UKC

I am going to be spending time overseas with work this year, and want to learn an instrument in my spare time.

Have a piano at home which my girlfriend plays. A little too large to take with me however!

After consideration the blues harp seems the ideal tool to begin a basic education in music, I.E small thus travel friendly and not too loud. Did consider the recorder but hate the sound of the smaller ones when played badly.

Starting with the basic diatonic, trying first to become proficient at single reed notes, leaving bending & overblows till later as this looks challenging.

Are there any other harmonica players out there, and have you progressed to the Chromatic? (my eventual aim).

In reply to olliehales:

Hey Ollie! I play diatonic. It's great to get a grounding in music as you will need to learn more theory than with guitar for example. I recommend hammering youtube for tutorials as nobody can physically 'show' you how to play, they have to discribe what they are doing. Adam Gussow and Lee Sankey have some good vids as does Ronnie Shellist. There's loads of channels to chose from if they don't float your boat. I'd recommend getting a C harp and an A harp to get you started as this should cover a lot of videos and allow you to play along with any stray guitarists you stumble across.

Have fun and don't forget to tap your toes!

In reply to Oldsign:
"it's great to get a grounding in music as you will need to learn more theory than with guitar for example"


I definitely don't agree with this. To be a half decent guitarist you need to know every chord of each key in an instant, understand how these chords work together in progressions, the major, minor and blues scales at least, which of these scales can be played over which chords and understanding how each different interval sounds. To be better than half decent you need to extend that to modes, inversions, etc...


Of course learning harmonica or any other instrument properly is also difficult, but there's a lot more to playing guitar than learning wonderwall from guitar tab

In reply to olliehales:

I tried the harmonica but too many years working in horrible industries has left me with quite restricted lung function.
A 5 string bluegrass banjo is where it's at in my opinion.
Small enough to travel with and if you happen to like bluegrass it's the single best sounding instrument in the world.

In reply to Liamhutch89:

Aye, I have no quarrel with any of that. It's just that with diatonic harmonica the introduction of music theory comes in sooner in comparison if you want to focus on blues. You need to know the circle of fifths early on for example and you're the only bugger in the room who wants to know what key the song is in. You also have to learn different positions to play in different keys on the same harp (I never got past first and second position because I'm lazy). Not knocking guitar by any stretch it's just that the basics are different.

In reply to Oldsign:

Cheers for the feedback all!

I did find some videos by Ronnie Shellist - I have found his to be the most watchable. The guy has a lot of talent, I can't get my C key harp to sound anything like he does.

I have a guitar also - I find it very hard to play the bar chords, I suppose practice and more practice required.

I am hoping with the Chromatic in the future I can play along to piano melodies easier than with the Diatonic.