Blues Harmonica Collection

Rating:
Summary: This is what you're looking for!
Review: If you're an aspiring blues harmonica player -- then this book is what you are looking for. It has ALL the songs that you're looking for by Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson II. The songs are all for cross harp, and are all notated in both hole-number-draw/blow notation, as well as regular G-clef notation, as well as all the chord changes. So whatever it is you're up to -- harp, guitar, keyboard -- this book has it all.

My one caveat is that you really should buy some accompanying CDs by Little Walter and Sonny Boy II as well. Playing these songs is more than just playing a bunch of notes in the right order. And it really helps to hear the rhythm of the songs, as well as hearing them played properly by their original artists.

Rating:
Summary: This is what you're looking for!
Review: If you're an aspiring blues harmonica player -- then this book is what you are looking for. It has ALL the songs that you're looking for by Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson II. The songs are all for cross harp, and are all notated in both hole-number-draw/blow notation, as well as regular G-clef notation, as well as all the chord changes. So whatever it is you're up to -- harp, guitar, keyboard -- this book has it all.

My one caveat is that you really should buy some accompanying CDs by Little Walter and Sonny Boy II as well. Playing these songs is more than just playing a bunch of notes in the right order. And it really helps to hear the rhythm of the songs, as well as hearing them played properly by their original artists.

Rating:
Summary: Worth its weight in gold!
Review: Most aspirring harp players start with an instructional book covering the basics of playing, notes, positions, a few simple riffs. Once you get past that you want to play some real blues and almost every instructional book teaches you how to play "Oh Suzanna" and "Frankie and Johnny". This book shows you in simple tablature how to play all of your favorites by Sonny Boy Williamson 2, Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf and more. Some songs are more difficult than others, but Love in Vain or Don't Start Me Talkin' are not much harder than Oh Suzanna and a lot more fun to play.

That is the kind of thing that keeps aspiring players interested. If you have the cd's you can play along (it helps)but you can really be playing some good blues in a matter of weeks instead of mastering "Frankie and Johhny"

Rating:
Summary: Best Blues Harp Book Ever!
Review: Most aspirring harp players start with an instructional book covering the basics of playing, notes, positions, a few simple riffs. Once you get past that you want to play some real blues and almost every instructional book teaches you how to play "Oh Suzanna" and "Frankie and Johnny". This book shows you in simple tablature how to play all of your favorites by Sonny Boy Williamson 2, Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf and more. Some songs are more difficult than others, but Love in Vain or Don't Start Me Talkin' are not much harder than Oh Suzanna and a lot more fun to play.

That is the kind of thing that keeps aspiring players interested. If you have the cd's you can play along (it helps)but you can really be playing some good blues in a matter of weeks instead of mastering "Frankie and Johhny"

Rating:
Summary: have mercy!
Review: The other reviewers have very well said how great this book is so I won't repeat what they have written. It is amazing though that this is about the only book of harp tab available although given the fact that harp isn't as pop culture as guitar this probably makes sense. There's another book of tunes out by Glen Weiser (also on Amazon) that I haven't checked out and even though it only has about half as many tunes as this collection does I will probably eventually get it. Weiser also has a collection of fiddle tunes, Irish and American, for harmonica in tab form. After I got this Blues Harmonica Collection I also got the "His Best" collections of both Sonny Boy Williamson and Little Walter which have a good many of the songs contained in the book. It may be a good idea to have at least a C, D, and an A harp which will let you play along with about 15 or so songs in the book that are in these keys. There may be a good chance you already know a bit about harp and have a few of these keys so of course my "tips" here are maybe only for more novice players. (like myself!) A good choice of harp if you're getting started may be the Hohner Special 20 or the Lee Oskar. They were both about 20 bucks if you shop around a bit online although I recently saw the Oskars go up about an extra 5 bucks almost everywhere all at the same time! They are really nice harps though. Only other thing I might add is to also highly recommend the Rock n Blues Harmonica book by Jon Gindick and the Bluegrass Harmonica book by Mike Stevens.

Rating:
Summary: Finaly a real bluesharp book with tabulature
Review: There are many good books that teaches you how to begin playing the bluesharp. They have some short harpsolos that you can learn to play, but they are usually to few. For a long time I've tried to find a book with bluessolos containing tabulature for harmonica and finaly I found this wonderful book called Blues Harmonica Collection. The book is not suiteble for beginners but if you've played the bluesharp for a while and know how to play bendnotes, this is probably a challange for you. There are chords, notes, text and harmonica notation of songs recorded by great harmonica players as Sonny Boy Williamson, Jimmy Reed and Little Walter for example. Many of the solos are difficult to learn but many of the songs are possible to listen to on record and that is a great help. But even if you don't have the records there are still many riffs and licks that you can learn from and practice. I have played the harmonica for a while but I've always had trouble with creating/building a nice solo - but this book has taught me alot about how some of the great harpplayers played their solos and fill-ins.

Rating:
Summary: Finaly a real bluesharp book with tabulature
Review: There are many good books that teaches you how to begin playing the bluesharp. They have some short harpsolos that you can learn to play, but they are usually to few. For a long time I've tried to find a book with bluessolos containing tabulature for harmonica and finaly I found this wonderful book called Blues Harmonica Collection. The book is not suiteble for beginners but if you've played the bluesharp for a while and know how to play bendnotes, this is probably a challange for you. There are chords, notes, text and harmonica notation of songs recorded by great harmonica players as Sonny Boy Williamson, Jimmy Reed and Little Walter for example. Many of the solos are difficult to learn but many of the songs are possible to listen to on record and that is a great help. But even if you don't have the records there are still many riffs and licks that you can learn from and practice. I have played the harmonica for a while but I've always had trouble with creating/building a nice solo - but this book has taught me alot about how some of the great harpplayers played their solos and fill-ins.

Rating:
Summary: Worth its weight in gold!
Review: Wow! Tons of material, excellent transcriptions, variety of difficulties, large format is very easy to read. I read music notation easily, and have no trouble following along with my recordings. If you only know harp tablature you may have to work harder to find the spot on the page with the lick you are trying to cop, but the tab notation is all there for you.

No discography in here that I could find, but "Essential Little Walter" and "Sonny Boy Williamson, His Best" will cover about half of the tunes in here. That's enough to keep me busy for a year or two.

What an incredible value. If you're ready to really study a huge load of licks and choruses by the masters, buy this book!