A Stupidly Simple Harmonica Solo

If you can play single notes, you can play this solo. No bending. No theory. No giant pile of memorized riffs. But guaranteed to impress.

When it’s time to solo, most people don’t run out of ideas. They have too many.

Your brain starts racing… Should I play this? Or this? Or that riff I practiced? 

And before you know it, the solo’s over.

Grab your C harmonica. Let’s get you ready to solo with confidence, starting with…

Everything starts right here. A small little pattern.

All we have to remember is Draw Draw Blow. You can remember that right? 😉

So we’ll draw on -2 then -3 then blow on 4. Draw Draw Blow.

Now stay on hole 4 and do Draw Draw Blow again.

So altogether it’s:

This particular group of notes is what I like to call “The Almost Blues Scale” which are the notes of the Blues scale that we can play on harmonica before we know how to bend. 

Today’s pattern builds the muscles to get you down the road toward being able to play the actual Blues scale. So pause here and play that a few times. Get it in your mouth, 👄 not just your eyes. 👀

Now we’re gonna come back down, starting at the blow 6.

And then stay right there on hole 4 and we’ll blow draw draw again.

Putting that all together and coming down.

Later on you can speed it up and it’s actually a cool lick! 😎

So let’s try and play the whole thing up and down:

Now we’ve been pausing on hole 4, for the purpose of memorization. But now that we have the pattern memorized, let’s just try and play it straight up and then straight down like this. 

Now we’re gonna add a couple low notes so that it feels more finished.

So the whole thing sounds like this:

If you can play that, CONGRATULATIONS!🎉 You already know EVERY note you’re going to use in your solo.

One warning: don’t depend on the tabs too much. Remember, you need to get it in your mouth,  👄 not just your eyes. 👀

But if you’ve got that down, then now it’s time to take this scale and really start to make it music…

We’ll do it with call and response which is how the blues tradition has been passed down from the very beginning.

You don’t have to copy me perfectly, just try your best. Stay inside the scale. Just move one note higher or lower.. Every phrase is gonna start on the -2.

All right, how did that go for you? If it was a strike out… Just stop right here, go back, and try again. Repetition is your friend. Remember, get it in your mouth,  👄 and not just your eyes. 👀

If you’re up for the next challenge, now we’re gonna start on hole 6 and come down. Find hole 6 by playing 1 hole at a time and counting. Got it? Let’s go!

Was that a little tougher, starting from the 6? This is literally like lifting weights at the gym. 💪🏼

For our last set of call and response reps we’re gonna start from -1.

If you’re enjoying this, and if you’d like it even better at a slower pace, then check out my step-by-step course Beginner to Boss. 

Now that you’ve been able to follow me, in Level 3, you’ll start making your own choices.

Improvising sounds mysterious, but we’re gonna make it super concrete.

We’re starting with one tiny musical idea. 🎶

I like to call this the seed. 🌱 For example:

In our call & response in level 2, which phrase was your favorite? THAT would be a great phrase to use as your seed. As artists it is very important for us to pay attention to what we like, and what inspires us. ❤️

Now most beginners play one riff, panic, and shove every riff they can think of right after it. They overplay.

Let’s try using space instead. You just make a musical statement, and leave room for the band to answer.

Now repeat it with just one small change. For example:

By repeating it, and just altering it already sounds more like music. The phrases sound related.

Now for the third phrase, we’ll answer it. We’ll come back down, something like this:

Let’s repeat that too. And then re-state the seed.

So putting it altogether so far it could be something like:

So we’ve just used two tiny ideas. One goes up. ⬆️ One comes down. ⬇️ 

And with space and repetition we’re all the way through the beginning  and the middle of the 12-Bar Blues. 

Now the ending we’ll make it pop. We’re gonna just play the -4 six times.

You can add a “dwah” articulation and some hand wah if you want, and then we’ll finish it with the answer phrase again.

So putting that all together the solo could sound like this:

You just played a full 12-bar blues solo, and you didn’t need 47 riffs! Just a few notes, space, and repetition. 

OK, now you know how to build a solo, but you still need to make your own version. Is the thought of it still feeling overwhelming? I gotchu. 👊🏼

The easiest way is to limit yourself. Put on a jam track and use only one note.

Seriously. 

Just. One. Note.

When you only have one note, rhythm has to do the work. You start playing shorter notes, longer notes, louder notes, softer notes. In other words, you start making music. Now you try it.

Let’s try it with 3 notes, say the -4, -5, and 6 for example:

That’s how you practice improvising without freezing. 

Make the box small. 

Try the same limitation of using only 3 notes with any group of 3 notes such as, -1 2 -2.

You could also try limiting yourself to only 4 notes, such as -1 2 2 -3, or -2 -3 4 -4, etc.

You can also flip it around. Use all the notes, but only one rhythm. For example the Bo Diddley clave rhythm:

That’s improvising. I didn’t stick to the rhythm perfectly. But the idea of the limit made me more creative.

One tiny idea played with good time and good tone will impress people way more than a giant pile of riffs played in panic mode.😆

To prove that this works in the real world, here’s me taking a solo with zero bends, using the same ideas form this lesson:

Boom. 💥 There’s your stupidly simple harmonica solo.

And now that you can build a solo from one idea, the next step is learning how to make your solos sound more emotional with bends.

If you’re ready to learn how to bend, I’ll show you that right here.

Please leave comments and questions below.

And whatever you do, keep on playing harmonica! Because it really does actually make the world a better place. 🌎♥️🎶