Learning to Play the Harmonica
Harmonica is a great instrument. It has this smooth and reverberating sound that makes you think back to the days where everything was simpler and life was about communing with mother nature. If you have the skill, it’s pretty possible for you to play popular songs nowadays. Just like the piano or guitar, songs played on the harmonica sound entirely new or different.
It’s common for beginners to ask “How Hard is it to Learn to Play the Harmonica?”. Our talk for today will revolve around this question. We will walk through the following topics to answer your inquiry:
- benefits of choosing to play the harmonica
- free resources for beginners to learn to play harmonica
- paid lessons for beginner harmonica players
As a bonus, I will provide a brief review of a harmonica that’s suitable for beginners that you might want to have.
Benefits of Playing The Harmonica
Why choose harmonica when there are more popular instruments like the piano or guitar? Turns out, this free reed wind instrument provides advantages only exclusive to it. I will talk about what these advantages are in this section.
Harmonica Playing Helps With The Development of Stable Breathing
People with asthma or the elderly will find harmonica helpful. Harmonica is one of the cheapest and easiest instruments to learn that exercises the lungs. Inhaling and exhaling are really crucial while playing this instrument and doing these is relaxing and stimulating at the same time.
Believe it or not, medical therapy now exists which uses harmonica as its primary tool. This therapy is called “medical harmonica”. The brain behind this is Dr. John Schaman. According to him, his harmonica therapy improves breathing by exercising the lungs and the muscles that surround it.
Harmonica is Perhaps the Most Portable Wind Instrument
Though there are different types of harmonica that vary in size, rest assured that all of them are shorter than your average flute and not wider than a professional grade kalimba. Its minute size might be one of the reasons why it’s popular among older folks since they can hold this instrument with ease.
Also, the harmonica is really portable. You can carry it in your pockets and put it in your bag without feeling any weight. Among other wind instruments, the harmonica is the easiest to carry and keep. It’s the perfect instrument to bring when commencing camping or fishing activities with your friends
Only A Few Know How To Play This Instrument
Most people do not consider harmonica as a real instrument because the techniques required to play it can be somewhat intimidating at first, and get easier as you go. There are few people who choose to play harmonica but there are still many reasons as to why you should pick this little instrument up.
There are many youtube channels dedicated to song covers. These mostly consist of either guitar or piano covers, but still you can find other instruments sprinkled throughout this niche. Harmonica covers, however, are much less common but quickly on the rise.
This is where stardom comes in. Master the harmonica, make a youtube channel, then play Maroon 5 covers. Certainly, you’ll get viral in no time. People around the world welcome feats that are rare and are wonderful to watch.
Free Resources for Beginners To Learn To Play The Harmonica
Free resources are great if you’re a beginner who wants to learn the harmonica on your own. However, the tricky thing with them is that only a few are really reliable. Therefore, finding good harmonica learning resources might be hard. To solve this problem, I did a brief research and compiled some reliable resources that will be useful.
Z-library Website
Z library features a lot of free books in pdf, txt, epub, and other formats. For non-members, resources are limited to 4 or 5 downloads. Unlimited downloads are possible if you’re willing to donate. Do not worry because the donation is rather cheap and won’t really affect your finances.
All premium books sold online are available in Z-library without costs.
Youtube
Youtube is a great resource for harmonica beginners who wants to learn basic techniques from professionals. There are lots of harmonica tutorial channels that teach proper holding, proper breathing, and other basic techniques that are required for fluid playing.
One downside of youtube is that it’s rare for you to find advanced harmonica tutorials and most are not very methodical.
Quora or Reddit
Community websites such as Quora and Reddit are also great. All you have to do is to get inside a harmonica community page and ask questions. More experienced players are more than happy to answer your queries and might even give you a video tutorial through email.
Paid Lessons For Harmonica Beginners
Spending a few bucks is the most efficient way for you to learn to play the harmonica. Online courses or paid local tutorials will provide you with a step by step approach to learning this instrument. Furthermore, you’ll get a firsthand explanation about why harmonica playing techniques are important.
Online Courses
There are more than 10 harmonica learning online course subscriptions online. The cheapest one’s costs at $11 and expensive ones sit at $50.Though money is required, your investment is worth it because you’ll get to learn harmonica basics in a span of 1 to 2 months.
The best thing about online courses is that you will learn from seasoned professionals at the comfort of your home. Aside from this, you’ll learn how to play harmonica in various genres such as blues, country, and etc.
Local Tutorials
Learning the harmonica is more meaningful with an instructor that you may actually spend time with. If there are local harmonica players in the neighborhood. don’t hesitate to ask them for a paid tutorial. On average, face to face harmonica lessons starts at $50 dollars. This price might increase depending on the distance of the instructor from your location.
Best Harmonica for Beginners
One harmonica that beginners particularly love is Suzuki ha-20-c Promaster Hammond harmonica. This harmonica has a sleek and minute design that you will love. Your hands won’t have any trouble holding this instrument. Aside from this, it’s glossy appearance looks attractive.
I did use this harmonica when I was a beginner. This product’s weight is one factor that made me prefer it over others When holding it, it’s moderate weight and solid texture feels really good. I find this feature really useful when playing fast passages or notes.
The holes in this harmonica are pretty sensitive. There are other brands that require you to blow really hard to make high pitched sounds. However, Suzuki Promaster Hammond harmonica doesn’t have this issue and you’ll enjoy playing various notes with even breath pressure.
Lastly, the sound of this harmonica is simply uncompromising. The notes are characterized by rich reverberating tones that are not too loud or too quiet. It’s just perfect for playing songs by yourself without disturbing others.
Just a quick reminder, this harmonica is a C harmonica. It’s advised that you learn to play the harmonica using the C scale since songs using it are easy to play. Once you got the hang of things, you might want to buy another harmonica with more notes.
Final Remarks
Learning the harmonica is a good way to reinforce your musical talent. If you already know how to play the guitar, then learning to play harmonica is an option since these two instruments complement each other really well.
Free resources and paid lessons will help you to learn the harmonica with ease. It’s recommended that you start with Suzuki ha-20-c harmonica since it’s very user friendly and sounds really good.
Once you’ve mastered the harmonica you may then enjoy the advantages that it brings. You can use this instrument on different gigs. Also, this instrument will improve your lung condition and might even give you the chance to make it big.