Rick makes a good point. From my point of view, I feel I am teaching at a certain level, and if I were stop and explain the embellishes I do, or the flights of fun I allow to slip in, I feel I'd be losing my focus. So it is interesting and rewarding to be reminded on the need for detail. No problem!
I have building a membership site of videos and your ideas are grist for the mill.
Also, You can get some of this detail in my CD booklet Gospel Plow, where I explore only 6 songs in an hour cd, as opposed to Blues Your Melody, where I demonstrated 99 songs on one cd.
Regarding the original question: may I suggest you work with the tone and bending lesson at http://www.gindick.com/bending_tone.asp
And also see my videos, on Tube, and other places I post them.
Nicholas, Perhaps you mean chords and chugging? In some of the songs, on the CD Jon embellishes or "improvises" with chords and rhythmic chugging. Unfortunately, Jon does not always TAB those improvisations and, also unfortunately, does not always explain what he is doing to get that sound. Sometimes, if I listen repeatedly, to his recording, I can figure out what he is doing. (I guess one needs to work on developing one's ear for that.) Another method I just discovered is to slow down a song on the CD to better figure out what notes are being played. The freeware recording PC software Audacity gives you a way to slow down digital recordings without changing the pitch. Also, Band-in-a-Box (not free) has a way to do it.
Sorry about not stating which book I'm working out of. I have Bluesify Your Melody. I'm using a Marine Band, in the key of C of course. I guess the real problem that Im having is the fact that when I play the songs out of the book it sounds the same way it did when I first started playing. By that I mean, straight single notes...Im sure it would help if I could find a teacher
You didn't say which book ... I'm assuming one of Jon's books,maybe the Rock-n-Blues book?
The harmonica type won't make any difference in the sound. Any quality harmonica will work just fine. Examples are Hohner Special 20 or Golden Melody or Marine Band. Or maybe Lee Oskars. Or Delta Frost, or Suzuki ...
You won't sound like Jon does on the CD. It'll take a while to get there. Pay close attention to his comments on getting good tone (harp deep in the mouth, breathing, etc...) and eventually you'll get there.
No matter what I do I can't get that cross harp sound. So I've got two questions that might help me out. 1=what would be the best harmonica to use? 2=do I just use single notes when playing out of the book?
