I thought I’d kill 2 birds with one stone, in this first specific harmonica riff tip video.

After ‘The Beatles’ ‘Love Me Do’, ‘Heart Of Gold’ by Neil Young was probably the next most popular harmonica riff in the world of the 60’s and 70’s music. Last tuesday I was lucky enough to see the man himself play ‘Heart Of Gold’ just 30 feet away from me and my partner at the Trent Arena in Nottingham. The experience took me back to learning the harmonica at the age of 14 with my friend Sahin  who was learning guitar in our shared study at school. It occurred to me though that ‘Heart Of Gold’ is a great piece of music to demonstrate different aspects of harmonica riffing.

In this brief video I have tabbed (approximately) which holes to breathe out or in on when playing the famous Ist position riff. I say approximate because even Neil Young varies the riff from the original album recording. The important thing is the hole 5 breathe out to start with.

• 5 indicates breathing out of hole 5

• -5 is a draw note on hole 5

Then I play an alternative riff in cross position on a ‘C’ harmonica and finally on a natural minor harp ‘Am’ in cross harp position giving ‘Em’

I hope you will be inspired to jam along to your music collection by this video.