To start off my epic journey into learning the harmonica, I first needed to learn about my harmonica. After a bit of Googling, I’ve learned that my harmonica is called a diatonic harmonica. This means that it has 10 holes to play from, with each hole having 2 notes, meaning there are 20 unique sounds total. With each hole of the harmonica you can either inhale (draw) or exhale (blow).
To play a song on the harmonica, you do not use a traditional music sheet. Instead, you use something called the Tab System. Tabs usually correspond to the lyrics of a specific song with numbers that correspond to the hole you need to play. If the number is negative, then it is a draw note and you must inhale. If the number is positive, then it is a blow note and you must exhale.
Tab for “Alouette”
To begin learning how to read tabs while playing, I looked for easy well-known songs, specifically the Quebecois nursery rhyme “Alouette.” My first time playing “Alouette,” I was on FaceTime with my boyfriend. At first he said I sounded “pretty choppy,” but by the end of the roughly 10 minutes of ear-piercing torture I made him endure, he told me that I am, AND I QUOTE, “getting pretty good!”