How To Play 'Hardcore' Harmonica

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The manner in which you "kiss" your instrument also has a great deal to do with the sound you'll get out of it. If you simply insert the harp partway into your mouth and blow . . . you'll get just what you deserve: a disgusting mix of three or four notes at a time and no melody at all. (The half-wits who try to play this way also tend to play with chewing gum or food in their mouths, blow excess saliva through their harps instead of swallow it, and otherwise follow practices guaranteed to wreck a harmonica in short order.)

What you have to do is experiment and practice until you've trained your lips and your tongue to direct a breath of air (either in or out) through just one of the openings in your instrument at a time. This will produce one steady, pure tone after another which-despite what you may have heard to the contrary-is what basic harmonica playing is really all about.

Yeah, this'll seem kinda tough to handle right at the start. But then so was riding a bicycle the first time you tried that. Keep at it. Don't give up. Try different ways of pursing your lips . . . and different ways of curling your tongue. Before you know it, "kissing" those sweet sounds-as clean as country water-out of your harp will seem like second nature. It's just a matter of practice and "gettin' the feel" of the whole thing.

YOUR FIRST TUNES

The Hohner company-with either a little printed sheet folded up in the box that contains your harmonica or its 24page beginner's booklet-tries its darndest (with letters, numbers, and arrows) to teach you a few simple songs note by note.

Well, 1 don't reckon it'll do you any harm to start off that way . . . especially

if you're completely new to the idea of makin' your own music. Anything that'll get you rollin' is fair.

The sooner you learn to get by without "training wheels" (which is what that sheet music really is), though, the sooner you'll be able to take off and really "ride" your new musical instrument. Yessir! I'm talkin' about "playing by ear" and-at least with a harmonicathat's not nearly as difficult as most folks seem to believe.

Once you've gained a certain amount of "feel" for the mouth organ, you'll surprise yourself. Your lips and tongue will begin to understand the "ups and downs" of the harp and you'll start blowing and drawing out "just the right" notes with hardly any conscious effort at all. My own experience is probably as good an example of this as any:

I was the rankest of rank beginners when I first picked up a harmonica four years ago. After noodling around on the instrument for a while just to get acquainted, begin to feel comfortable holding it properly, train my mouth to blow pure notes, etc . . . . I was ready to learn a song.

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