Chapter 6

Creating Blues Harmonica Licks and Riffs

In This Chapter

Synchronizing breath changes and hole changes

Playing riffs and licks

Using pathways to explore licks further

Coffee and cream are wonderful on their own, but put them together and they are, as the French say, formidable! Your harmonica playing also becomes formidable when you can simultaneously move from one hole to another while changing between inhaled and exhaled breath directions.

In this chapter, you start synchronizing hole changes and breath changes. Then I introduce you to licks and riffs, the building blocks of blues melody. I also show you a powerful way to connect existing building blocks and to generate new ones by using pathways.

Combining Breath Changes and Hole Changes

In Chapter 5, I show you some simple phrases that require you to either change your breath direction or move from one hole to another, but never both at once. Now it’s time to synchronize these actions so you can really get moving on some blues licks.

Taking your first step

In Tab 6-1, you prepare your first synchronized hole change and breath change. First you take an indirect note, using simple moves to reach the notes you’re about to combine. Then, making your decisive move, you combine two actions into one:

1. You start with a simple breath change in a single hole, going from Draw 4 to Blow 4 and then back to Draw 4.

2. Then you make simple hole changes on a single inhaled breath, going from Draw 4 to Draw 3 and back again.

3. Now that you’ve marked out the territory, combine a hole change with a breath change: Go from Draw 3 to Blow 4 and then go back and forth a few more times.

Tab 6-1: Combining a breath change and a hole change.

You can hear and play along with Tab 6-1 on Track 9.

As you make these daring leaps, you may get unexpected results:

You may change holes before you change breath direction. You’ll reach your target hole and sound a note that you didn’t intend to play.

You may change breath direction before you change holes. You’ll sound an unintended note in your starting hole before you move anywhere.

Strive to change breath direction and hole simultaneously so that the only notes you hear are Draw 3 and Blow 4. However, if you do hit an unintended note, listen to the effect; you may like it and want to use it later when you’re not trying for a precise, clean change.

Always listen to the effects that you create through mistakes or actions you stumble on without meaning to. Although no reliable statistics have been compiled, I wouldn’t be surprised if at least 50 percent of all great blues harmonica playing effects were discovered by accident.

To hear the Draw 3-Blow 4 move in real-life blues, listen to the introductions to two Little Walter tunes, “My Babe” (played on a Bf harp) and “Blues with a Feeling” (played on a D harp). Though Walter adds some fancy frills, he uses the same basic move between Draw 3 and Blow 4.

Extending the pattern

In this section you try the same move from the preceding section but you start in a different hole. Tab 6-2 takes you traveling through the area between Hole 3 and Hole 6.

1. In the first line, you go directly to the move you made at the end of Tab 6-1.

2. In the second line, you shift one hole to the right and make the same move between Draw 4 and Blow 5.

3. In the third line, you shift one more hole to the right and make the same move between Draw 5 and Blow 6.

4. In the fourth line, you step back through the notes you just played to arrive at your starting move.

Tab 6-2: Extending the hole change–breath change ­pattern.

You can hear and play along with Tab 6-2 on Track 10.

Tab 6-3 is “Easy Strides,” a blues tune that uses the actions from Tabs 6-1 and 6-2.

Tab 6-3: “Easy Strides.”

You can hear Tab 6-3 on Track 11.

Getting Acquainted with Licks and Riffs

When you play the blues, you use short sequences of notes called licks and riffs as building blocks for longer musical statements.

Both riffs and licks usually emphasize the notes of the chord being played in the background. Blues musicians often emphasize the notes of the home chord (the I chord), even when another chord is being played; blues tends to stick close to home in this way.

You can emphasize a note in several ways:

By playing the note on the beat instead of between two beats.

By playing the note on one of the strong beats in the bar (the first and third beats).

By holding the note for a long time.

By repeating the note.

By using a special effect, such as a bend, to bring attention to the note.

By playing the note louder than other notes.

Sometimes, instead of emphasizing a note that belongs to the underlying chord, you emphasize a note that creates tension, such as a non-chord tone or a blue note (see Chapter 3 for more on blue notes). Tension creates interest and a sense of movement. When you resolve a tension note to a chord tone, you create a sense of relief.

Discovering five common blues riffs

Riffs often help define the signature sound of a tune, and you usually repeat them several times in a verse of a song. Examples include a catchy rhythmic bass line that immediately identifies a tune before you hear the melody or a repeated melodic line played by melody instruments behind a singer.

Tab 6-4 shows you five of the most common riffs that most blues musicians know. Some of these riffs include bent notes; to play those, you may want to develop your bending skills with Chapter 11.

The first riff is a common bass line that’s also often played by melody instruments. It uses the home note as both the lowest note (Draw 2) and the highest note (Blow 6) and places both home notes on the strong first beat.

The second riff is a common swing-era, big-band riff that has also been used in harmonica instrumentals such as Snooky Pryor’s “Boogie” and, in a slightly altered version, Little Walter’s “Juke.” Like the first riff, it begins and ends on the song’s home note, rising to place the final home note on the first beat of the bar.

John Lee Hooker often used the third riff, as did the band Canned Heat, notably on the song “On the Road Again,” featuring the harmonica of Alan “Blind Owl” Wilson. Sonny Boy Williamson II also used this riff for the instrumental backing to his song “Help Me.”

The fourth riff is often played behind a singer, who sings between each riff. Muddy Waters’ “Hoochie Coochie Man,” featuring Little Walter on harmonica, is probably the most famous of many songs to use this riff.

The fifth riff also punctuates statements by a singer. Bo Diddley used this riff most famously in “I’m a Man,” with Billy Boy Arnold on harmonica.

Tab 6-4: Five common blues riffs.

You can hear all the riffs in Tab 6-4 on Track 12.

Getting your licks in

Licks tend to be shorter than riffs, and you can play them anywhere within a song and combine them with other licks in different sequences at will. Often a solo by a guitarist or harmonica player is just a showy, well-crafted series of licks.

In Tab 6-3, the first three notes you play in the first bar form a lick that you repeat in the second bar and then extend into a longer lick in the third and fourth bars. In the second four bars, you play different notes, but you also play a three-note sequence, repeat it, and then extend it into a longer lick. In the last four bars the pattern of short bursts is replaced by a long, seamless musical line that lasts most of the four bars.

Every blues instrument — from the guitar to the piano to the harmonica — has its characteristic licks that are convenient to play on that instrument and sound good. Every blues musician knows dozens, perhaps hundreds, of standard licks and has probably made up a few as well. And each player strings licks together in her own individual way. Over time you’ll absorb a lot of standard licks just by listening to blues records and performances and then picking up a harmonica and trying to imitate what you hear.

Building Licks and Riffs with Pathways

When you want to get from one place to another, you might map out your route. Different routes let you see different sights, and you may make several stops along the way to visit different people or businesses. Each of those stops can be its own mini-trip. On some days you may traverse only one or two parts of the route, and on other days you might go the whole distance.

When you play blues, different licks are like those mini-trips, and a pathway is the entire route. Each pathway may have its own mood or character, like the sights along a particular route. Sometimes each step along a pathway employs the same set of breath and hole changes, just moved one hole to the left or right for each leg of the journey.

In this section I show you a few key pathways, and by playing them you’ll discover how to play several common, useful licks that you often hear when you listen to other harp players. You can also use pathways to explore and to come up with your own original licks.

Creating a pathway

Tab 6-5 shows a pathway that I’ll call Pathway No. 1. It extends from Draw 1 to Draw 6. It ends at Hole 6 because Holes 7 through 10 follow a different note layout. To follow this pathway, you use a consistent series of actions.

To go up in pitch, you use a repeating pattern of draw, then shift, and then blow:

1. You play a draw note in your starting hole.

2. You shift one hole to the right and play a blow note.

3. After the blow note, you can stay in the same hole and start the sequence again with another draw note.

To come down, you use a pattern of draw, then blow, and then shift:

1. You draw and then blow in the same hole.

2. Then you shift one hole to the left and repeat the sequence.

Tab 6-5 also includes some licks derived from Pathway No. 1.

You can hear Tab 6-5 on Track 13.

Most of Tab 6-1 follows Pathway No. 1.

Tabs 6-2 and 6-3 both follow Pathway No. 1 but move around along the pathway to create licks and longer lines.

In Tab 6-2

Each of the first two measures contains a one-bar lick, and the last two bars contain a longer lick that uses the same back-and-forth movement.

The second and third lines do the same things as the first line, using different pairs of holes but all along the same pathway.

The last line continues to follow the pathway but strings several one-bar licks together to create a longer line. Each of the first three one-bar licks uses identical moves but plays them in a different pair of holes, shifting one hole to the right each time.

Tab 6-5: Pathway No. 1.

In Tab 6-3, you can see the method I use in Tab 6-2 to construct a 12-bar blues melody: short licks and then longer extensions, ending in an extended line that follows the same path.

A famous harmonica instrumental that follows Pathway No. 1 pretty closely is Big Walter Horton’s “Easy.”

Tab 6-6 shows another, shorter pathway that can generate several blues licks, together with a few of the common licks that follow that pathway.

Tab 6-6: Pathway No. 2.

You can hear Tab 6-6 on Track 14.

By the way, if you go around talking to other harmonica players about “Pathway No. 1” or “Pathway No. 2,” you’ll probably get some strange looks. These pathways aren’t inscribed in some secret book of blues rules. I’m just using these names as convenient labels.

Finding short pathway licks

Most pathways contain chord notes and non-chord notes that act as connectors between the chord notes. Short licks concentrate on as little as one chord note and one non-chord note or perhaps as many as three of each. When you explore a pathway, try to

Concentrate on a short stretch of the path.

Emphasize chord notes but also experiment with emphasizing non-chord notes.

Play around with different beginning and ending notes for the lick. The beginning and ending note can be the same — you can go away from your starting note and come back to it.

The lick can move in one direction — up or down — or can move both up and down.

You can leap from point to point on the path. You’re not required to always proceed step by step through the scale.

You can keep repeating the same series of notes, cycling around in a rhythmic way.

Remember, paths aren’t rigid; they’re simply ways to explore the notes in your harmonica.

Extending pathway licks into longer lines

Many shorter licks follow one of the two pathways I describe in the earlier “Creating a pathway” section. However, when you create longer musical lines, you may or may not follow a single pathway. You might start on one pathway and end on another. No rules exist, and you’re free to mix and match to the extent of your creativity. The whole idea of pathways is to make the infinite possibilities a little easier to explore, not to trip you up with rules.

When you create a longer line, think of where you want it to start, how long you want it to run, and where you want it to end. Then try using the different pathways from the beginning note to the ending note. The more you do this, the more you’ll be able to identify what other players are doing when you hear them.