Something New

My old Guild six-string was a Christmas present from my parents in 1975. I bought my Muramatsu flute in 1978, when I was a music major at Mars Hill College. Somewhere along the line, I became as good a guitar player as I'm ever going to be. And when I left MHC in December 1979, I was a far better flute player than I am now. In the 30 years since, these have been my two instruments. I generally play them as well as I can, and that's generally been good enough for what I needed to do.

But a couple of months ago, I decided I wanted to try something new, and that turned out to be harmonica. My mom had one around the house as long as I can remember, but I never developed an interest in playing it. So I don't know what possessed me recently to pick one up at my local music store. I bought a cheap one ($8.50) in the key of G and then another in E, and as I sat at my desk and played along with my songs in those keys, I found out that I kind of liked it. So the band at church was doing this particular song in D, and I had an idea that a harmonica might sound good on it. I bought a nicer one in D (in the $20 range). Now I have a handful of decent harmonicas in these keys: E (a new one), A, D, G (a new one) and C. For the most part, that covers the keys I play in.

I also bought one of those around-the-neck harmonica holders that I can use to play harmonica and guitar at the same time. That's fun, but not as easy as I figured it would be: breathing in and out, moving my mouth back and forth across the harmonica and working the guitar hands--chords and rhythms--at the same time. So far, my best achievement is playing Neil Young's "Heart of Gold."

I don't expect to master the harmonica any more than I have mastered guitar or flute or my own voice. But I can fully expect this new addition to increase and enrich the joy that I've experienced over 30 years of making music.