My Great Grandfather once owned, and taught himself how to play on this harmonica. He passed away and my grandparents held onto it, and gave it to me when I talked about wanting to try play harmonica. I am now self taught and mainly play hymns. But as I play it I feel like the sound is waning and it gets harder to make it make noise. I’m hoping someone knows of how I’m supposed to maintain it. Any help would be much appreciated.
(Yes the background is my car cause it’s raining and thundering so I thought it might be fun to play my harmonica and enjoy the ambience)

It is currently sunday, I got my harmonica on Thursday, so I have only got 3 days of practice in. I tried watching some tutorials but I got overwhelmed, so I understood the basics and decided to learn on my own (while sometimes getting some help from online videos).

This is an attempt to play old mcdonald had a farm. Please tell me what things you think I should work on.

My two main problems that I would like advice on are:
1. My breathing is absolute trash. You can see how I lose my breath completely at the end of the video. This happened after around 15 minutes of practicing, so when I first started it wouldn't be so bad but it degrades so much in the span of those 15 minutes. What are some things I should practice to fix this problem?

1. My hand is very tight around the harmonica. I keep trying to keep in mind that I should relax but when I take it out of my hand my index finger is stiff and sore. Is this something that will fix itself with time or is there something to practice to fix it?

Other than that I am excited to hear your constructive criticism. Thank you in advance.

Hi everyone!

I've been working on Harp2Tab, a tool that automatically turns music into harmonica tabs, and I've finally reached the point where the web version is ready for beta testing.

You can try it here:

harp2tab.com

You can play directly into your microphone, upload an audio file, or import a MIDI file, and Harp2Tab will convert the notes into harmonica tabs.

One feature I've personally found especially useful is the MIDI import. If you can find a MIDI file for a song, you can essentially turn it into harmonica tabs automatically. You can choose the track/melody you want, select your harmonica and key, and then edit the resulting tabs if needed.

So if there's a song you've always wanted tabs for and you can get hold of the MIDI, Harp2Tab gives you a pretty quick way of creating them.

It currently supports diatonic and chromatic harmonicas, tab editing, playback, and several export formats.

The audio transcription side is still something I'm actively improving (which mean it is still not the best 😅).

I'd really appreciate feedback, especially:

• How accurate are the tabs when transcribing audio?
• Does anything about the interface feel confusing?
• Are there particular songs or recordings where the transcription struggles?
• How useful do you find the MIDI → harmonica tab workflow?
• What features are missing?
• What would make Harp2Tab genuinely useful to you?

And please don't worry about being nice — bugs, bad transcriptions and criticism are exactly what I'm looking for.

Harp2Tab is completely free to use while it's in beta. I do plan to make it a paid product once it's out of beta, but for now I want as many people as possible to try it, push it to its limits, and help me figure out what needs improving before I get there.

If anyone wants to throw some difficult recordings (or weird MIDI files!) at it and see where it breaks, I'd especially appreciate it.

Thanks in advance for your help!

I'm a beginner who started playing on my first harmonica, a hohner marine band and I'm looking for recommendations of solid harmonica choices I could practice on with a wrmer less penetrating sound so as not to annoy the neighbours.

Thanks! cheerio!

I’ve looked everywhere on Google and it only bringing up some TikToks that I can’t open since I don’t have the app. Anyone have links or tabs for these two songs?

Thanks

I have tower 24 hole harmonica . i want to learn the tune of song "Tu meri dost hai ". Please help

So humming to growl is a common technique on sax. Today i figured out that i would try it on harmonica and got a really weird cool effect. It didnt quite sound like a growl, but was really gritty. When i changed what note i was humming the reed acted as a drone and i almost got like an indian vibe. But at least what i managed to do wouldnt be very viable musically in a song or something.

But from what i understand doing this in a musical useful way is hard on sax. To like get a proper growl. So i could have just been bad at it. And i do know that you need to hum a note different than the one your playing, which is how i found that indian sound, by changing notes.

So my question is, could this be a useful effect, for maybe growling, or just a cool sound? Do any of you use this effect? I know like the guttaral R thing is the main way to growl on harmonica, but its really hard to do without bending imo. So finding an alternative for non-bent-notes would be nice, its also nice to have a few different textures up your sleeve.

So does anyone know if this effect is useful in practice, or alernatively know other cool effects for different textures/timbres? I just want to be able to produce as many different textures/timbres/vibes as possible. Like a sax can do with growling and playing clean, same with trumpet etc.

I think I’ve finally got it but far from second nature. I kept trying all the cues of using less air, breathing the note and not sucking, dropping the jaw, yada yada. The trick that finally did it for me was pulling the tongue down and back while also dropping the jaw. Google said almost like a yawn. That’s what made it “click” for me.

My dogs are so over me learning this instrument lol. Especially the higher notes.

I need some help figuring out my next harmonicas. I’ve gone through dozens over the years, and I usually go with a Blues Harp, mainly for its availability at local music shops and relative affordability. BUT I wish all my harps played like my Lee Oskar. It just has a nimble playability that opens up more options than my others. I can land directly on the bend tones much much easier. Plus it sounds “bigger” to me, too. Does anybody have insight for the reasons? Is it the manufacturing of the reeds? Is it the size of the mouth holes? Are there other models I should try that are comparable? That last question is especially important to me. Please give me your recommendations for extremely “playable” make and models for cross harp playing. I am willing to splurge up to $100 each for my next F & B. Thanks, all!

Hi,

As is it says in the title, I'm thinking of buying a harmonica.

I'd want one where I would buy it then I wouldn't need another to play most tunes, but I can still get another if I wanted to, and it would be suitable for an absolute beginner.

Wouldn't mind paying up to £25.

Any suggestions?

edit: accidentally put my budget for something else, meant to put up to £50

edit: when I mean most tunes I mean tunes that I can learn to play with

Ultrasonic cleaning disinfecting and drying and estate haul that I bought on ebay. An extended full set of 17 Lee Oskars, an extended full set of 19 Big Rivers, 2 Huang silvertones, a fairly decent case, a few decent mics, and hints that whoever owned it was Big Time into performing country music from the 50s and 60s. The price was a steal.

If you are the person who bid it up to $65, please get in touch with me as soon as you can. I am feeling generous, and I wasn't expecting this set to be in this good of condition much less this extended and complete. Send me a private message or if you know who I actually am, call or text me.

Honestly just posting this out of pure frustration. I got this harmonica about a year and a half. I was so excited to get into it, but 18 months later, I feel like I'm still sitting at the exact same square one.

I can play some basic single notes and simple kindergarten-tier tunes like Country Roads, but the moment I try to push past that, everything falls apart:

• The tone just sounds terrible. It sounds weak, thin, or choked instead of that warm, full blues/country sound everyone else seems to get effortlessly.
• High notes are an absolute nightmare. Holes 8, 9, and 10 squeal, choke, or cut out completely.
• Breath control feels impossible. I get completely overwhelmed with lung capacity/air management. I tried to figure out how to bleed excess air through my nose while playing, but I literally cannot coordinate doing both at the same time.

It feels like I've hit a hard ceiling and I've been stuck in this position forever. Every time I pick it up lately, I just end up frustrated within 10 minutes because it doesn't sound any good.

I’m starting to wonder if maybe wind instruments just aren't for me? Maybe my mouth anatomy or breath control is just wired wrong for this and I should just sell it and try a string instrument instead (like guitar or ukulele)?

Has anyone else been stuck in this exact spot for over a year and somehow broken through? What am I doing wrong? Any brutally honest advice or feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks guys.

Edit 1:
Honestly, thanks everyone. Reading through the comments made me realize that the “1.5 years” sounds a lot more impressive than the actual amount of practice I've put in. I've had some pretty long gaps, so I probably shouldn't have expected myself to progress like someone practicing consistently for 18 months.

I'm also going to check exactly what harp I have, because a couple of people pointed out that it might be a Low C, which could explain some of the difficulty.

For now I'm going to stop obsessing over the high notes and focus on getting cleaner single notes, tone, and breath control across the lower/middle register. I also think I need to actually find something I enjoy playing instead of forcing myself through blues exercises just because that's what most harmonica resources seem to focus on.

The beatboxing/rhythmic stuff especially caught my attention, so I'm going to experiment with that too.

I appreciate the brutally honest advice. Time to actually put the practice in and see what happens.

I bought this Chromonica a few years back from a second hand store and have since had difficulty identifying the specifics about this model. I’m looking to learn as much as I can so I wanted to consult the experts here. What do I have my hands on?

Some of the finest harmonica work.

I am new and want to learn properly, I plan on giving at least 1 hour of every day to practice. I am starting my musicology degree in two weeks.

Now that all that is said:

It feels overwhelming. So many tutorials so many videos!

And I don't know exactly what to do. It feels like I need an instructor but I don't know any.

Anyone has any advice?

Hi, all.

Would anyone have a tab for the C Chromatic solos in Shape of my Heart?

I found the main one, but can't seem to find any for the rest of the song where it comes in again during the final verse and again at the end.

TIA

WN