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Harmonica Lessons: "Ode to Joy"- Beethoven

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[MUSIC]
The next tune I'd like to play is a very

famous melody from Beethoven
the Ode To Joy from

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony
the last movement of it.

It's real pretty, it's actually
kind of a cosmic piece of music.

Harmonica, maybe it's so
cosmic playing a harmonica.

So the basic melody goes.

[MUSIC]

I think

you've

all head

that

melody.

I don't need to discuss the notes of it.

It's all within holes four,
[SOUND] four to six blow.

And it goes down [SOUND] to
either two draw or three blow,

whichever you wanna play.

[SOUND] That's three blow.

[SOUND] That's two draw.

Might be better to play three blow,
because you have to jump over fewer holes.

From four draw to three blow [SOUND] is
easier than [SOUND] four draw to two draw.

Even though one involves
the change of direction of breath.

These are the decisions that you
have to make as a harmonica player

when you're playing that G.

Which one do I wanna play,
which one sounds the best,

which one's the most useful.

So that's the Ode to Joy,

you can dress it up with hand vibrato,
[MUSIC]

whatever you want it to sound like,

not like a joke.

You can make it sound like a parody
if do too much wah wah wah stuff.

Then also, with this one, it sounds
really pretty if you just play it as

intervals instead of that row,
row, row your boat chordal thing.

This way is just expanding your embouchure
to play two holes, the adjacent holes.

The melody is on the top hole and
the harmony which is just a third blow.

[MUSIC].

And then its a fourth.

[MUSIC]
So

that's playing

the Ode to Joy

intervalistically

with just

thirds and

fourths.

Musical intervals are like the equivalent
of measurements on a ruler.

We have, one inch, two inch,
three inch, four inch on a ruler.

With intervals,
we describe the distances between notes

with terms like, a third,
a fourth, a fifth, a sixth.

The higher the number,
the larger the interval,

the more space there is
between the two notes.

So, for right now I'm just playing
simple intervals, thirds and fourths.

[MUSIC]
That's a fourth.

Everything else is thirds.

[MUSIC]

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