Jon does teach beginner technique but he is much more about making music than blowing notes. It would be great to have a practical intro to the various blues, near-blues and blues derivative styles that all "real" musicians seem to know.
Good idea Jim, although it does step away from teaching how to play the harmonica (which is Jon's main object I believe) it is an important part when communicating with a band. Not only when you are trying to tell them what you want to play, but I also noticed that somebody in the band just "calls" the next tune, by saying " a slow shuffle in E". You can of course rip out your A harp and wait for the tune to set in and figure out what type of song it is, but it would be nice to know what everybody else is getting ready for (especially if you want to play an intro) Mind you, I've got very limited experience with playing with a band, but I guess that makes it an extra reason for me to want to know these things (kind of "getting being prepared" for when I do get out there)
So, although it's not really concerned with actually playing the harp, it is a kind of helpful skill for when you want to bring your harp playing to the next level and it would be a great follow-up lesson. Perhaps a cd or dvd which introduces these different types of "styles" , with 2 tracks of each type. One track with Jon playing along, and one version as a backing track, this way you'll kill 2 birds with one track. I'll order my cd/dvd today!
Hey Jon, had an idea for a new lesson and thought I'd pass it along to you. I began to see the need for this after a presentation we had at one of our harp club meetings on "playing with a band" and also at Jam Camp when you talked about communicating with the band in a jam situation.
One of the main things we have to do when telling a band what we want is to describe the "feel" or "groove" or "type" of song, or whatever you want to call it. Is the song a shuffle, texas shuffle, rhumba, boogie, one chord boogie, jump blues, swing, etc... A lot of us, myself included sometimes have trouble communicating this with other musicians. I'd love to see an audio or video lesson that talks about this and plays some examples of each of the common types that are used in blues.
This same lesson, or another one, could include a discussion of common blues forms. There is lots of stuff out there on the standard 1-4-5 12 bar progression. But how about a lesson covering this plus typical variations like the quick change, or with no turnaround, or with a 2-5-1 turnaround? Also how about some of the 8 or 16 bar versions that come up?
