Beginner Harmonica Practice Exercises
Way back in around 2008 I wrote up a doc with a list of beginner harp exercises and practice riffs, at the time it was uploaded to a few forums and a shared Google doc - both have since disappeared. To this day I still get regular emails asking for a copy of it so I thought I’d copy it to a post here.
Note: I haven’t updated these since around 2011.

Sam McLeod

A collection of beginner harmonica practice exercises originally written around 2008, covering scales (blues scale, second position), vibrato, tone development, bending techniques, speed and breathing patterns, and a variety of riffs and licks. Includes tabbed notation for exercises ranging from basic scales to harder bends, plus general playing advice on timing, dynamics, and improvisation. Also contains an unfinished section with diatonic harmonica range exercises, rhythm drills, bending exercises, and octave exercises.

Beginner Harmonica Practice Exercises #

Practice Exercises (skip forward for the riffs) #