by John Stienback -
A harmonica is easy to carry. Take it out of your pocket, knock it against your palm to shake out the dirt and pocket fuzz and bits of tobacco. Now its ready. You can do anything with a harmonica: thin reedy single tone or chords, or melody with rhythm chords. You can mold the music with curved hands making it wail and cry like bagpipes. making it full and round like an organ, making it as sharp and bitter as the reed pipes of the hills. And you can play it and put it back in your pocket. It is always with you, always in your pocket. And as you play, you will learn new tricks, new ways to mold the tone with your hands, to pinch the tone with your lips and no one teaches you. You feel around - sometimes alone in the shade at noon, sometimes in the tent door after supper when the women are washing up. Your foot taps gently on the ground. your eye brows rise and fall to the rhythm. And if you loose it or break it, why, its no great loss. You can buy another for a quarter.
A harmonica is easy to carry. Take it out of your pocket, knock it against your palm to shake out the dirt and pocket fuzz and bits of tobacco. Now its ready. You can do anything with a harmonica: thin reedy single tone or chords, or melody with rhythm chords. You can mold the music with curved hands making it wail and cry like bagpipes. making it full and round like an organ, making it as sharp and bitter as the reed pipes of the hills. And you can play it and put it back in your pocket. It is always with you, always in your pocket. And as you play, you will learn new tricks, new ways to mold the tone with your hands, to pinch the tone with your lips and no one teaches you. You feel around - sometimes alone in the shade at noon, sometimes in the tent door after supper when the women are washing up. Your foot taps gently on the ground. your eye brows rise and fall to the rhythm. And if you loose it or break it, why, its no great loss. You can buy another for a quarter.