PlaysoloistWinds & FlutesHarmonicaSongsMichael, Row the Boat Ashore
harmonica song · Winds & Flutes
Michael, Row the Boat Ashore Harmonica Tab (Blow & Draw)
- Composer
- Traditional
- Year
- —
- Key
- C
- Time
- —
- Tempo
- —
- Difficulty
- Beginner · ★
- First note
- blow 4
Michael, Row the Boat Ashore on harmonica
The full melody, rendered as harmonica blow/draw tab you can read on screen or print for the stand — free, and never truncated.
Trad. African-American spiritual — public domain.
How to practise this on harmonica
Every number here is a hole and every arrow a breath: ▲ is a blow (exhale), ▼ is a draw (inhale). Michael, Row the Boat Ashore sits on a C harp and opens on blow 4. Move between holes by rocking your lips smoothly along the comb rather than jumping — the harp rewards small, clean shifts. Get a single note sounding clear (pucker or tongue-block) before you add any speed.
Where a bend is marked, lower the pitch with the back of your tongue and your jaw, not with more air; the app listens for whether the bend actually lands in tune. Play it at a comfortable tempo, breathing from the belly so long draws don't run you out of air, and loop the phrase that graded worst until the breath pattern feels automatic. By the numbers, this study runs 16 notes across holes 4 to 6.
Also playable on
The same melody is graded across 7 Playsoloist instruments. See every version, with difficulty and provenance, on the Michael, Row the Boat Ashore cross-instrument hub.
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Free on the App Store
Play Michael, Row the Boat Ashore — and hear every note graded.
Harmonica Studio reads this harmonica blow/draw tab under the notation and grades your take on-device, note by note — free on iPhone, no ads, no account.
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