How To Play 'Hardcore' Harmonica

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I chose "When the Saints Go Marching In" as my initial musical conquest because I figured it for a natural harmonica ditty that would be about as easy to work out on the mouth organ as any tune could be. I was right (you'll have a hard time getting discouraged if you start your harp career with "Saints"). It wasn't long before I was following up my first victory with "Oh, Susanna", "Greensleeves", "The Old Gray Mare", "Red River Valley", and just about every other folk song that I could think of.

Eventually I sharpened my skills enough so that I could begin picking songs off the radio. And I've never stopped. As a friend of mine says, "You know, I find that I'll lay my harmonica aside for a while and more or less forget the instrument. Then I'll hear a song on the radio and I know right away that I just have to learn it. And off I go to dig out the of harp and have at it."

1 know what my buddy means. It happens to me all the time. And, most generally, I can "sound out" and memorize a brand-new tune in only about 10 minutes these days! (If I can do it, so can you. Give it a try . . . and, before too long, you'll be measuring your progress by the number of songs you can coax out of your harp too. And after thatwhen you've finally stopped countin'-is when you'll know you've really mastered the mouth organ!)

ADD A LITTLE SOUL

Just as with most other musical instruments, there's harmonica playing . . . and then there's harmonica playing. One man or woman can get up and blow a tune and you'll feel a real emotional tug . . . but when another player tries, there's nothing.

Emotions. Feelings. That's what music (especially harmonica music) is all about. And, just as soon as you have the mechanics of the mouth organ down, that's what you'll want to strive to inject into your playing.

The simplest way to add this flavor to your music is by varying how loudly you play. Make your harp's sound rise and fall with the character of a song (don't worry, the tune will tell you how loudly or softly to make a passage if you'll only let it). The amount of sound coming out of a mouth organ, of course, is varied and controlled by blowing and drawing more or less forcefully as air is directed through the instrument's reeds.

Expression is also added to harmonica music by soulful use of the wavering tones made possible by the "10-finger sandwich" grip that I described earlier in this article.

One of the best ways of all, though, to add "guts" to your harp playing (especially those sad old blues songs) is by "bending" notes as they're formed. Nothing beats a bent note for sheer expression . . . still, it's only fair to warn you that the practice is hard on an instrument's reeds. (But, what the heck: If you refuse to bend notes just because you're too cheap to buy a replacement organ from time to time, you've got no business trying to play real music in the first place. Bend 'em!)

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