Introduction to Level 3 Harmonica
Level 3 CORE (4 titles), and Non-Core Instrumentals $10
The Level 3 player is generally someone with six months or more playing experience and has a developing degree of confidence in:
- Organ sustain and train whistle sustain
- Throat tremolo and chordal effects
- Hard shuffle chording and chord bombs
- Train Imitation
- Clean, single tongue blocked notes with good posture and hand positioning
- The twelve-bar blues structure
- Can correctly play from memory some of the songs from level 2
4 titles (each CORE melody has a level 3 study)
Level 3 - General lesson (non core) material introduces a wide variety of challenging repertoire with basic bending and more tongue blocking. Challenges including split-4 octaves, the explosive attack of the vamping/slapping, and more chordal effects. You will learn how to incorporate dirty notes and encounter greater breathing challenges.
32 titles and counting
Advanced Harmonica
Level 3 Advanced $10
These are the instrumentals to study after you have memorized the Level 3 CORE songs and many of the non-core Level 3 songs. These are not part of the CORE Curriculum and spread out into more diverse repertoire, such as less common grooves, non-12 bar forms, and six other playing positions besides 2nd position. They are all longer, have many more bending challenges and much more challenging solos and breathing demands.
24 titles and counting
Most Advanced Harmonica
Level 3 Plus CORE Instrumentals $10
The Level 3-Plus instrumentals fall into the Level 3 Most Advanced category but are also the highest level of difficulty of the CORE group of instrumentals Boogie, Bird, E-Z and 5-Hole. After you have the Level 3 versions correctly memorized, working on these "Plus" versions will present the MUCH higher level of difficulties that are typical for Chicago Blues Harmonica styles. These have much greater bending and breathing challenges with more complicated phrasing and rhythms.
4 titles (each CORE melody has a 3-Plus study)
most advanced Harmonica
Level 3 Most Advanced $10 / $20
The "Most Advanced" category consists of older instrumentals I created, but soon realized they had too many challenges and are definitely NOT intermediate level, usually due to the skillful bending required, or the extreme demands of controlled breathing. Most of these have poor breathing notations as compared to current Filisko songs. Many are in the “Archived" category. They remain for sale because they are a valuable part of the advanced players repertoire, and all serve a notable purpose in the blues harp world. These songs are the blues harp equivalent of skillfully spinning many plates at the same time and not letting any fall.
12 titles and counting