Product Review

Dynamic rhythm technique is as important for blues harpers to know as lead playing, and Peter Madcat Ruth is a master of this genre. On this entertaining and enlightening lesson, he teaches the driving rhythms, percussive sounds and other traditional back-up techniques that will propel your blues harmonica playing to new heights.

Through a series of interactive exercises, progressing from the most basic concepts to advanced polyrhythms, you’ll explore a variety of techniques for getting your harmonica going as a rhythm instrument. Madcat breaks down the complexities of breath control by teaching his own unique system of spoken syllables. These will be the building blocks that you’ll use to construct the foot-stomping drive that characterizes so many of the great harp players, from Sonny Boy Williamson to Sonny Terry.

Madcat teaches his "home base" rhythm (so called because you can always come back to it after improvisational adventures), train sounds, the boogie-shuffle ("John Lee Hooker style"), Sonny Terry’s dramatic "hoots and hollers" and other compelling rhythmic variations. Along the way you’ll acquire essential harp techniques such as tongue rolls, hand wah-wah, articulated percussive sounds, and much more.