When I was 7 years old, my parents bought me my first harmonica. Having had no instruction how to play it, I would just blow into it to get various notes. One day by happenstance I breathed in while playing it and discovered that it made notes in that direction also. Had I had any instruction I would have been taught that that was indeed how you played a harmonica? I was soon to find this out myself.
One day while testing out sounds, I discovered that if I blow out, then suck in by moving my mouth a little to the left, then out again that I got three consecutive descending notes. It was my good fortune that those notes happened to be E-D-C. I recognized the tune. To me, when the notes were played slowly and drawn out, it was the ending of a great symphony. Exceedingly pleased with my discovery I ran next door to my friend Robby’s house and asked him to guess what I was playing. Of course I expected him to quickly realize it was the end of a symphony and be very impressed with my discovery. That wasn’t quite what happened. His interest did not match the level of mine. His quick and disinterested reply was, “It’s the beginning of the song, Three Blind Mice.”
All right, so Robby didn’t have the classical background that I had. You mean all symphonies don’t end with E-D-C? But his answer had intrigued me. When I listened to it again, lo and behold, I heard the first three notes of Three Blind Mice. I now had a challenge. If I was able to figure out the first three notes of Three Blind Mice, why couldn’t I figure out the rest of the song? And so I did.
I’ve always had an ear for music. We had a piano in our house and whenever I wanted to figure out a song, I could always muck around with the keys until I figured it out. So now armed with one song in my repertoire, I ventured into other songs and scales. My parents, ever the ones to promote my learning then decided at age 8 to send me to a community education course on how to play the harmonica, where I got to spend 8 weeks of study learning how to play the song, Billy Boy on the harmonica. Actually in reality, I spent the first class learning how to correctly hold the harmonica and how to use my hand to make a vibrato type of sound and then wade through 7 more weeks of group lessons on the song that I figured out myself after the first class.
Needless to say I didn’t take any more lessons. It wasn’t until I was teaching, some 20 years later that I met real harmonica player who taught me something new, how to bend notes.
Who knows someday I might even add harmonica playing to my storytelling. I just need to learn how to talk with something in my mouth. That shouldn’t be too hard, I do it every night at supper.
