Everyone used to have to sing, usually in groups, and the world was better for it. Think of singing around the campfire, or \"Take Me Out to the Ballgame.\" or the Lollipop Guild and the Lullaby League. If you leave all the singing to professionals, you will lose more than just the music you will lose a piece of the collective soul. Don\'t worry nobody not asking you to sing in front of people. Just try singing to yourself. Get your hands on some traditional blues music and start singing along. If Bob Dylan could do it, so can you.

Mimic the vocalist, but don\'t get hung up on getting it note for note. Don\'t limit yourself to the singing parts try wailing along with the guitar, the horns, the harmonicist, and the bass, whatever is there that attracts your ear. Try singing different ways sing through your nose and sing from your chest. Hum when you don\'t know the lyrics. Get in the shower and sing.

One more thing you might want to get a nickname. May be you want to be called \"Sudden Sam.\" How about this? You may have already noticed that many great harmonica players have funny nicknames. This is because the harmonica is an inherently fun instrument. So have some fun choosing your harp player handle. Toots is already taken, and Sonny Boy was used more times than one nickname for harmonica players should have been, leading to some confusion. And of course \"Gene Weingarten\" is taken. Be creative when you choose a nickname maybe \"borrow\" one from a famous hip hop artist. Like, how about Luda Lips? Or Eminarp? For you older people your kids are going to think you\'re really hip. They\'re going to want to bring you to their parties and invite you to hang out at the mall.

Now remember these several steps to write your own blues song. Many blues consist of a three line verse, known as the \"complaining, complaining again, then complaining some more\" form. So the singer might sing My woman up and left me, she took the kids and the truck. Then the first line is repeated My woman up and left me, she took the kids and the truck. Now the singer has to come up with a third line that rhymes Don\'t know what to do because I miss that truck so much.

Now you try it. What if the first and second line is I woke up this morning, blues all around my head I woke up this morning, blues all around my head You could say lots of things, as long as they end with something that rhymes with \"head.\" Sometimes they don\'t even bother rhyming, but at How to Play headquarters there are some standards. What about Couldn\'t remember if your name was Bill or Fred OR you were all out of bagels so I had to have toast instead OR My wife stole the covers and kicked me out of bed OR The dog ate my homework and I might as well be dead Now you come up with some third lines, or go ahead and write an entire verse by yourself. You might need to drink some whiskey and do some hard living first. Or, you can watch a movie about people doing that and save yourself a lot of trouble.


By Alex Wess who plays harmonica for over 30 years.