harpwise(1) General Commands Manual harpwise(1)

harpwise - practice harmonica with your microphone and speaker

harpwise {MODE} {ARGUMENTS} [OPTIONS]

harpwise ('wise' for short) supports the daily practice of bends, scales, intervals or licks on a diatonic (richter) or chromatic harmonica for various keys.

The wise recognizes single notes, that you play and it may play chords for you (but does not recognize your chords); rhythm is out of its scope entirely.

The primary documentation of harpwise is its usage information, that can be retrieved by calling it without arguments:

harpwise

this man page has the very same information (so you may keep on reading ...); but there are more usage information for the individual modes, which are not available as man-pages (see below, on how to get them).

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

-
listen: The wise listens to your playing, e.g. to monitor bends or scales
-
licks: Learn licks (only a few included, but pointers to find more)
-
quiz: Train your ear and musical memory

And with a less interactive interface and not using your microphone:

-
play: Wise plays scales, holes or licks, not asking you to play them back
-
print: print and annotate the holes of scales or licks given on the commandline. Also print various informationo about licks, scales and much more
-
tools: Some simple, non-interactive tools related to basic harmonica theory
-
calibrate: Wise generates samples for holes, or assists in recording your own; this is a prereq to using many other modes; 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', 'major_pentatonic' or 'all'. No default; cannot be abbreviated.

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.

Finally, as a special case (and only for modes listen, quiz and licks) you may specify a set of holes (e.g. +1 +2 +3) as an adhoc scale.

See the usage of mode 'listen' for an advanced example involving an adhoc scale and fourth position.

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. And, relying on defaults, this could also be written as:

harpwise listen blues

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


harpwise listen -2 -3 +4

The possible scales depend on the chosen type of harmonica:

scales for chromatic: all, blues, chord-i, chord-iv, chord-v, one, two
scales for richter: all, blues, blues-middle, chord-i, chord-iv, chord-v,
drawbends, major, major-pentatonic, mape, middle, minor, minor-pentatonic,
mipe, mixolydian, root

Besides the arguments for type, key and scale, there are a lot of options (introduced by '-'), some requiring an argument themselves. All options are described in the usage info of the various modes.

Most arguments and options can be abbreviated, e.g 'lis' for 'listen', 'cal' for 'calibrate' or '-t' for '--tags-any'.

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

-
Usage information for the individual modes
-
The toplevel file README.org, also available at:

https://github.com/marcIhm/harpwise/blob/main/README.org

~/.harpwise/config.ini

Prepare your personal config with sound samples:

harpwise calibrate c --auto

Feedback on what you are playing:

harpwise listen c

then blow your harp and come back later to learn about other modes.

See the usage information of the individual modes.

Copyright (c) 2021-2023 by Marc Ihm (marc@ihm.name)
This program is subject to the MIT License.

Again, the usage information of the individual modes.