miller

The harmonica — also known as the mouth organ or the blues harp — is a great little instrument. In fact, the harmonica is the great equalizer of all musical instruments because you don’t need to read music to play one — you don’t even need to have any true musical ability. It doesn’t take years of dedication to master the harmonica — actually, you can bang out a few tunes in just twenty minutes or so and unlike the hundreds or thousand of dollars that many musical instruments cost, you can get a decent harmonica for about twenty bucks. And a harmonica does not take up a great deal of space —  I often carry mine in my shirt pocket.

Also, the harmonica has the distinction of being the only musical instrument that I know of that you can play one handed while driving — I am not confirming or denying that I have ever done this, I’m just saying it can be done.

And in the category of harmonica-trivia, though I have no proof, it is very possible that a harmonica may have saved my life.

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It was about ten years or so — I had a twelve-state sales territory back then — and I was driving through the great state of Texas when I saw a man hitchhiking. Now hitchhikers were rare in my part of New York so I decided to stop and give this traveler a ride — help out a stranger kind of thing — as well as swap a few stories. As I pulled over and the man started running toward me, I realized that I might have made a mistake.

The guy was real rough — tattoos everywhere— including every knuckle— and several piercings, which really didn’t concern me. But what did send up some warning signals was the panicked expression on his face. The fact that he kept looking nervously behind him and the way his hands were shaking uncontrollably.

My instincts were screaming by the time he reached the car but before I could think of a safe way to bow out of this arrangement, the man stuck his head in the passenger window and looked at me. Then he looked at the cup holder where my harmonica sat. Then he looked back at me. Then back to the harmonica. Then a moment of silence passed before he spoke.

“No thanks,” he said. And walked away.

Just like that.

A few minutes later I was back on the Texas Route 273.

Now, I’ve always wondered what that hitchhiker thought when he saw my harmonica — maybe his instincts were screaming as loud about me as mine were — or maybe he had never dealt with the kind of sociopath that would travel with a harmonica in his cup holder. But from that day on I always keep a harmonica in the car and I am proud to say that I have never been murdered. Not even once.

Coincidence?

I don’t think so.

HOW TO PLAY THE HARMONICA

The harmonica is an instrument that creates different notes when you blow in than it does when you draw out. The key here is not to think of sucking and blowing, but just of breathing. Practice breathing in and out while playing the  harmonica — play a few chords out, then draw back and breathe in.

Oh Susanna.

For some reason, the song Oh Susanna, is the great beginner harmonica song. Practice breathing in and out on the harmonica while playing by ear, the song Oh Susanna — just practice on the chords; which is playing several notes at once. This will give you a larger margin of error.

Single notes.

Once you have the basics of Oh Susanna, on chords, focus on playing it on single notes. Single notes are played when you move your lips so air is only moving in and out of only one single path of the harmonica, rather than several. This is a little more difficult then playing chords, but it will start to give you muscle memory on where the individual notes are.

And those are the bare bones on playing the harmonica. Pretty simple, huh? Because the harmonica is one of those rare instruments that can easily be self taught.

Now, I found this great website that focuses on learning to play the harmonica and it was created by a man named Dave Gage — http://www.davegage.com/tips.html  . So I contacted Dave and he gave me permission to use it here.

Dave does a great job of not only explaining the basics of playing the harmonica, but he covers purchasing a harmonica, what different types of harmonicas there are out there, and he has actual harmonica lessons. You can use the site to learn just the basics. Or you can treat it as a format for actual harmonica lessons and become quite accomplished quickly — Dave even has a paid section of his site for you gifted harmonica aficionados.

So pick up a cheap harmonica today. Toss it in your pocket, your backpack, your tackle box or if you are in West Texas, place it in the cup holder of your car.

You won’t regret it.

 

BY:

evdemorier@aol.com

Everett De Morier has appeared on CNN, Fox News Network, NPR, ABC, as well as in The New York Times and The London Times. He is the author of Crib Notes for the First Year of Marriage: A...


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