#WHAMMER JAMMER KEY PRO#

It is interesting to note that though whammers consider themselves the opposite of mainstream people, their groups are actually more cliquish than many other groups. A common behavior of their kind is to scare people out of picking on them by acting like they might shoot up a school or shopping mall. It is an appropriately derogatory term for geeks that adopt any of these social stereotypes in an attempt to fit in to a group. How would it work using an F harmonica in second position? The exploration continues! All details are at is a term that refers to rejects, particularly of the goth or punk variety, as well as emo-kids. The melody is fairly simple to play, and improvising works well using a C major pentatonic in first position. Those chords can all be played on a C harmonica (with Am and F being two-note chords). I can’t quite understand how with such simple chords - C, G, Am, F - Bob Marley has found such poignant and uplifting melodies.

The songs we are working on right now are ‘No Woman, No Cry’ and ‘Redemption Song’. I didn’t know about some of these forms, and I want to explore rocksteady a bit more - it sounds excellent to me. I don’t know what happened to form ska, but the music has been slowing down since then. Where does reggae come from? My (simple) understanding is that it follows on from a long line of Caribbean folk music starting with mento, which became calypso and, in turn, ska, two-tone, rocksteady, and finally reggae. Why do they both sound good? The scales use the same notes. What about an improvising scale? G major pentatonic (GABDE) sounds good, as does the E minor pentatonic (EGABD). The next thing to explore is playing the root notes and adding a short flick to the neighbouring hole and back - up or down is all good depending on your taste. The B minor chord can be partially played using B and D on holes 3&4, and the E minor chord can be partially played using E and G on holes 2&3. Using a C diatonic, we can easily play the G chord on holes 12&3. It’s a nice relaxed groove to chug along to using those chords. (It has a bar of G (you need to change the song key to G), a bar of B minor, and two bars of E minor in a repeated pattern of sixteen bars.

#WHAMMER JAMMER KEY PRO#

Next, we use a groove called ‘Sunshine Reggae’ on iReal Pro - that’s a free backing track program I’d recommend. This works nicely - one ‘chucka’ three ‘chuck’. Using chordal chugging to pulse on beats two and four is a great place to start. In the class, we start with rhythm and groove. All details are at I will be repeating these classes later in the year, so register on that site to get an alert and be in the loop if you fancy it.

The others are ‘Learning Whammer Jammer’ and ‘Basic Blues Level 1’. I lean over to the bass player, “What should I play?” “Just get in the groove.” “Yes, but what do I actually play?” “Anything, just get in the groove.” So, this month, one of my three live classes on Zoom has been ‘Exploring Reggae’. Ben Hewlett Vice-President No idea about the structure, chords, lyrics, or soloing style required. I’ve got this …what key, which position, which harmonica …what am I supposed to play? HARMONICA I know the song enough to sing the chorus but no more than that. After the strains of ‘The Thrill is Gone’ and the applause fade, the next song starts, and it’s Bob Marley’s ‘No Woman, No Cry’. Until one night, when I was playing with a blues band in Kanchanaburi (the town that contains the famous ‘Bridge on the River Kwai’) in Thailand.

Whammer jammer key