I decided that the Airstream experience would only be complete with a musical instrument. While I played drums in my youth (head snare in concert band, baby..), I was never very musical otherwise. I dabbled with a few instruments here and there, but never really got into them, and never really had enough interest to bother with private lessons.

Lately I thought, if I’m sitting outside of the Airstream, in the sand, or in the desert, what instrument is appropriate? There were really only three choices: Acoustic guitar, harmonica, and jaw harp (like from Crocodile Dundee). I figured acoustic guitar was a bit of a commitment (and takes up a lot of space in my small quarters), so I bought a harmonica – a Lee Oskar Major Diatonic in the key of C.

The great thing is, there are a bunch of really easy to understand harmonica lessons online. YouTube is full of free ones, but the best by far appear to be by Adam Gussow of Satan & Adam. He has about 150 free lessons on youtube (search for “gussow”), and a bunch of pay ones on modernbluesharmonica.com. The pay ones seem to be the best, and are really reasonably priced — a starter set of about 5 lessons cost $23, and is probably enough to last at least a month of playing.

The hardest part of getting started on harmonica is being able to play single notes. This took several days to be able to do at all, to be able to do it reliably takes a lot of refinement in the technique. Moving from one single note to another is even more difficult, as it has as much to do with understanding how far you need to move left or right as it does mouth shape.

Anyway, I assume that like every other instrument I’ve picked up, I’ll end up giving up after a short time, but who knows. It’s fun for now, and a harmonica is only 30 bucks.

Posted in: Randomness