The amazing thing is that breathing in and out, or in harmonica terms ‘blowing’ and ‘drawing’ (not sucking) is all that’s needed to produce a huge variety of tunes, once you’ve refined where you place your mouth on those 10 little holes. I’ve come to appreciate what a versatile little instrument the harmonica really is – ingenious design really – you blow, you get one note, draw on the same hole and get another note. It’s surprising how many different effects and sounds you can produce by distributing, and controlling the air flow slightly each time, and changing the position of your hands as you hold it. You can also ‘bend’ a note to create a bluesy kind of sound. There is no end to the different styles one can play. I think Megan was happy when we got past the Christmas carol stage, however.
As with most new hobbies, it starts innocently enough – one harmonica. I now have 10. I had one drum once – they multiplied too. Obviously musical instruments breed. However, so far, I have only one ukulele, but that’s another story. Anyway, it’s FUN and challenging, and we all need some of that in our lives. Learning something new as we age disgracefully – that’s what it’s all about. It’s not that we stop learning as we grow older; we grow old if we stop learning.