Making a sound on a harmonica is the easy part, because by default it sounds two or three holes at once. The hard part is isolating one clean note, breathing gently, and working with a technique you can't see, since it all happens inside your mouth. How far past that you need to go depends on what you want to play: simple folk tunes, harmonica between the lines of your own songs, or blues with bent notes.
What makes harmonica hard, whatever you play
Whatever music you want to play, three things make harmonica hard. You have to isolate a single note, breathe gently in both directions, and work with a technique you can't see. On a harmonica it's easier to sound two or three holes than one. The holes sit side by side and a relaxed mouth covers more than one of them, so a single note has to be isolated on purpose. There are two common ways to do it. You can narrow your lips around one hole, which is called puckering or lip blocking, or you can cover the neighbouring holes with your tongue, which is called tongue blocking. Both are used, and either one can give a good tone.
Every hole has a blow reed and a draw reed, 20 reeds in all on a 10-hole harmonica, so you play by breathing out and by breathing in. The reeds need surprisingly little air. Too much makes them sound harsh, and beginners tend to blow too hard. Relaxed lips and a relaxed jaw do the job better than tension does.
Then there's the part you can't watch. While you play, the hole numbers are inside your mouth, and the smooth face of the harmonica gives you very little to feel your way along, so your feedback comes almost entirely by ear. Your tongue matters as well. Held too high, it shrinks the space inside your mouth, which can give you a poor tone, a reed that stalls or a squeal, and it's hard to feel where your tongue actually is.
I play harmonica on stage, in folk and blues sets. Those two styles sit at different ends of what the instrument asks of you, and the music you want to play decides which of these hard parts matter most and how far past them you need to go.
Folk tunes in the harmonica's own key
For a folk tune that stays inside the harmonica's scale, the work is mostly single notes and gentle breath, because folk melodies are what the ten-hole diatonic harmonica was built for. Its tuning, called Richter tuning, was designed to combine simple chords with single-note folk melodies, and Hohner, a harmonica maker, says it "was originally intended for folk melodies". Playing in the key printed on the harmonica is called first position, or straight harp, and it means a C harmonica plays in C. Many well-known songs in major keys fit this way with no bends at all. To play along with a song, you pick a harmonica in the same key as the song.
The limit is the gaps. A diatonic is tuned to one major scale, and some melodies need notes it can only reach by bending, which belongs to the blues section further down.
Playing harmonica between the lines you sing
When harmonica joins songs you sing and play on guitar, you plan its parts around your voice. You can't sing and play harmonica at the same moment, because your mouth and your breath do both jobs. With a guitar, your hands play while you sing, but harmonica on a rack fills the gaps between your sung lines, so you work out where each harmonica part comes in.
The key often stays the same. First position is common in folk and singer-songwriter playing, including with the harmonica held on a rack, so you use a harmonica in the same key as the song: a C harmonica for a song in C, a G harmonica for a song in G. Second position turns up in that kind of playing too, so neither one is a rule.
The rack itself is ordinary kit. A harmonica holder, also called a neck rack, is a standard accessory that holds the harmonica at your mouth, so both hands stay free for the guitar or the piano.
Bob Dylan and Neil Young are the familiar picture of guitar plus harmonica on a rack. Young was born in Toronto, and the National Music Centre in Calgary holds one of his harmonicas and holders.
Blues, cross harp and bending
Blues is the hard end, because it asks for a different way of playing the harmonica and for bends. The usual approach in blues and rock is cross harp, also called second position. You play from the draw chord, the one you get by breathing in, so a C harmonica plays in G. To play along with a song, you pick a harmonica a fourth above the song's key, which means a C harmonica for a song in G, or an A harmonica for a song in E. Part of the bluesy sound comes from the flattened seventh this position gives you, and part comes from bent draw notes.
A bend lowers a note's pitch by changing the shape of the inside of your mouth. Your tongue reshapes the space the air passes through, and the two reeds in the hole respond to it. A 1998 study in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America describes how the pitch depends on the size and shape of the player's vocal tract. Players can bend with any of the common mouth shapes.
Bending counts as an advanced technique because of the order the skills come in. A bend needs a clean single note first, with your nose closed off so no air leaks out of it. Each hole and each bend then needs a different tongue position, and since your tongue is the part you can't see, you find each one by ear.
Starting with one harmonica in C
Whatever music you're after, start with a 10-hole diatonic harmonica in the key of C, which costs around $40, and a Hohner Special 20 is one example. Avoid the toy versions, because they make it harder to get a clean note. New players often damage a harmonica by breathing too hard, which is one more reason not to begin on an expensive one. A diatonic comes before a chromatic, and there's a separate post on how to pick a first harmonica if you want more on keys and models.
Learning it alone, or with someone listening
Teaching yourself has real strengths. Free videos and tab cost nothing, and they're enough for a first tune. The limit is that your feedback comes by ear. When you learn harmonica at home on your own, breath and embouchure habits (the way your lips and mouth sit on the holes) tend to go unnoticed. A teacher can't see your tongue either, but a teacher can hear what it's doing.
I teach harmonica one-to-one, live online on Zoom to students anywhere in Canada and in the US, and in person in Victoria, BC, and you can read more about harmonica lessons with me (http on the lessons page. Harmonica also comes round periodical my group classes in Victoria, as part of the rotation. Tell me through my contact form whether it's folk tunes, your own songs or blues you're after, and I'll suggest where to begin.
Smaller harmonica questions beginners ask
Do your lips touch the harmonica?
Yes. Your lips rest on the covers and close gently around them to form an airtight seal, with no pressure and no squeezing. Keep your lips and jaw relaxed while you do it. If you play single notes by tongue blocking, your tongue touches the harmonica too, because it covers the holes on either side of the one you want to sound.
What is a chromatic harmonica, and should a beginner start on one?
A diatonic is the usual first harmonica, so a chromatic tends to come later, if at all. A chromatic has a button on the side that shifts every hole up a semitone, which puts all 12 notes on one instrument. It can only bend notes slightly. A diatonic is tuned to one major scale and comes in different keys, and its construction is what allows the deeper bends blues players use.
What are the downsides of the harmonica?
A diatonic is tuned to one key, so to play along with songs in many keys you need several harmonicas. Cross harp helps, because it lets one harmonica play in a second key as well as its own. You also can't sing while you play it, the technique happens out of sight inside your mouth, and the scale has gaps that some melodies can only fill with bends.
Is breathing in through a harmonica normal?
Yes. Every hole has a blow reed and a draw reed, so you play by breathing out and by breathing in, and about half the notes on a 10-hole harmonica come from inhaling. Breathe in as gently as you breathe out. The reeds need very little air either way, and drawing too hard makes them sound harsh, the same as blowing too hard.
What do you call someone who plays the harmonica?
Someone who plays the harmonica is a harmonica player. Players often call the instrument a "harp", which is why you'll also see "harp player" used for the same person. The nickname also shows up in the names of two common ways to play, straight harp for first position and cross harp for second position.