2 Stupidly Simple Bob Dylan Harmonica Riffs

Do you want to instantly add soul, emotion and that raw Dylan feeling to your playing?

You don’t need fancy techniques to sound like a folk legend – in under 10 minutes you’ll be playing these two stupidly simple but awesome Dylan riffs, starting with the easiest stuff first, and doing it all on a C harmonica.

#1Blowin’ in the Wind

So you’d need a D harmonica to play along with the original version from The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan record, but of course, as I mentioned before, we’re doing this Blowin’ in the Wind harmonica lesson on our C harmonica.

When you first begin on harmonica it’s difficult to learn how to isolate notes, so we’re gonna do this song using double-stops, which means playing 2 holes at a time. That makes it easier to play, but it also sounds great, and is characteristic of how folk harmonica players like Bob Dylan and Neil Young approach playing harmonica.

Since the refrain is probably the easiest part to play, let’s start here:

Here’s what that sounds like:

Now that you’ve got that, you can learn how to play the verse. Notice that there are 3 lines and they are all very similar. 

Mostly it’s just the ends of each line that is slightly different.

And on the third line we have a little pick up going into it with the words “yes and” but after that, it’s the same as the first 2 lines.

Here are the harmonica tabs in C for Blowin’ in the Wind verse and refrain:

And then on the original Freewheelin’ album, Dylan plays a little harmonica interlude after the first chorus, and I went ahead and tabbed that out for you as well:

And here’s what that harmonica interlude sounds like:

Now for maximum expressiveness, you’ll want to be able to play this whole melody on single notes, because I find ultimately that a combination of single notes, double-stops, and chords (3 or more notes played at the same time) produces the most satisfying result. 

Once you know how to isolate notes on the harmonica, it’s definitely worth practicing Blowin’ in the Wind this way as well. Here are the harmonica tabs in C for Blowin’ in the Wind using single notes:

Here are two Blowin’ in the Wind jam tracks for you to practice playing harmonica with. One is a slow speed like I do in the video harmonica lesson, and one is up to the tempo that Bob Dylan performed on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan record.

OK, if you’ve gotten that together, congrats! Now it’s time to level up…

#2Mr. Tambourine Man

If you wanted to try and play along with him, you’d need a F harmonica. F is one of the highest keys available on harmonica, and many people find it to be quite shrill. Another option if you wanted to play along with his singing in this recording would be to use a Low F harmonica. That would play in the range that he’s actually singing.

When he performed Mr. Tambourine Man live at the Newport Folk Festival in 1964, he did it a half-step lower, in the key of E, playing an E harmonica in 1st position, and I think he plays really nicely here:

You’d need an E harmonica to play along with this recording. 

But of course, for our Mr. Tambourine harmonica lesson,  we’re doing it on our C harmonica.

I’m gonna first teach this one using single notes. If you don’t know how to isolate notes, you can skip further down to where I provide Mr. Tambourine Man tabs using double-stops, or if you’d like to learn how to isolate notes you can check out my lesson on it here.

Now if you’ve checked out my lesson on harmonica scales, maybe you’re already sold on the power of learning scales.

If you’ve memorized the 1st position major scale in the middle octave, 

you’ll easily be able to see how all the notes in Mr. Tambourine Man are contained within that scale. For example, the first four notes of Mr. Tambourine Man are coming down from the blow 7:

I want to highlight something about the harmonica. Notice when we play up the major scale that we’re blowing first (followed by drawing) on holes 4-6, but then when we get to hole 7 it reverses, and we are drawing first (followed by blowing):

That’s something that we just have to get used to on the harmonica.

👉 Holes 1-6 the draws are higher than the blows

👉 Holes 7-10 the blows are higher than the draws.

So we always have that reversal between hole 7 and hole 6, and that’s one of the reasons why practicing the major scale is a very helpful exercise on the harmonica.

Here are the complete tabs in C for Mr. Tambourine Man by Bob Dylan:

Here’s what that sounds like:

Now, as I mentioned before, when I’m playing in this folk style, I like to combine single notes with double stops and chords, just like Bob Dylan does.

It’s always a great exercise to learn to play melody on single notes, but ultimately in the folk style it’s nice to include double-stops and chords. Let’s now learn Mr. Tambourine Man on harmonica using double-stops, we just have to avoid the alarm-clock sound of playing -6 and -7 at the same time! 

Remember that place where we switch from draws being higher to blows being higher?

👉 Holes 1-6 the draws are higher than the blows

👉 Holes 7-10 the blows are higher than the draws.

That point of reversal is the spot we want to avoid when playing double stops.

We’ll achieve this by adding a note above the melody for “Hey Mister”:

And then we’ll be adding a note below the melody for “Tambourine Man” onwards. And it actually sounds real nice.

So it’s always a good exercise to learn how to play a melody as single notes, and then I think it makes it sound richer if we add in some double-stops, and we can experiment with adding a note above the melody or a note below the melody, and find the sounds that are most satisfying to us personally.

❗ And in most cases we’ll probably want to avoid that alarm clock sound of -6 and -7 

So here’s the harmonica tabs in C for Mr. Tambourine Man by Bob Dylan:

Here’s me playing Mr. Tambourine Man on a C harmonica, using double-stops:

And here are jam tracks for Mr. Tambourine Man, slow like I did in my video harmonica lesson, and also one up to record tempo:

This is one of over 40 songs I teach step-by-step in my Beginner to Boss course.

If you want more lessons in this style check out my lesson on Heart of Gold by Neil Young or Piano Man by Billy Joel.
Please leave any questions or comments below, and please keep on playing that harmonica because it really does make the world a better place! 🌍❤️🎵