to country, folk, and Celtic

• Take it to the streets — develop a repertoire of tunes, play with other musicians, amplify your sound, and perform for an audience

Open the book and find:

• The basics of music theory

• Helpful diagrams of tongue and mouth action

• Music notation and tablature for all the music in the book

• Tips for playing chords, scales, licks, and riffs

• Advice on making simple repairs and upgrades

• Info on nifty accessories

• Harmonica resources and groups

• Tuning layouts for all 12 keys of diatonic harmonicas

Bonus CD Includes

All the musical examples from the book, so you can play along and hear the sound you're striving for

Audio files that let you either play along with the recorded harmonica or play solo with the backing band

About the Author

Winslow Yerxa is a harmonica player with thirty years' experience in a wide variety of musical styles. He is also known internationally as a teacher, author, musical arranger, and recording artist, and is former editor of HIP (the Harmonica Information Publication).

Customer Reviews

Highly recommended
Winslow Yerxa's book "Harmonica for Dummies" should be titled "Everything You Need to Know About Harmonica"
Winslow is one of the most highly respected members of the nation's harmonica community. He has forgotten more about harmonica than most of us will ever learn. As I told him, if this book had been available 30 years ago when I started playing harmonica, I would be a real player now. Anyone interested in harmonica will not find a book with more information, and concise, easy to understand instruction, than this gem.
If you have any urge at all to learn how to play this fascinating little instrument, this will be the best money you have ever spent.
I play harmonica in a band and I can find all kinds of things in this book that will keep me learning.

For Dummies and Smarty-Pants too!
Winslow Yerxa and team produced what may be the best book about harmonica yet. He really covers the whole range of issues with harp which I've encountered in my almost 40 years of playing blues harp purely from feel, and he demonstrates with words that which normally defies explanation.

Yerxa's intellect and humor animate the organization, writing, and tone of the tome, making it both entertaining, and eminently readable, even for a poor book-learner such as myself!

Congratulations on creating a super-resource for our fine and enigmatic instrument!

Comprehensive
"Wow! This book is very comprehensive." That is the comment I hear most often after someone takes a look at this book.

The book is, indeed, very comprehensive and well written. All topics are taught in a manner respecting the intelligence of the reader.

The harmonica can be one of the most expressive instruments. There is much to learn from taking care of it, tuning it, playing it, to some music theory to understand why things work. This book covers that and much, much more.