I am a rank beginner on the harmonica. I’ve bought a Hohner Marine Band in C and an Am Hohner PentaHarp. I do have a background in music and play the trumpet, flugle and baritone.
My goal is to play the Blues - good old down and dirty honkytonk bendy blues and sad mournful cry in your beer blues. Yeah. well, the Blues.
There is a long road for me ahead but then I have lots of time to travel that road. I am retired.
I am looking forward to interacting with all you good people.
8 Likes
Welcome! I’m new here myself, both to the forum and harmonica, but welcome! 
5 Likes
Hello @Dupuis,
Welcome to the forum.
As for playing the harp, I’m in the middle group in kindergarten. 
You have a good background as you already play other instruments, which will definitely help you.
Have fun enjoying your pension and learning the harp, a good combination.
Best regards from Astrid 
4 Likes
Thank you Astrid
4 Likes
Thank you Dave
5 Likes
What it is welcome
4 Likes
Right on man. You got this. So glad that you chose harmonica and very happy to have you here in the forum. Rock on. 
3 Likes
Hi!!
I’m also new to the harmonica. I’m in a band with three other people (2 guitarists - both moving back and forth from guitar to bass when necessary) and one drummer. I sing, play the alto and tenor sax, guitar, flute and bass guitar and have recently been asked to pick up the harp as well as we have many songs which have really cool harp in them. I agreed and have now picked up “C” and “G” 10-hole diatonic harps to start with. So far, they’re fun!!!
I researched some sites for online learning and really liked what I saw here.
Looking forward to learning with everybody!! 
5 Likes
Welcome! There’s certainly some good resources here, and on the YouTube channel.
I can’t really play the sax properly yet, I had my teeth pulled out in preparation for dentures not long after starting, and it’s really hard to play sax with no teeth! I can to a certain degree, but without your top teeth, you have no guide as to how much mouthpiece you’re taking in! So now, on to the harmonica!
You sound a bit like me though, tell me where the notes are on an instrument, and I can play something. What you’ll find frustrating with learning harmonica is, they don’t tell you which notes you’re playing!!! 
So my tip is, print out the harmonica note maps for the various keys, having them in front of you makes improvisation so much easier, you know what you’re playing! 
It’s lots of fun though, enjoy, and welcome to the forum!
4 Likes
I can imagine that it would be difficult to play the sax without teeth. I love the fact that you’ve worked on it notwithstanding though!
Thank you for the tip!!! I will definitely print out the note maps as you’ve suggested. I’m trying to put as much time in as I can and get myself sounding like I might have a faint idea as to what I’m doing as we have a couple of gigs coming up and I just know that there’s going to be expectations (joy!). Any help I can get is more than appreciated!
4 Likes
@Christine, best of luck with the gigs, I haven’t played an actual gig since 2019!
I think having the note maps will help you learn specific songs more easily at first, as you most likely understand theory and can read music, but a great thing about harmonica is that everything you learn transfers to another key by simply swapping harps! So once you learn the pattern of a scale, or song, you know it in every key! That’s why the actual notes themselves don’t matter so much. I haven’t learned all of the patterns though, so I find having a note map very handy when jamming. I’ve got a pretty good idea of which note might fit, I just don’t know where they are in the heat of the moment yet!
I’m a raw beginner though, so don’t take my word over an instructor or experienced player, perhaps learning that way hinders your progress in the long run, for now though, I find it very handy!
2 Likes