Hey, you want to play the harmonica?
My name is John Gindick and I'm your teacher.
All you need to learn to play is a harmonica, this video, the little booklet that comes with it,
and the desire to have a good time and learn to play.
Now about your harmonica, this is the kind you need.
It's got to have 10 holes.
As a matter of fact, let me show you this big picture of it.
It's got to have 10 holes and you can blow and draw on each hole.
If I say three blow, well, I mean to blow on hole number three.
And if I say four draw, well, then I mean to draw on hole number four.
And if I say one, two, three, four blow, then I mean to make your mouth big enough to blow
on holes one, two, three, and four.
And that's where we're going to start blowing on holes one, two, three, and four,
and just making your harmonica sound pretty.
So come on, bring your harmonica on up.
Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, you need to have a harmonica in the key of C.
And right here on your harp, it should say C.
That would be right about here, or maybe it's over here.
And that's all you need.
So now bring your harmonica on up to your face and blow on holes one, two, three, and four.
Make your mouth real big and real relaxed.
Blow gently, no cyclones, no tornadoes.
You might break your harmonica.
Try the draw.
Draw is another word for saying suck or inhale.
Blow and draw.
Now, if you sound like this, you're trying too hard.
I really want you to relax and to make these streams of air very gentle,
like a breeze blowing through your harmonica.
Remember, the goal of your harmonica playing is to make the harmonica sound pretty.
Now, here's a little exercise that might help you.
And that is to clench the harmonica in your teeth like this.
You try it.
Boy, it sounds better already.
Yeah, that's it.
What that does is really relax your lips and your jaw in this area right in here.
And this is very important in the harmonica playing, that you're real relaxed.
Now, the next thing that I want you to do is to slide the harmonica in your mouth as
you blow and draw.
And you know what we're going to do is play something that sounds like cowboy music.
And you might want to lick your lips a little bit.
Keep them lubricated to make that harmonica slide really evenly.
Can you imagine yourself out on the prairie and you've got the cattle out there
and you're sitting around with guys with names like Tex and Slim around the campfire
and you pull out your harmonica and just kind of...
And what you'll find is that you can end your little song the best by blowing on holes
three, four, and five all at the same time.
I call this the chord of resolution because it brings your little song home to a resting
place like this.
So what I want you to do is to turn off this video for a few minutes and play some cowboy
music, blowing and drawing, making that harmonica sound pretty and getting your face and your lips
to be really relaxed.
So go ahead, play some cowboy music and I'll meet up with you in a few minutes.
All right, now I want to show you some special techniques and one of the easiest of these
is called tonguing.
Say ta, ta, ta.
Can you feel where the tip of your tongue hits the roof of your mouth?
Try it just whispering.
Try it on the draw.
Try giving it a beat.
Let me hear you do it.
Yeah, that's pretty good.
Now try that on your harmonica.
Just go any place.
Say holes three and four, blow.
Try it on the draw.
Can you hear how this stops and starts the harmonica without you having to stop and
start your breath?
Well, that's what tonguing does.
It enables you to play quickly or seemingly quickly when actually all you're doing is
Now as we continue on in this video, you'll be doing lots of tonguing.
As a matter of fact, when you tongue a note, that's represented by the dot.
And when you draw a note, that's indicated by a number with a circle.
And when you blow a note, well, that's just that number.
Let me show you.
Here's a circled number.
It means to draw.
The uncircled number means to blow and the dot means to tongue the note that you're
already playing.
Okay, so that's tonguing.
Now I want to move you a little bit further into your harmonica playing.
And that's playing single notes.
And the way you get a single note like this is by puckering, pushing your lips out into
a big fish mouth, kind of like this.
Now I had my artist draw up a big picture for you so you could take a look at it.
And as you can see, you've got to be narrow enough so that you don't play the whole next
door.
You also want to stay real relaxed, real relaxed up in here.
It's really not that hard to do.
Try it on the four blow.
Just push your lips out, put the harmonica deep within your puckered lips and blow.
Let me show you a view from the side.
What I want you to notice is how this upper lip curves out and up like this.
Have you ever balanced a pencil between your upper lip and your nose?
It's a little bit like that.
But then again, I don't want you to carry it too far.
Sometimes the very best thing you can do is just look at your harmonica, look at hole
number four and say, hey, little buddy, I'm going to play you.
Bring the harp up to your mouth and indeed play it.
Do it with me.
Four blow.
Do it on the four draw.
Now draws are a little funny.
And if your air is coming through in a real constricted sort of way like this,
you're going to feel a lot of resistance.
You're actually going to be bending that note, bringing it in kind of low or flat.
And that's not the way you want to play the harmonica.
You want that feeling to be unrestricted and open.
As a general rule of thumb, or in this case, rule of mouth,
the larger you can make that single note hole and still get a single note,
and the further into your mouth you can place the harmonica, the better your tone is going to be.
Now, do you want okay tone when you play the harmonica?
No, you don't want okay tone.
You want beautiful tone.
So I want you to keep working with this so that harmonica sounds really pretty.
Now, if you can put a little stomach tremolo behind it, kind of like this,
well, you don't use your voice, you'll make it sound prettier yet.
But again, this is a technique that you don't want to overdo.
Well, now I want you to keep working with this so that harmonica sounds really pretty.
Again, this is a technique that you don't want to overdo.
Well, now I want to show you the basic scale on the harmonica.
And this will help you move around the harp.
And you can call it harp by now.
I think you know this little instrument well enough.
So it starts on your four blow.
And even if you're not getting the single note perfectly yet, that's okay.
Play it with me.
So it goes from four blow to four draw.
To five blow.
To five draw.
To six blow.
To six draw.
And then it changes and goes to seven draw.
To seven blow.
Now a lot of times when people are first starting to learn to play the harmonica,
they take the harmonica out of their mouth to search for notes.
That's not the right way to do it.
And it will be a really bad impediment to your playing if that's the way you do it.
So instead, slide the harmonica between your puckered and slightly moistened lip.
And the more you play, the more your ear will just get in touch with where that harmonica is,
and it will become natural.
Now if you're having trouble starting on the correct note,
then go ahead and cover up every hole with your fingers,
except the hole that you're trying to play.
Play that hole, then take your fingers away and try to play it again.
So that's your scale.
And work with it a little bit.
You don't have to beat it into the ground,
but I just want you to have a basic idea on how to play the thing.
Now the next thing that I want to show you is how to use your hands to make the harmonica talk.
And here's what I'm talking about.
You form a cup behind the lower notes of your harmonica
by putting the harp in your left hand between the fingers.
Make sure that your fingers are towards the back of the harp so you can get your lips up in here.
So here's a cup behind the lower holes, and then you just go like that.
Now my hands are a lot bigger than yours, but it doesn't matter.
I've taught lots of kids to play this way.
Even if your hands only go that far, you can still form that cup,
and you only need to have the cup behind holes one, two, three, and four.
Then as you're playing a note, you open your hands.
So there are some of the techniques of harmonica playing.
Tunging, playing beautiful, clear, rich single notes with the harmonica deep between your peckered lips.
Playing the scale.
And sliding the harmonica in your mouth and blowing and drying as you do it.
And using your hands to make the harmonica talk.
Now I don't expect you to be able to master all of these techniques immediately,
but if you practice a little bit every day, playing both the songs, just practicing the techniques,
and practicing the scales, hey, you'll learn to play.
So now I'm going to show you how to play a few of my favorite songs.
Now your first song is going to be one of my favorites.
It's called Clementine. I'm sure you've heard it.
It's that great old song from the California Gold Rush.
And here I've got it written out for you.
And an uncircled number means to blow, and a circled number means to draw.
And the dots, that means to tongue the note that you're already playing.
Now first, let me just sing Clementine for you.
Oh, my darling, oh, my darling, oh, my darling, Clementine.
You are lost and gone forever. Dreadful, sorry, Clementine.
Okay, now let's try it on the harmonica.
And as you can see, it starts on the four blow.
So let's find that four blow.
And if you can, mentally sing that, oh, my darling,
and kind of sing it in your head as you're playing it on the harmonica.
So what we're going to do is play the four blow
and then continue to play the four blow as we tongue the sounds for the syllables of oh, my dar.
Do it with me.
Again.
Once more.
And then as you can see from the notation, we slide the harp to three blow to express the syllable
ing.
Try this entire line with me.
Now's a good time to take a breath as you slide the harmonica up to the five blow.
Play that five blow, tongue the syllables for my dar, and go to the four blow for the ling.
Okay.
Now if you put the whole first line together, it goes like this.
Now we move on to oh, my darling, four blow.
Without taking the harmonica out of your mouth, slide to the five, slide to the six, and tongue it.
Then five draw, five blow, four draw.
Now here's the entire line.
Again.
Now at this point, you might want to turn the tape off and work on these first two lines,
or you just might want to continue, which is what I'm going to do.
Here we go to four draw, five blow, five draw, tongue,
five blow, four draw, five blow, four blow.
The entire line.
And then four blow, five blow, four draw, three blow, three draw.
That was the four draw.
Ending it on the four blow.
Let me play the whole line for you and play along with me.
Now a lot of times people have a little bit of problem with that three draw right here.
It comes out sounding like a foghorn, kind of like this.
Well now if you're having that problem, what you're doing is drawing too hard,
and you're trying to force that air through, like this.
So what I suggest you do is go to that three draw and practice it.
Inhale a little bit of air through your nose, and when you feel that resistance,
that sense that makes you want to go, do it the opposite way and coax that air through.
Okay, so now let me play Clementine for you all the way through.
Now let me play it for you the way that you'll play it after you've learned it.
Oh, and here's an idea about that.
As soon as possible, put your music notation away.
You know, playing the harmonica isn't really like reading a poem to somebody.
It's something that you do more out of your mind and out of your head.
So just memorize the song and learn to play it without the notation.
And here's the way it'll sound,
particularly once you start cupping your hands and using that.
Now the next song that I'm going to show you is even easier than Clementine,
but you might want to turn off the video for a while and work with Clementine.
And when you do it, just learn one phrase at a time and then add each note
and learn to play it from your heart, not just your head.
You know, one of the great things about the harmonica is that it's easy to play.
And another thing is that it's so good for expressing feeling.
And the next song that I'm going to teach you taps,
takes advantages of both these characteristics.
It's an easy song to play on an easy instrument to play and great, great feeling.
It goes like this.
And of course, this is a song that you play just before going to sleep.
At least is what you'd play if you were in an old movie as a cavalry officer or something.
Okay. Now this song is so easy because it's all on the blow.
Let me play it for you.
Play it with me.
Now we're going to work on one of the most beautiful songs I know.
It's that patriotic hymn, America.
Now let me sing it for you just in case you've forgotten how it goes.
My country is of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims' pride,
From every mountain side, let freedom ring.
Let's get started.
Starts on the four blow and you tongue it.
Then four draw.
Three draw.
Four blow.
Four draw.
And here's the entire line.
The next line starts on the five blow.
I'll run through it again and you play it with me.
The next line goes clear up to the sixth blow.
You want to play it with me.
And finally, from every.
There's a lot of notes in this word every, but if you take your time, you'll get it.
Now you may want to turn off the video for a while and work with this, or you may want
to just try playing along with me right now.
Now, even if you're not getting a single note throughout the entire song, it'll still
sound really pretty because that's one of the great things about the harmonica is that
the notes harmonize with each other.
For instance.
So you might want to feel your way around the harmonica that way.
Now you're going to have to take your harmonica and your little booklet out to some place
and open up that booklet and really learn to play these songs from your heart as well
as from your head.
And as soon as possible, close the booklet and then go see your mom and your dad or your
uncle or your brother and your sister or your kids at school and play some harmonica for
them.
And this is the way this song sounds when you get it really pretty.
Yeah.
Well, now one of the most fun things you can do on the harmonica is imitate the sounds
of an old train.
The train whistle is actually pretty easy.
I do that on holes four and five draw, and this is on the draw.
Hear how there's two notes in there played at the same time that's four and five.
Does that sound like a train whistle to you?
Okay, let's try making the train going down the track.
And that sounds kind of like this.
Now, that might sound like I'm going real fast, but not really.
All I'm doing is playing holes one, two, three, four, draw, and then blowing, drawing,
blowing, drawing, blowing.
Except when I blow, I open up my mouth real wide and blow most of the air over the top
of the harmonic.
So it's actually more like this.
You see that train going down the track?
Who took my baby and coming back?
So that's train music.
Hey, we've run out of time, but I really want to thank you for listening and playing along
with this video.
Heck, by the time you're done with it, you're going to be able to play train music and you're
going to be able to play some of America's greatest songs, and that is quite an accomplishment.
I want you to remember to have fun, to play a little bit every day, to make up your own
songs and techniques, and to carry your harmonica with you 24 hours a day.
Now, if you want more information about the harmonica, more videos, more tapes or audio
cassettes, call the 800 number that's on the video jacket.
Hey, my name's John Gindick, and I'm your harmonica teacher.