so what I want to talk to you about
first of all with harmonica is just some
of the basics about it okay
there are ten holes on the harmonica I
don't know if if you can see the numbers
here but you can see above this hole is
one two three four five six seven eight
nine ten
now that spans three octaves if you're a
musician that means something to you if
you're not a musician that may not mean
anything to you but basically it means
there's three different places on the
harmonica that I could play the same
melody so if I want to play mary had a
little lamb for example I can play or I
can play it an octave up or I can play
the an octave above that so there are
three octaves on the harmonica a really
when people are just learning to play
the harmonica or they just have one for
the first time one thing that I always
tell them is okay real just quick and
easy thing that you're going to want to
do if you want to play kind of like Bob
Dylan and folk kind of style harmonica
that is going to be in what we call
first position and I will do many more
videos in the future about different
positions and getting into the specifics
of it but really the quick and dirty
thing to know is if you have a C
harmonica and you're wanting to play Bob
Dylan you're going to be mostly blowing
most of the time and you're going to be
playing in the key of the harmonica so a
C harmonica you'll be playing in the key
of C and you'll be doing focusing on a
lot of blowing stuff and it'll sound
like this
okay if you're wanting to do a more
bluesy kind of stuff again this is a
quick and dirty version of it but your
I'll just say this for you're going to
use a sea harmonica you're going to play
in what's known as cross harp or it's
also referred to a second position a sea
harmonica is going to give you the key
of G and the thing to know is if you're
just starting now is you're just going
to you're going to want to suck you're
going to want to be sucking more than
you are blowing to illustrate this I am
going to play you right now and I'm
going to be cheating a little bit
because I know how to bend and if this
is your first time on the harmonica you
don't know how to bend but I'm gonna do
something where I don't do any blowing
at all okay I didn't blow one time okay
so that you're going to want to be doing
sucking more if you're going for more of
the blues kind of thing okay that's the
kind of quick and down and dirty and
I'll get into it like I said a lot more
details on future videos
the other things that's really important
to know when you're first starting to
play the harmonica is how to hold it and
how to engage it with my with your mouth
okay so the first thing that you should
know is if you're watching the way I've
been playing here in my little intro and
stuff I don't hold the harmonica the
right way because I didn't learn the
right way I I hold the harmonica kind of
with my right hand like this and I do
this and I cup like this and that's
because nobody ever taught me how to
play but the correct way which I would
just I think technique is a good thing
so if I was starting over I would just
learn how to play the correct way which
is you take your left hand and you hold
it like this like you're gonna make the
letter C and you just push it in there
and then the heel of your of your thumb
resting the heel of your palm rather
rest against the back and you do this
kind of a thing
then you can do that hand well with that
so but the idea is like this okay
how do your lips engage the harmonica
your lips engage the harmonica the most
important thing to know is you don't
want to do with it okay you want to
pretend like you're kissing mmm you're
kissing somebody that you really love a
lot okay so you're gonna pucker
so see how my lips are going to be kind
of pointed up in a way like this so in
other words you're going to get some
slobber on the harmonica which is why
some people maybe would prefer not to
share their harmonicas okay and not this
yeah okay so it looks like this not like
good don't do this do do this okay is
that clear hopefully you can see that in
the video so that's the end of this
tutorial again my name is Luke clebsch
and please if you like this video if
it's helpful to you let me know leave a
comment under the video and if you have
anything specifically that you'd like to
learn about the harmonica let me know to
connect with me on Facebook or leave a
message under the video and I'll see if
I can get to it
you