Overview

A harmonica tool for the command line, using microphone and speaker.

Harpwise supports your harmonica practice with scales, chords and licks. It offers various tools, an explorable quiz and may guide your jamming. It can be used with diatonic (richter) or chromatic harmonicas in different keys.

When invoking harpwise, the first argument on the command line specifies the mode of operation; it can be one of:

listen
The wise listens to your playing (e.g. for scales or bends) and helps to steer through a chord progression
quiz
Train your ear, memory and knowledge of music theory with more than 20 flavours; a fun way to start with harpwise
jamming
Scripted jamming along a backing-track
licks
Learn licks (some included, pointers for more) as a starting point for improvisations

And, less interactive:

play
The wise plays scales, holes, licks, intervals, chords, etc.
print
Print and annotate the holes or scales or licks given; in general everything, that the wise knows about
tools
More then 20 tools for various harmonica needs
samples
The wise assists in recording your own samples or generates them for you; this is a prerequisite for using some other modes, so you will be asked to invoke it, when necessary

to read more details, usage examples and options for the individual modes, invoke them without arguments, e.g. 

harpwise listen

After the first argument (which specifies the mode) some additional arguments may be given:

type
mostly 'richter' or 'chromatic' but other choices might be defined. If omitted, this defaults to 'richter'.
key
key of harp, e.g. 'c' or 'g' or 'af' (a flat) or 'ds' (d sharp). If omitted, this defaults to 'c'.
scale

scale on which you want to concentrate, e.g. 'blues', 'majorpentatonic' or 'full'; defaults to 'blues'.

Note, that most scales are notated in second position (e.g. key of g for a c-harp); you may use the option –transpose-scale to change this.

Also note, that scales can be abbreviated. This is useful for harmonica-charts (e.g. in mode listen); a chart shows a one-letter abbreviation of the scale, e.g. 'b' for 'blues'; for this you may supply your own letter after a colon, e.g. 'blues:B', which results in 'B' instead of the default 'b' beeing shown in charts.

Some modes (e.g. listen, licks, play) accept additional arguments on the commandline. See their individual usage messages for details (type e.g. 'harpwise listen') for details.

An example using all these arguments would be: 

harpwise listen richter c blues

this does listen to your playing, while marking notes from the blues-scale. However, relying on defaults, this could also be written shorter as: 

harpwise listen blues

or shorter: 

harpwise listen c

as 'blues' and 'c' are also the defaults, one might be tempted to write even shorter: 

harpwise listen

but that would (on purpose) produce the usage-message of mode listen.

This example would listen especially for the first three notes of the blues-scale, which are given as arguments and form an adhoc scale: 

harpwise listen -2 -3 +4

The possible scales depend on the chosen type of harmonica:

scales for chromatic
blues, blues-middle, chord-i, chord-i7, chord-iv, chord-iv7, chord-v, chord-v7, full, mape, one, two
scales for richter
blues, blues-middle, chord-i, chord-i7, chord-iv, chord-iv7, chord-v, chord-v7, drawbends, full, major, major-full, major-pentatonic, mape, mape4, mape5, middle, minor, minor-pentatonic, mipe, mixolydian

Note that advanced users may try to create their own scales. See usage of mode tools for an example.

Besides the arguments for type, key and scale, there are a lot of options (introduced by '-' or '–'), some requiring an argument themselves. Options are specific for each mode and are described on request, i.e. if you give the special option '-o'.

Also note, that for most modes, the behaviour of the wise (e.g. the ways of display or comment) can be changed interactively; type 'h' to see help on this.

A Remark on writing holes: The wise supports different types of harmonica (e.g. richter or chromatic), that may have their own way of writing holes; however for the most common case of a richter-harp, this style and examples apply:

  • Blow-holes are written with a '+', e.g.: +1 +6 +3
  • Draw-holes with a '-', e.g.: -9 -2 -3
  • Bends (both draw and blow) with a '', e.g.: -2 -3// +10/
  • Comments in '()' or '[]' or starting with '.' or '~' or a single '|'

See the initial lickfile (type richter) for more details.

The wise offers a broad set of features that can support your practice for a long time. However, it also has its limitations: The wise recognizes single notes and it may play chords for you, but it can not identify your chords. It knows a bit about tempo, but has no notion of rhythm.

Suggested Reading

User Configuration

~/harpwise/config.ini

Command-line Options

Options are specific for each mode; as an example you may type 

harpwise listen -o

to read options for mode listen.

Diagnosis

Harpwise uses the excellent program sox (aka play, aka rec) to interact with your sound system. Sox handles all playing and recording of sounds.

However, sometimes, sox might not be configured correctly out of the box. If you feel, that sox (and therefore harpwise) has problems with sound or if you see spurious error messages, you may invoke: 

harpwise tools diag

to execute some basic tests and get advice on how to fix common problems.

Quick Start

Feedback on holes and notes you play: 

harpwise listen c

Improve your harmonica knowledge: 

harpwise quiz random

Guided jam along a 12bar-blues: 

harpwise jam along 12