CLINIC HARMONICA

STEPH VAN UYTVANCK

One of the most undervalued instruments, sometimes even considered as a toy, gave birth to one of the greatest Masters in jazz. Of course, we’re talking about Toots Thielemans, godfather of the Brosella festival.

Inspired by the success of the first edition, Brosella decided to dedicate again a workshop to this magical instrument and its glorious past. Would there be blues without the bluesharp? A lot of kids heared their grandfathers play on, what once was called in The Netherlands, a mouth organ. Even the American army developed once a type of harmonica for the receation of its recruits (“Marine Band”).

It is possible to insert the instrument in almost any kind of music, using your imagination. Have a look on YouTube and you will see that, besides famous jazz and blues players, classic masters, pop stars, oriental soloists, even beatboxers are using the harmonica.


This workshop addresses everyone who wants to learn to play the harmonica as a fullfilling instrument. Depending on the style and the type of instrument you want to use (diatonic or chromatic), it is important that your expectations are realistic. Most of the time, learning to play the harmonica is a matter of self-education. So, you must draw your own plan. What are your goals and how much time do you want to spend on the instrument? Do you just want to have fun playing? Or are you willing to suffer pain to match yourself against the top players? It all depends on you.

Steph Van Uytvanck has been for many years the only harmonica lecturer at an official music institute in Flanders. He’s been teaching the instrument for 20 years now. He’s been asked to particpate in a broad range of productions (a.o.Hooverphonic, TatYana Storm, dj Looka, Charlie Jones, Jo Vally, ...), played on radio tunes and scores of international movie productions. He has been touring with different bands in Belgium, France, The Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Switzerland. He was noticed by Toots Thielemans a couple of years ago and is in charge of replying on technical harmonica questions on Toots’ site ever since.

Steph Van Uytvanck knows by experience how much time it takes to make progress on the instrument. As a harmonica teacher, he has been working with students of all ages and all kind of skill levels. “ A lot of people are buying an harmonica, give it a try, find out that it is a lot harder then they had imagined and quit”, he experienced. “So, it is my intention to help the participants of this workshop to define a certain number of goals, to make sure that they will continue later on.” Besides the individual coaching of every participant, there are also collective sessions. For example, a “special guest” will give a presentation and show how to maintain, tune and repair your harmonica. The whole workshop is intented to be informal. Everyone defines for him/herself how deep he/she wants to get involved into harmonica playing during these five days. There’s no minimum skill level, neigher in playing the instrument, nor in the knowledge of music theory. Just a positive holiday spirit and love for harmonica and music playing, will be enough to make these five days and the workshop a huge success. This year Steph asked the Brazilian harp master, Alex Rossi, to join him in teaching.

Interested? Click here for more info