Playing harmonica!

[Proletar]

So I just bought a set of 7 harmonicas, C to Bb. It's a really interesting instrument, and a real challenge to begin practicing. On the other hand, it sounds really cool and the music of today lacks it.

Inspiration:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b8NCrlsmnY


Also, I'm a sucker for the blues. So this fits quite well.

 

[doncarlzone]

I've considered for a long time to take it up too. Do you play any other instruments? I would like to play it together with my guitar at some point. Just the intro to Hear of Gold, arhhhhh...

 

[Proletar]

I'm mainly a guitarist. Have been playing guitar for quite some time. Now that is a straight forward instrument compared to this.


The difficulty of the harmonica:

*Different notes for breathing in or out. This is completely unknown to me. Playing some flutes and other instruments, it's still never about breathing IN. And besides, most of the notes actually come from that.

*The pentatonic scale is found by breathing in on the 4th hole, in 5th, out 6th, in 6th, out 7th and in 8th. Also, the pentatonic scale for E is found in the D harmonica, the one for A in the G harmonica, and Bb for C, and so on. Not really that intuitive. Must have been a real fucking innovation when someone realised that you could actually play blues on it.

*To play blues, you should almost never play a chord. It just doesn't fit. And if you do, it's really tricky.


More inspiration:

(This one I really like!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlKbVA54kjs