9 Harmonica Riffs

What the heck should you play to impress someone?

I went on a mission to find out…

First, I spent days scouring harmonica internet forums, Facebook groups, and asking my pro harmonica friends for their “play me something” riffs, and I compiled a gigantic list.

Then I recruited a bunch of “normal people”, non-musicians of different ages, backgrounds, and geographical regions to listen to all these riffs, and rate which ones they actually found impressive.

Out of all those riffs, there were 9 that obviously rose to the top. 

9 riffs that actually made them go “woah, that’s cool” – without even having a backing track.

So if you can get these 9 harmonica riffs in your back pocket, you’ll be insured for life to impress anyone who asks you to play something.

#9Hoochie Coochie Man

This version of the song was in the key of A, and was actually played in 1st position on an A harmonica. Here are the harmonica tabs:

That’s 👆🏼 actually a great riff to practice your -3’ half-step bend, and it’s the most common way the riff has been played on recordings thru the years.

However, I find that playing this song in 2nd position is a lot of fun, like you hear it in this live version:

There’s more bending, and it’s fun to go to a -45 trill when the band goes the IV chord. Here are the harmonica tabs for playing Hoochie Coochie Man in 2nd position, if you’re comfortable with the -2” whole-step bend:

When playing this riff alone, it’s fun to put in some fills in between. In the video I played 3 different fills: chord bombs, “the answer phrase” (from my Blues for Beginners lesson) and a trill. Here are the tabs:

And if you can’t bend at all, you could even play this simpler riff from another Muddy Waters classic, Mannish Boy:

This riff has such a similar vibe, requires no bending, and people are still gonna be stoked and think you’re amazing. Need help learning it? It’s the 3rd song I teach right here.

But normal people will think you’re 1/9th even MORE amazing if you can play the 8th most impressive riff…

Because Hoochie Coochie Man is cool, man 😎. But it’s basically just 5 notes, and if you’re looking for a more meaty entrée to serve up to your listener, this next song’s definitely got the goods, and that’s why the #8 harmonica riff is gonna take more Work. Song.

#8Work Song

If today is your first day playing the harmonica, I actually discovered a way for you to play the basic idea of Paul Butterfield’s riff from Work Song, in my lesson 3 Stupidly Simple Blues Riffs for Beginners, and beginners have been stoked to tell me how much they’ve impressed their friends with it.

Here are the harmonica tabs for Work Song, played on a Bb Harmonica, in 2nd position, key of F:

But it takes more than just playing the notes and rhythms of the riff to actually impress someone.

The secret to really hitting Work Song full steam is to play with attitude.

You’ve gotta project confidence, dig in and hit hard!

Now Paul Butterfield COULD play ANYTHING quietly when he wanted to, and actually it is GOOD to PRACTICE quietly like this because it puts more demand on your technique and gives you ultimate dynamic control as he talks about in his masterclass:

But when it comes time to perform, that’s when you gotta let it rip. In the great Paul Butterfield documentary ‘Horn From the Heart’, Butterfield’s Saxophone player, David Sanborn, says that being on stage with him was “like a hurricane”.

So to fully impress someone, really slam the chord, wake ‘em the heck up, and then give each note some serious juice!

Match the intensity of the harmonica riff as played by Paul Butterfield.

Both Hoochie Coochie Man and Work Song are great intermediate harmonica workouts, requiring the ability to play clean single notes with solid rhythm, swung 8th note syncopation, and bends. All stuff you learn in detail in my step-by-step Beginner to Boss course.

As we move to the 7th most impressive riff, we’ll be hitting what may be the most ADVANCED riff on our list.

(But hang in there beginners, because the #1 song may actually be the easiest to play! 🤯)

Although it is the oldest melody of the group, it still blew young and old minds alike. And this was definitely the riff that took me the most practice to be able to pull off, and that’s because it actually requires two mouths to play it.

#7Beethoven Violin Concerto

So how do you turn one mouth into 2?

This is one of the magical superpowers of tongue blocking – when we are using our tongues to block notes on the harmonica, we can play note to the right of the tongue and/or to the left of the tongue, thereby turning one mouth into two.

This harmonica arrangement of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto was created by one of the most innovative harmonica virtuosos of all time, Mr. Howard Levy, who says he developed the piece “on very long car rides”, and that it was based on the popular cadenza written by acclaimed violinist Fritz Kreisler which you can hear here:

Here are the harmonica tabs for Howard Levy’s rendition of the Beethoven Piano Sonata, exactly as I played it in the video on a G harmonica, 1st position, key of G:

Please note that in the first 2 lines of tabs (which are repeated verbatim in lines 5 & 6) the top note is NOT articulated each time it’s written.

So, for example, in line 1 the first 3 notes you HOLD the 5 out of the right corner of the mouth, while switch from 1 to 2 back to 1 out of the left corner of your mouth. 

Before you try to play this piece, it’s best to first learn only the simple melody played out of the right corner of your mouth. (Also, if you want to one day add this piece to your arsenal of “impress-me” riffs, learning the melody now is a great first step.)

Here are the tabs for JUST THE MELODY of the Beethoven Violin Concerto:

If you can play that out of the right corner of your mouth, you have taken a huge step toward one day being able to pull off the entire arrangement.

BTW – if you’re unfamiliar with tongue-blocking and you wanna try it, check out my Beginner Tongue-Blocking Lesson. 

But now let’s get back to our one-mouth riffs, and check out #6, yet another melody that’s endured through centuries, this one is way easier though.

It’s supposedly the most performed song in the English language. It’s been played by…. well, everybody.  And all of our normies found it Amazing…

#6Amazing Grace

Here are the harmonica tabs how I played it:

But if you haven’t mastered bending yet, and you wanna add this to your play-me-something repertoire, let me let you in on a little secret:

Check out my lesson on 4 Levels of Amazing Grace, and skip straight to level 2, where I teach how to play it in 12th position.

That’s an unusual position, but this melody just happens to sit perfectly there. No bends required. You can play it expressively, and loads of beginners have commented over the last year and told me that they’ve found that this is actually the easiest way to play it.

You know, when I was guessing which harmonica riffs people would find most impressive, 🤔I assumed there would be a lot of sing-along songs, cuz people love choruses they can sing along with, like Somewhere Over the Rainbow, which I thought would totally smash (and secretly hoped it would because it’s one of my favorite songs to play on harmonica).

But it didn’t actually do that well compared to more active harmonica-centric riffs like the next up, the 5th most impressive play-me-something riff, according to the official and incontrovertible data of our incredibly scientific test 😉 :

#5Love Me Do

Half a century later, the Beatles still hold the record for the most No. 1’s on the Billboard Hot 100.

John Lennon was a huge fan of Robert Johnson, B.B. King, and Muddy Waters, and you can definitely hear that bluesy influence in this wailing lick.

But for a beginner who is learning to isolate notes this is a great beginner song because it doesn’t require any bending. Here are the harmonica tabs:

I wanna also give 3 bonus points to John Lennon, one for the quarter-note triplet hand wah’s on his second time playing the riff, and one for his “snore technique” on the blow 5 on the third time riff, which I think he accomplishes with a Spanish style tongue roll.

I go over that stuff in more detail in my free harmonica lesson: 8 Beatles Riffs on Harmonica.

By the way, Amazing Grace, Love Me Do, and Hoochie Coochie Man are just a few of over 40 songs I break down step-by-step in my course, Beginner to Boss.

And now if you’re a beginner, here’s one of the moments that I’m excited for, because the main part of our #4 killer riff requires no tongue-blocking, no bends and is played by the man whom Joe Filisko has called  “the greatest harmonica player of the 20th century”, the late great Sonny Terry.

#4Sonny Terry Chording

Here are the harmonica tabs for what I played on this rendition of Whoopin’ the Blues:

That’s the meat of this riff, and requires no tongue-blocking, bends, or ability to play single notes.

Of course it’s still very easy to play this groove in a most unimpressive way.

And, just because a rank beginner can learn this groove, doesn’t mean one should expect to just learn it overnight. These grooves take some serious time to master. But the payoff will be HUGE.

And I’m gonna talk you through 4 levels to mastering Sonny Terry Chording.

Level1Memorizing the syllables
Yuh Duh Who He Yaw Tee Yuh Who Do Uh

When I was learning these harmonica grooves, I wrote these syllables on a note in my iPhone so that I could always go back and look (whenever I would invariably forget them).

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Level2Whispering the syllables
with the right air direction

INHALING on ALL of the syllables, except for “Who” and “Who Do.”

Since playing blues on harmonica is 80% drawing, and only 20% blowing, Level 3 is a game changer… 

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Level3Play from lower in your lungs
The Nose Push

Running out of air and overfilling with air BOTH trigger the asphyxiation reflex, but OVERFILLING is MUCH WORSE of a feeling than running out. 

You can stay much more relaxed with your lungs closer to empty than you can with your lungs closer to full.

Most harmonica are playing with too much air in their lungs – they’re playing from too high in the lungs, the lungs are getting too close to full

The Masters like Sonny Terry are never allowing their lungs to get that full – they’re playing from lower in their lungs.

So how do we play from lower in our lungs? I’m glad you asked! 

The NOSE PUSH is the key that really unlocks all rhythmic grooving on the harmonica, 

On our blow notes we have to expel as much air out of our lungs as we can, as quickly as possible using this technique called the Nose Push.

Try blowing out forcefully through your nose at the same time as whispering while we say “Who” and “Who Do”.

This takes practice, and is something that you can slowly improve at with time and attention.

And then, finally, what makes this actually GROOVE is…

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Level4Accenting the backbeats
Spoiler, they’re all DRAW notes

Most popular music we count “1,2,3,4” over and over, and beats 2 & 4 are called the backbeat, and so in our harmonica groove we would accent:

Note that ALL the accents are DRAW notes. So hitting these notes EVEN HARDER is gonna increase the amount of air our lungs take in, making the Nose Push technique EVEN MORE indispensable.

If you wanna get REALLY DEEP into Sonny Terry’s technique, I highly recommend Joe Filisko’s study song Chasin’ Lost Sonny. Without this invaluable resource, I never would have been able to learn this style, and I’m forever grateful to Joe Filisko for his colossal effort to make this available for the rest of us.

Now moving on, I wanna give a shot out to the great harmonica play Hank Shreve for suggesting the riff that takes 3rd place among the normal people.

It starts with the New Orleans-vibe clave rhythm that I teach in my free harmonica lesson on Chords for Beginners, and then from there, the saints go marching in…

#3When The Saints Go Marching In

Here are the harmonica tabs for this great New Orleans-vibe version played on a G harmonica, in 2nd position, key of D:

And here are the harmonica tabs for a zero-bends-needed rendition of When the Saints Go Marching:

I think it still sounds pretty legit. Especially if you bend up into the notes a bit like on “Oh how I want” – I’m just playing three -3’s instead but they sound so much cooler if you can bend into them a bit by saying  “dwah” or “kyuh”.

And in fact I’d recommend using those articulations on ALL the draw notes on this melody!

And now it’s time to put on your big kid pants…

Are you ready to have your hair blown back? Because the 2nd most impressive riff is loaded with fast bends and they Just. Keep. Going.

#2Stone Fox Chase

This is our 2nd riff on the list that I think I’d rate a 9 or 10/10 for difficulty. Here are the harmonica tabs, played on an A harmonica in 2nd position, key of E:

When I was researching for this video and I came across this this riff, I was wondering who the heck is the harmonica player for Area Code 615? 

It all made sense when I learned that the band was made up of a group of Nashville session musicians who had named themselves after the area code of Eastern Central Tennessee, and that the harmonica player was none other than the legendary Charlie McCoy.

This surprised me because, I of course know that Charlie McCoy is one of the greats, but I always think of him in the context of country, and this really has a very bluesy vibe to it.

And now, THE MOMENT HAS ARRIVED!

If you’re a beginner, congrats on hanging in there because, believe it or not, I think our #1 most popular riff may also actually be the easiest one to play! 🤯

I’m guessing this is a riff you’ve never heard, and, if you’re like me, it might even be an artist you’ve never heard of. 🙈

According to our pinnacle-of-science tests, THE MOST impressive play-me-something riff is…

#1Goin’ Back South by Dr. Ross

Recorded in Memphis in 1952, and originally released on a record called Boogie Disease, you can find it on the record Dr. Ross – His First Recordings. Here are the harmonica tabs, played on an A harmonica in 2nd position, Key of E:

I’m ashamed to say that somehow I managed to play harmonica for 3 decades without having become aware of Dr. Isaiah Ross. But as you can see in this 1965 footage, this guy was the original one man band!

I wanna give a huge shot out to Adam Gussow for teaching me this riff. It’s really his rendition of the riff that was voted #1, and as a way of saying thank you I wanna mention that Adam recently finished writing a memoir called My Family & I: A Mississippi Memoir, which I pre-ordered and am looking forward to reading.

So how do you make sure that it actually comes off as impressive when you play this riff? Same rules apply:

• Nail the confidence with solid rhythm
• Nail the attitude by hittin’ hard

The meat and potatoes of this groove is a variation of the Little Walter Shuffle Groove I taught in my 5 Stupidly Simple Harmonica Grooves.

The shuffle simply goes like this:

That’s 👆🏼 literally exactly how we’re gonna start this groove, and we’re just gonna make one little tweak.

Instead of playing the last exhale, we are going to anticipate the inhale of the following bar:

So for the rest of the song we never play on the downbeat on beat 1. Instead we are playing on the “and” of 4, which means we’ll be starting that note a hair earlier and holding it a hair longer than the rest of them.

Now to help set that up, I’m gonna make our exhale on beat 4 a little shorter by saying “Tut”.

When I learned this killer harmonica riff, I had a hunch it might be an infectious groove, because my wife was picking me up one day, and I was playing the groove as I was walking to the car and she immediately started bobbing her head.

Once you’ve internalized this rhythm you can go back and learn the single note lines.

This 2nd single note line (-5 -5’ 4 -5’ -4)  is interesting because we say the -5 doesn’t bend – and it’s true that it doesn’t bend a true-half step, but I’ve still notated it in the tabs as half-step bend, and this is how Dr. Ross is playing it.

If you’re struggling with this basic chordal groove, I’d recommend going back and getting really comfy with the basic shuffle groove in 5 Stupidly Simple Harmonica Grooves. 

Once you can play that in your sleep, then come back and try this again.

Questions? Comments? Drop ‘em like they’re hot. And thank you for your dedication to playing harmonica, because it really does make the world a better place! 🌍❤️🎵