yes you can play harmonica

[Whistling Archer]

"Eh, I have a nice Lee Oskar harmonica, can't make heads or tails of it (if anyone wanted to trade me a whistle for it...) "

this recent post made me think , I AM NOT trying to berate the person who wrote it.

If you have any desire to learn harmonica , I really believe you can. If you want to. If you dont cool.
But if you do.
1. forget about all the blues stuff. and try straight harp
{harp is in same key as song}
2. Just for now , forget about the lowest three holes
3. start on 4 blow then blow ,draw until you get the pattern for a major scale,,,,, its right there under your mouth.
4. the blow ,draw pattern will change for a hole as you go up/

pick out any easy melody, and you are on your way.

I am no expert , but do enjoy playing & you can too, I took me a bit of time to visualize what was going on.

YOu will hit more than one note at first . but you will learn to block off the holes you want to get a single note with your tongue. It will come naturally , almost accidently, at least it did in my case

I hope this has more value to you than what it cost you
Steve

[mutepointe]

I couldn't agree more. Yes, you can play. I learned the harmonica to do breathing exercising after heart surgery. Multi-tasking is what probably got me into that mess but that's beside the point. I figured out the basics in 1 hour. 1 hour people. My nephew who has learning disabilties figured out the harmonica in 1 day but he was home alone during most of that time and had to figure out much of the harmonica by himself. 1 day people. We play duets now when we get to see each other.

Jim's Giant Harmonica Songbook is about all the resource we had. Here's the link. http://www.volcano.net/~jackmearl/songs/index.html

[Whistling Archer]

mutepoint , I had heard harmonica was used in therapy, now I know for sure.
Yes , that one of the best things about it. since taking it up my lungs have gotten stronger,,, I smoke 1/4 what I used to ,, still need to stop I know.
The being able to play notes breathing in is why I end up playing it instead of my whistles. I just run out of breath with a whistle. and the breath pressure isnt a issue on higher notes.

I think it is such a fun inst. my string inst & other are gathering dust.

Jim Beeloff thinks the world would be a better place if everybody played uke,, it might be,,, but I think harmonica can fit the bill too.

[SteveShaw]

Just to say that you can play one hole at a time without using your tongue. My style is single-note melody-playing and I never tongue-block. It's all in the puckering/lip-blocking, or just downright magic.

[Whistling Archer]

Steve, man I cant do the pucker method well at all. I didnt know anything about it when I started , and now its just so easy to tb for me that what I do.
I have a friend who only puckers , I cant figure how he does it & he cant figure out how I do it LOL
Its just all personal preference.
But I imagine Buddy Greene does both with equal ease. He seems to really have a handle on the harp,, to say the least

[SteveShaw]

Both ways are good and the ideal is to be able to do both. You can do octaves and other split intervals, tongue-slaps, corner-switching and a sort of vamping accompaniment to yourself with TBing.

[mutepointe]

I didn't know that a harmonica would be good therapy. My family has a custom of giving a present to the person who gets surgery or has a major illness. The person gets to pick their present too. After months of advocating harmonica to other folks who had heart surgery, there was an article in our newspaper about the benefits. That made me feel better. I judged my progress by which songs I could master and I remember that "Over The Rainbow" was one of those benchmarks.

[SteveShaw]

Over the Rainbow? If you can do that one well you must be good at the ol' bending, or using a chrom!

[scheky]

As opposed to Steve S., I tongue-block most of the time. I can effectively pucker-block, but I feel more comfortable and natural using the tongue block. That said, both methods open a plethora of opportunities for ornamentation and it's ideal to know both.

Of course, I'm nowhere near the quality of player that Mr Shaw is, but give me time.