My Bag of Licks and Tricks
Concert on the occasion of the first FEN MASTER WORKSHOPS 2025
THE DATE
2027, May 06–09
SCHEDULE
Start: Thursday at 2 pm
End: Sunday at 12 noon
Total: ca. 14 lessons of 60 minutes each
THE LOCATION
Bergmannstr. 29, 10961 Berlin-Kreuzberg in the rooms of the Volkshochschule.
THE COSTS
410 €
CONCERT
Three ‘N’ One
2025, May 8th, tbd
THE MASTER WORKSHOP
S
The Master Workshops take place from Thursday to Sunday. In addition to the lessons, you will have the opportunity to exchange ideas and jam with others.
Minimum: 4 participants
A workshop for (semi-)professional and advanced players of the diatonic harmonica. With Mikael Bäckman
6–9 May 2026
Bergmannstr. 29, 10961 Berlin
Country-blues player Mikael Bäckmann brings with him a huge bag of exciting licks and tricks that are so valuable for harmonica players.
In his master workshop, he will cover step by step five different topics that you can’t practise often enough:
1 Using a metronome to improve your time-feel
You will work together with a metronome playing a 12-bar boogie pattern. Mikael Bäckman will show you how to gradually increase the difficulty and your awareness of your inner sense of time.
2 Simple exercises for better intonation on your bends.
Bäckman has developed an exercise which gradually involves playing all the draw bends, becoming aware of your intonation on each bend.
3 Scales which are both useful and cool sounding.
You will play a number of BeBop scales on diatonic harmonica. Regardless of their name, these scales are applicable far beyond the jazz world. The scale will increase your vocabulary, help you play with greater speed and improve your bending ability. For this part of the workshop, you will need a country tuned harmonica.
4 How to play rhythm behind a vocalist or soloist.
In this part of the workshop, we will work on our role as an accompanist. We will accompany recordings and a guitarist/singer live in the room.
5 How to play fills behind a vocalist.
You will learn the great art of playing fills behind a vocalist. The goal is to enhance the vocals, to make them sound better, not distract attention from them.
Participants should be able to play single notes and bends confidently and be well acquainted with the scales on their instrument. A harmonica in country tuning is required for practising the bebop scales.
The instructor
Mikael Bäckman has been performing on stage since the early 1990s. With the blues band Ramblin’ Minds, he toured Sweden, Finland and Norway for many years and recorded six albums. In 2008, he founded the band John Henry together with Ulrika Weinz – a country/Americana band that has released four albums to date and performs on international stages. John Henry is the only European band to feature on the charity album “MS-Blows!” (featuring, among others, Kim Wilson, Charlie McCoy, Mickey Raphael and Joe Filisko).
In addition to his active career as a musician, Mikael Bäckman holds a Master’s degree in Music Education and Music Performance, and completed his PhD in 2024. He has researched the diatonic playing styles of Toots Thielemans and Charlie McCoy, and in a chapter of the book “Amazing Grace at 250”, he analyses why so many harmonica players are drawn to arranging and performing this iconic hymn.
An experienced teacher, Mikael has been teaching the harmonica since the early 2000s. His former students include Joel Andersson of JA Harmonicas and Mikael Fall (1st place at the WHF, Trossingen 2013).