Harmonica For Dummies

Winslow Yerxa

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781119700777
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music Theory & Appreciation

Wail on your harmonica!

The harmonica is one of the most popular and versatile instruments in the world. There are several reasons harmonicas are awesome—you can play them anywhere, they're inexpensive, and you can show off in dozens of musical styles. The friendly and pleasingly tuneful Harmonica For Dummies is thefastest and best way to learn for yourself!

You'll find an easy-to-follow format that takes you from the basics to specialized techniques, with accompanying audio and video content included to make learningeven more simple and fun. Before you know it, you'll be playing jazz in your living room and the blues on your way to work or school—and that's just the prelude to mastering classicalriffs. That's right, the humble harmonica has graced some of the grandest concert halls on planet Earth!

• Choose the right harmonica
• Enhance your sound with tongue technique
• Develop your own style
• Perfect your live performance

The harmonica is awesome to learn, but even more awesome to&n learn well, and Harmonica For Dummies will get you on the road from being an occasional entertainer to becoming an accomplished live performer.

P.S. If you think this book seems familiar, you're probably right. The Dummies team updated the cover and design to give the book a fresh feel, but the content is the same as the previous release of Harmonica For Dummies (9781118880760). The book you see here shouldn't be considered a new or updated product. But if you're in the mood to learn something new, check out some of our other books. We're always writing about new topics!

Part 1

Getting Started with Harmonica

IN THIS PART …

Learn about the origins of the harmonica.

Find out how harmonicas are constructed.

Figure out what kind of harmonica to buy.

Get an intro to harmonica tablature.

Chapter 1

What Is This Thing Called Harp?

IN THIS CHAPTER

Discovering what makes the harmonica such a cool little instrument

Considering what it takes to play the harmonica

Understanding how to take your playing beyond the basics

Sharing your music with others and visiting the virtual harmonica village

Maybe you’re attracted to the sweet yet wailing sound of a harmonica. Or maybe you dig the image of a harmonica player onstage who somehow manages to strike a hip-looking pose while apparently eating a sandwich that’s hidden in his or her hands. Either way, you know you love harmonica, and you’re dying to find out more. For a little background on the harmonica (or, as players call it, the harp) and why it’s such a great instrument to play, read on.

Considering the Harmonica’s Coolness

What makes the harmonica one of the world’s best-selling musical instruments? Let me count the ways! Here are just a few reasons that the harp is so cool:

• Its sound has immediate appeal. Its haunting, plaintive wail, which alternates with sweet, soothing tones, makes the harmonica attractive and easy to identify. Even a beginner on harmonica can rock a roomful of listeners for a few minutes. Expert musicians can play on the immediate emotional connection of the harmonica to create extended intimacy and depth of expression. That emotional appeal is one reason the harmonica is so often featured in film scores and on popular records.
• It automatically sounds good. The harmonica was designed to be, well, harmonious. It can sound several notes at once in pleasing combinations that make intuitive sense because they automatically support the melody notes. Playing a harmonica is like riding a bicycle that you can’t fall off.
• You can take it anywhere — even outer space. The harmonica is one of the most portable instruments around. In fact, here’s a tidbit most folks don’t know: The harmonica was the first musical instrument in outer space. On a December 1965 space flight, astronaut Wally Schirra reported an unidentified flying object in a polar orbit (Santa’s sleigh, perhaps?) and then played “Jingle Bells” on a harmonica that he had smuggled aboard.
• It’s cheaper than dinner out. Seriously! You can buy a decent harmonica for less than the cost of a restaurant meal. You can’t say that about a guitar or synthesizer.

  HARMONICA ANCESTORS IN THE STONE AGE

  Possibly as early as the Stone Age, and probably in Southeast Asia, someone cut a narrow flap (or reed) into a thin piece of bamboo, held it up to his mouth, and plucked it. The resulting vibration of the free-swinging reed was amplified by the player’s mouth. Jaw harps, the oldest and simplest instruments to use free reeds, are still made this way in many parts of the world.

  Later, people tried simply blowing on the reeds instead of plucking. However, to sound properly, each reed had to be installed in a bamboo tube whose length was tuned to the note sounded by the reed. Eventually, people made these free reeds out of metal and bundled several tubes together to create mouth-blown instruments, such as the khaen (several tubes bound together in rows like a pan pipe) and the sheng (a cluster of tubes inserted into a gourd, which looks like a forest of bamboo growing out of a teapot).

  To this day, the khaen is used in Thai and Laotian social music and courtship rituals, while the sheng remains an esteemed instrument in Chinese opera. The metal free reeds used in khaens and shengs are thought to be the oldest living relatives of the reeds used in harmonicas today.
• It’s close and intimate with the player. You can enclose a harmonica completely within your hands, and its sound comes out closer to your ears than that of any other musical instrument. Playing the harmonica can be an intimate act, almost like writing in a secret diary.
• It has the allure of the outsider. The harmonica seems to bring out the rebel and the lone wolf in some players. In fact, harmonica technique is built on doing things the designers never imagined and may not even approve of! The harmonica embodies the triumph of creativity over orderly procedures.
• It has the appeal of tradition. Despite the lone wolf aspect, the harmonica expresses musical traditions beautifully, and it’s also well accepted within the comfortable confines of community values.

Becoming the Next Harmonica Idol: What It Takes to Play

Playing a musical instrument doesn’t take supernatural abilities. It simply takes desire and application (and, okay, maybe a little talent). So, if you want to play the harmonica, trust your desire — you can totally do this. If you’re willing to try, you just need a few things, which I explain in the following sections.

A harmonica

If you go shopping for harmonicas, you may encounter a bewildering array of types and models at prices that range from the equivalent of a hamburger to a small car! So when you’re ready to buy your first harp, check out Chapter 2 for a buying guide to help you select a decent-quality harmonica of the right type at a sensible price.

A little music know-how

Chapter 3 shows you how to read basic harp tab, which is the main thing you need to understand in order to read the examples and tunes in this book. If you read through all of Chapter 3, you also can pick up some basic music theory (which never hurt anyone). And if you want to puzzle out reading musical notation in addition to tab, check out Chapter 4.

HARMONICA IN THE WESTERN WORLD

No one really knows when the free reed made it from Asia to Europe (see the sidebar “Harmonica ancestors in the Stone Age” for...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Part 1: Getting Started with Harmonica
• Part 2: Starting to Make Some Music
• Part 3: Growing Beyond the Basics
• Part 4: Developing Your Style
• Part 5: Taking It to the World
• Part 6: The Part of Tens
• Part 7: Appendixes
• Index
• About the Author
• Connect with Dummies
• End User License Agreement