You learn more by playing other harps. Though I understand why people stick to just one. It is hard to learn a second instrument, especially the first time you do it.
I am currently procrastinating on learning to play my Bass harmonica.
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I’m sure you’re right about playing other harps or other instruments (over the years I’ve played drums and double bass) but I have no ambitions to be more than an adequately competent player; for me it’s mental relaxation from the day job. I’d suggest that if you want to play Bass harmonica don’t procrastinate just get on and do it, you’re probably 90% there anyway. What Bass harmonica do you have? Is it blow only? I understand that Suzuki have now added a Bass Chromatic to the Sirius range with the same style and size as the standard 12-hole chromatic harmonica. Now a chromatic bass, that could take some puff. Jay1
It’s a 265 Hohner double bass. Bought it a year or two ago. I was pretty excited to learn it, but it was airy. So I gave it to Bill to repair, and it’s a good bit better now. But I have so much to learn on Chromatic.
It’s blow only, big bass sound. Maybe I start giving it 5 min a day and see how that goes.
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When I said I’d played double bass it was the stand-up bass used in a trad jazz band and seriously damaged fingers not a harmonica. If you’re going to play that 265, to pinch a line from Kipling “You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din”. Jay1
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A great reason to play bass harmonica is the social scene. You can’t have a trio without a chord and a bass, and there’s not too many chord or bass players out there.
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Hey guys - Yeah I’m continuing to play my chromatic a little bit, almost every day. Still mostly just playing Manha de Carnival, though I also realized that I’d actually bought the Max de Aloe book several years ago when I’d considered taking up the intstrument - found the book on my bookcase, and have enjoyably made my way through the first 2 chapters. It’s fun reading music. Exercises a part of the brain that nothing else does, and kind of like reading a book, I just feel better after I do it.
Rob Paparozzi’s comment that playing the chromatic has made him a smoother player on the diatonic is what got me over the opportunity cost issue of taking time away from practicing the diatonic which had been stopping me from picking up the chromatic for the last couple years.
I’m glad I picked it up. Having a ball!
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How much time do you spend practicing? I’m afraid if I’m booked to do a court hearing it means leaving early and getting back late so anything requiring use of the brain gets pushed to one side. Jay1
I practice Chromatic for about an hour, but my wife has been decorating recently, so I haven’t had much time to practice of late
Oh for an hour to practice, I’d have to give up the day job! Fortunately I don’t get involved with decorating just say ‘yes love, anything you want love’ and then sob 
when I see the bill.
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My Wife is an artist she’s brilliant at decorating, she’s just turned our bedroom into something out of Hammer films, it’s a Gothic bedroom it does look pretty cool though. I mostly stay out of the way. But she insists on having the radio blaring and singing along with it when she does it which is just impossible to concentrate on practice while she’s doing that however, I have begun to customise my own harps now tuning them, gapping them, replacing plastic and wooden combs with aluminum combs making sure everything’s air tight and that’s going well, but it’s very time consuming but the finish article is worth it. You never know I might get the nerve up to customise my Chromatic’s at some point. Back to practice soon as she announced yesterday that she’s only waiting for one thing to arrive to finish it all off. Being fair to her, it doesn’t cost me much, she has an eye for a bargain and most of the stuff for the bedroom was bought at charity shops we like going around those occasionally and having a rummage it saves us what would’ve been a fortune. But I’m glad it’s almost done. All my practice of late has been sporadic at best can’t wait to get back at it.
You never know I might get the nerve up to customise my Chromatic’s at some point. Andy, if you can customise diatonics you can customise chromatics just be careful of mouthpiece screws and the small plastic buffers. I take photos at each stage. I’ve just rebuilt a Chordomonica-II with a two button 7 section mouthpiece and photos of each section was essential. Customising (or playing with the guts) of chromatic or other button harmonicas is just a matter of being careful to record where everything goes and then making it all as smooth as possible. Reed work is the same as diatonics, careful slow progression, tiny bits at a time, good light and some magnification. A tray with a soft cloth helps to prevent bits going where they will probably never be found. Do you buy ready made aluminum combs? I doubt you’ll find them for chromatics, especially non valve models.
My wife studied art but moved into the commercial world and ran her own graphic design company until the offsprings arrived when she sold the business leaving me to provide for the growing family. No wonder I don’t have time to practice harmonica much 
We live in a listed building so decorating has to be carried out in a particular way, planners would go mad if we attempted what your wife has done 
Jay1
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Your house must look very cool. My mom and I are very much interested in a lot of things that are considered gothic.
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Speaking of chromatic, I have a 12-hole Kongsheng Lyra in my gig bag, but I rarely use it live because I’m not confident in my playing abilities on it. I still remember people telling me on a chromatic Facebook group that I have to tongue block. I really want to play blues on it, but every blues chromatic song I hear is 100% tongue blocking. I can’t stretch my mouth that far all the time because I have a small mouth. So I feel like I’m SOL when it comes to playing blues on chromatic.
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You don’t have to completely tongue block, @Jay1 can’t tongue block because the sensation makes him retch. I think you might get away with your version of of it where you just play the two holes, I reckon there’d be a way around it. Especially Jazz style blues, and of course soul, I’m not 100% certain that Stevie Wonder tongue blocks all the time and what he does is amazing.
As for our house, yeah it is pretty cool, we’ve got Skulls and crystal balls, little ghosts a Viking axe and sword, pirate Treasure chests where I keep all my meds we’ve got statues of vampires Frankenstein. A portrait of the Bride of Frankenstein and the monster hugging with made for each other in scrolling on it ( my wife painted that) yes for years I wandered the wilderness as a lonely autistic weirdo — then I met my weirdo for life.
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I won’t touch Facebook and it seems to me that Facebook is a place to avoid like the plague. As a part time chromatic session player I’ve played all kinds of music on chromatic, including blues and I can’t tongue block, I’ve tried it over the years and for some unknown reason it makes me retch so I don’t do it. I’ve written it before but will do so again a solo tuned chromatic is only two solo tuned diatonics joined by a button, Assuming your Lyra is in C choose something in D leave the button alone and use the Dm Pentatonic notes of D -1 F-2 G+3 A-3 C+4 & D -5, difficult to go wrong if you build a riff on those notes. If you get stuck someone here will sort you out a riff to get you going.
@Andy2 Just seen your couple of posts, Our house was built in 1742 and there are bits of it I’ve probably not yet found, like the place some of my chromatics have disappeared to 
Is it my wife or a resident ghost trying to tell me something? But seriously, as a blues aficionado any thoughts that might help @KeroroRinChou to play blues on the chrom? Jay1
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Well if you’ve got a Ghost my Wife is a Rescue medium and a White Witch. Any problems with that we can sort out. We’ve cleared tons of haunted houses.
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Thanks Andy but in reality it’s probably just me being untidy. Jay1
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I’ve just had a break through on using my Chromonica, I have been having a devil of a time getting the timing right on the stab for passing notes, it was really getting to me. So I changed things up on my backing tracks, I found a few classic soul style tracks and a few gospel (@KeroroRinChou may find this interesting as I know they love Gospel,) I found the progressions easier than Blues for some reason I couldn’t identify ( it may be I’m just getting a bit stale by just trying to learn blues on it) Anyway I found quite a few tracks, soul, Gospel soul, and pure Gospel. And I managed to get what I imagine the vocal lines would be, and visualised the changes, at first I was over anticipating and coming just after where the passing notes would be, I continued trying to get a bead on where the passing notes would come this time I under anticipated. So I put the harp down and hummed along with the backing tracks and I could get the passing notes in my head smack on. So I picked up the Chromonica playing exactly what I’d hummed and everything clicked! Honestly it was like magic. I was so chuffed. So I found Paul Delay’s version of Cry to me ( the original was Solomon Burke) and I sussed out a lot of what Paul was doing on that solo, and started adding my own bits. It’s chuffed me no end, my Wife is out with her bestie today, Neighbors are out so I was able to get a good few hours in practice on Diatonic and Chromatic. I’m over the moon.
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@Andy2 share some links to these backing tracks brah!!!
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