Harmonica for beginners
May 11, 2020 11:36 AM Subscribe
What are the best online and ideally free resources for a complete beginner to learn to play the harmonica while quarantined?
I was just cleaning up the house and found a harmonica. It's a Hohner Special 20. I assume this is the universe telling me to use my time during lockdown to learn to play the harmonica. What are the best resources for that?
I took piano lessons as a child for a while but retain only vague memories of how to read music; assume I'm a raw beginner.
(Bonus question: the harmonica in question has never been used by anyone but me, and was sitting inside a case for at least a year. Do I need to clean it? If so, how?)
I was just cleaning up the house and found a harmonica. It's a Hohner Special 20. I assume this is the universe telling me to use my time during lockdown to learn to play the harmonica. What are the best resources for that?
I took piano lessons as a child for a while but retain only vague memories of how to read music; assume I'm a raw beginner.
(Bonus question: the harmonica in question has never been used by anyone but me, and was sitting inside a case for at least a year. Do I need to clean it? If so, how?)
Response by poster: The case has a sticker with a C on it, so, uh, I guess it's probably a C harp?
posted by waffleriot at 2:24 PM on May 11, 2020
posted by waffleriot at 2:24 PM on May 11, 2020
Hello! Yes, if the sticker says C it is almost certainly a C harp. Alternately, if you have some way of recording sound and putting that up somewhere, if you just BLOW into the harmonica and record that, I can have a listen and verify. (I have perfect pitch--it's normally not useful, but once in a while...) But with the sticker (and the prevalence of C harps) it's almost certainly going to be a C.
Oh--quick tip I remember from Gindick: the trick to getting good sound out of a harmonica is to pucker up like you're kissing it when you play it. Hope that helps!
posted by yhlee at 2:48 PM on May 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
Oh--quick tip I remember from Gindick: the trick to getting good sound out of a harmonica is to pucker up like you're kissing it when you play it. Hope that helps!
posted by yhlee at 2:48 PM on May 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
Have you decided on a style of music you want to play? Adam Gussow has a series of YouTube videos that I found useful for learning blues harmonica. If the harmonica has been in its case I don’t think you need to clean it unless some of the reeds are sticking. If you do decide to clean it, 20 minutes in water with a couple of denture tablets, followed with a water rinse, shaking out the water, and then letting it air dry should do the trick.
posted by doctord at 4:21 PM on May 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by doctord at 4:21 PM on May 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
ahh Harmonica, a swell instrument for an amateur player to goof around with experimentation, I recommend taking time apart from lessons for plenty of random honking & blowing around...
Playing along with recordings is always fun, but you'll need to find songs in the key of C... well actually G! (or D or Am). Harp cats have thoughts about this.
posted by ovvl at 5:19 PM on May 11, 2020
Playing along with recordings is always fun, but you'll need to find songs in the key of C... well actually G! (or D or Am). Harp cats have thoughts about this.
posted by ovvl at 5:19 PM on May 11, 2020
The Gussow videos are about as good as gets, IMO.
The tricky thing I found with harmonica is that it's difficult to copy by seeing. Which is the method by which I learned guitar, watching other players and copying what they did. Harmonica is kind of "hidden", and there isn't much to observe from an established player. I bought myself one when I was about 12, and was completely ignorant of how it was supposed to be played. It took just messing around with it for me to discover what I learned was "cross harp", figuring out how to bend notes. Something I still can't really describe how to do, I just do it.
The diatonic harmonica is a weird beast, designed to play European oom-pa kind of stuff, and by happy accident, is quite well suited to bluesy, American folk-y playing when you play it cross harp, a sort of wrong way, I suppose. Most tutorials will likely focus on this latter style. First thing you might want to learn is how to blow/draw one hole at a time. There's no one correct way to do it, however works best for you is the right way.
Harmonicas don't really get dirty. At least mine don't. Don't play while you're eating, and it should be fine. Should it get dirty somehow, the Special 20 could be rinsed under a faucet, shaken out and allowed to dry. Avoid disassembling it unless absolutely necessary.
posted by 2N2222 at 5:33 PM on May 11, 2020 [3 favorites]
The tricky thing I found with harmonica is that it's difficult to copy by seeing. Which is the method by which I learned guitar, watching other players and copying what they did. Harmonica is kind of "hidden", and there isn't much to observe from an established player. I bought myself one when I was about 12, and was completely ignorant of how it was supposed to be played. It took just messing around with it for me to discover what I learned was "cross harp", figuring out how to bend notes. Something I still can't really describe how to do, I just do it.
The diatonic harmonica is a weird beast, designed to play European oom-pa kind of stuff, and by happy accident, is quite well suited to bluesy, American folk-y playing when you play it cross harp, a sort of wrong way, I suppose. Most tutorials will likely focus on this latter style. First thing you might want to learn is how to blow/draw one hole at a time. There's no one correct way to do it, however works best for you is the right way.
Harmonicas don't really get dirty. At least mine don't. Don't play while you're eating, and it should be fine. Should it get dirty somehow, the Special 20 could be rinsed under a faucet, shaken out and allowed to dry. Avoid disassembling it unless absolutely necessary.
posted by 2N2222 at 5:33 PM on May 11, 2020 [3 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
Do you know what key your harp (harmonica) is in? If it's a Hohner Special 20 then it's a ten-hole diatonic harmonica, and if it's a C harp then this chart (scroll down) for the pitches will apply. If you have a harp in another key, then you'll have to transpose. (I can transpose the chart for you if you can figure out the harmonica's key, just say the word.) As for embouchure, these directions seem about right.
The important thing about harmonica is that you have blow (you blow into the harp) AND draw (you breathe in through the harp) notes. By blowing/drawing into multiple holes, you can play chords, or you can blow/draw a single note. You can also "bend" the pitch of draw notes (not blow notes) by the bending technique, which the very first link with the chart describes. Basically, play around with it and see what works and what doesn't for getting noise out of the thing. Harmonicas are very forgiving. Since I learned in childhood, I have, uh, dropped harmonicas from a height of four feet or so and they remained completely playable. (I don't recommend doing this to an instrument you care about, obviously, but they are very sturdy instruments!)
I don't know if it needs to be cleaned but protip (from personal experience): DO NOT USE SOAP in washing your harmonica. I've washed built-up spit off harmonicas, but using soap risks getting some stuck under a reed, and then if you try to pry it out, you may break the reed and then your harmonica is sad. Don't be me!
If you can swing a book at any point, Jon Gindick's harmonica books are excellent, and teach the instrument using a sort of tablature notation with the hole numbers IIRC so you don't need to be able to read music to play along.
Good luck and happy playing!
posted by yhlee at 2:13 PM on May 11, 2020 [2 favorites]