Bye Bye Bird - Sonny Boy Williamson - Detailed Visual Tab (Low D)

Sonny is using a Hohner Marine Band 364 Low D in this video. I'm a big fan of transcribing songs for lots of different instruments and I wanted to challenge myself by tackling this monster of a harmonica tune. A few notes about this transcription...

I) Can you use this video to learn the tune? Well.. kinda. The purpose of making this video wasn't so much to teach the tune, it was more about showing folks just how much is going on 'behind-the-scenes' when an experience player picks up a harmonica and starts to play. If you did want to try learning the tune using this vid, you could use youtube's 'slow down' feature to bring the speed down to 50%. The visual tab goes by pretty quickly at full speed. Why didn't I include a text tab? Well, this level of detail is impossible to show in a text tab. Once again, this isn't supposed to be a 'tutorial' video.

2) Yes, Sonny Boy is doing a lot more tongue-blocking then what is shown in the visual tab. I realized early on that it would be nearly impossible to tell exactly when he is using the tongue-blocking technique and when he is not. So, I decided I would highlight the tongue-blocked parts that are very obvious and tab the rest as if it were lip-pursed. Part of me thinks it is likely that the entire tune is tongue-blocked.

3) Yes, the harmonica shown on screen is not accurate to the one Sonny Boy is using (which had 12 holes). I did this because Sonny doesn't play any of the holes above hole 6. Instead of taking up more screen space by using a picture of a 12 hole harp, I decided to just use a 10 hole harp and save more screen-space for Sonny.

4) I'm not entirely convined that I have the main riff correct. Everyone has their own way of playing this tune and this is just another stab at trying to replicate what Sonny Boy was doing. After slowing the tune down to 25% and listening super closely, this is what I came up with.

Enjoy! I have fun making these kinds of videos so if you have suggestions for other tunes I could make a visual tab for, I'm all ears.

Видео Bye Bye Bird - Sonny Boy Williamson - Detailed Visual Tab (Low D) канала 2-Minute Harmonica - New Licks Every Week!