A step by step guide to everything a beginner needs to know from buying a harmonica, putting the harmonica in your mouth, and holding your harmonica in order to play the harmonica with unspeakably beautiful tone from bending notes, warbling and caterwauling to making the harmonica cry like a baby.

"Learn to play America's 30 greatest songs, including a haunting Danny Boy, a blues-inspired America The Beautiful, and a side-splitting, lip-burning Turkey In The Straw. A compendium of harmonica lore including a special section on the blues."

The Harmonica Encyclopedia is the most comprehensive book ever written on the instrument, offering over 900 articles on players, bands, techniques, resources and a discography of over 5,000 recordings by harmonica players. Originallyreleased in 1998, this new edition is profusely illustrated with over 150 photographs of the players who have made the harmonica the world's most popular musical instrument. This book has been critically acclaimed by readers in over 25 countries and is a must-have for any serious harmonica enthusiast

Simply written for those with no musical theory or playing experience, teaches the basic techniques of playing harmonica in the country and blues styles.

The harmonica is one of the most traditional musical instruments in America. Millions are sold each year, but there are few high-quality, comprehensive instructional manuals for new harmonica players. This bestselling book has been completely updated, with dozens of new songs. • Over 100 songs, both traditional and original to this book. • Detailed instructions on playing, including photos to illustrate positions and techniques. • Buying tips and interesting historical facts about famous players. • Authors are professional musicians. • The most comprehensive music lists featuring nearly every style of playing and category of song. • Comprehensive resource guides.

How To Play The Pocket Harmonica is a concise manual which teaches you to get the most out of your harmonica. Beginning with a little harmonica history, picking your first harmonica and the basics of playing, you will be led step-by-step through to eventually playing in a variety of styles, including folk, blues, country, rock, jazz and pop. With illustrations and notation diagrams throughout, this little guide will get you wailing like Little Walter in no time.

Praised as "suave, soulful, ebullient" (Tom Waits) and "a meticulous researcher, a graceful writer, and a committed contrarian" (New York Times Book Review), Elijah Wald is one of the leading popular music critics of his generation. In The Blues, Wald surveys a genre at the heart of American culture. It is not an easy thing to pin down. As Howlin' Wolf once described it, "When you ain't got no money and can't pay your house rent and can't buy you no food, you've damn sure got the blues." It has been defined by lyrical structure, or as a progression of chords, or as a set of practices reflecting West African "tonal and rhythmic approaches," using a five-note "blues scale." Wald sees blues less as a style than as a broad musical tradition within a constantly evolving pop culture. He traces its roots in work and praise songs, and shows how it was transformed by such professional performers as W. C. Handy, who first popularized the blues a century ago. He follows its evolution from Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith through Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix; identifies the impact of rural field recordings of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charley Patton and others; explores the role of blues in the development of both country music and jazz; and looks at the popular rhythm and blues trends of the 1940s and 1950s, from the uptown West Coast style of T-Bone Walker to the "down home" Chicago sound of Muddy Waters. Wald brings the story up to the present, touching on the effects of blues on American poetry, and its connection to modern styles such as rap. As with all of Oxford's Very Short Introductions, The Blues tells you--with insight, clarity, and wit--everything you need to know to understand this quintessentially American musical genre.

From raw beginners to struggling intermediates, this highly informative love song to jamming and the blues helps the reader learn the basics of music theory and the I-IV-V chord progression from Adam and Eve in "The Night Music Was Discovered".

This guide to the literature is arranged by the following subject categories: background (black history and folklore); music of the blues; blues in American literature; blues interviews and biographies; blues in Great Britain; in Europe; how to play; discographies; filmography. Commentary by a blues scholar introduces each category. The guide selects books, journal articles, newspaper articles, dissertations, and phonograph record liner notes in English, French, German, Swedish, and Dutch. Coverage is through 1985. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR