No 3 Draw? No Blues

Here’s the hard truth when it comes to playing cross-harp blues: If you don’t have a solid 3 hole draw in your arsenal you’ll never really be any good. But first let’s define our terms, or phrases.
Cross-Harp – Playing the harmonica in a key other than the key stamped on the harmonica. This applies, then, to 2nd through 12th positions. But cross-harp is almost always associated with 2nd position. And since that’s mainly what you’ll be playing if want to be a blues player it works out just fine for us. *3rd and 5th positions (tonic notes on the 4 draw and 2 blow respectively) are also used for minor blues and give your playing a haunting quality.

Solid 3 Hole Draw – The ability to accurately and cleanly transition to all of the available notes during a song.

The 3 draw has 4 distinct notes available. On a C harp they are: B (root), B flat (1/2 step bend), A (full step bend) and A flat (1 and ½ step bend). For a good tutorial on the mechanics of bending the 3 draw follow the link below:
http://www.harmonicaclub.com/common/note_bending_for_harmonica.htm

You probably won’t use the A flat very often but B, B flat and A are used all the time. (From what I’ve been told this is true for all harp keys in 2nd position. The tonic, ½ and full step bend are the money notes). When initially learning to bend the 3 draw you will invariably start at the tonic at work your way down until you find the 4 notes. Or you might start at the bottom and work up. This is really the only logical way to start out. But you will need to get to the point where you can hit that ½ step or full step bend when sliding up, or down, during a run. If you have to start at the tonic and bend down you’re not playing the tune. There is no easy way to get to this level of proficiency. You’re going to have to practice, properly, until you get to the point where muscle memory takes over. You’ll need patience, a lot of sweat equity and a chromatic tuner. Korg has a good one for around $20. Fire that baby up and just work on hitting that B flat clean. When you can do that seamlessly go to the A. After that slide up from 2 draw to the B flat or the A until you can do it without conscience effort. At some point you’ll realize that you don’t need the tuner because your ear has become tuned to those notes. Keep blowing and don’t get discouraged. If it were easy it would have no value.