Boogie Rhythm on the Diatonic Harmonica

Hello, my name's Matt. What we're going to look at now is playing a very simple boogie rhythm on the diatonic harmonica.

Introduction to Boogie Rhythm

You'll have heard something like this if you've listened to any music from the past hundred years. I'll give you a quick demonstration. Sometimes it's called the shuffle rhythm, and sometimes it's called a boogie rhythm. Here, we're calling it a boogie rhythm, and it's quite straightforward if we approach it slowly.

This rhythm fits along with the 12 bar blues in the appropriate key, which as usual is G in this case. There will be some tab for this on the site that tells you which notes to play and when.

Choosing Your Starting Note

You've probably noticed, if you try to play the harmonica a bit, that two draw is a difficult reed to play. It's challenging to make the note sound good at first. We tend to get this, which isn't very good.

What we're looking for is this:

• Two draw and three blow are the same note; both are notes of G.
• The three blow is very stable; you can't really make three blow misbehave.
• However, two draw will go flat; it will go down in pitch with very little encouragement.

So, if you're struggling with two draw, and most people do when they first start, then use three blow instead because it's much easier to play.

Boogie Rhythm Structure

The boogie rhythm starts off with this melody line, and we get that twice. This covers the first four bars of the 12 bar blues. Then the chord changes, so we change the melody that we're playing.

1. Start from hole number four blow.

   • Play that once.

2. Play the first melody again just once.

   • This takes us to the end of bar number eight.

3. For bar number nine, breathe in holes four and five together and say "D D," but there's a beat in between the Ds.

It sounds like this, like so.

1. To finish off, we play a line that's very similar to the first line, except there's one note less, and we phrase the last three notes slightly differently.

It sounds like this, I'll play it again, like so.

When we put that all together, it follows a 12 bar blues, and it sounds quite good, quite melodic.

Demonstration

I'll play it for you nice and slow. If you want to join in, please feel free.

After a count of four:

1, 2, 3, 4.

And there you go!

Playing Along with the Guitar

Okay, folks, let's try playing the boogie rhythm along with the guitar. It will be after a count of four. You can either start on hole two draw or three blow, whichever one works best for you.

Here we go:

1, 2, 3, 4.

There!