All people need to be able to improvise in every area of life, and the best way to learn this is on the harmonica. You should explore a lot, because your ear needs time to learn how to hear. Just as it takes time to learn a language and to catch its nuances, so it takes time for your ear to hear when you\'re in key, what the tonic home base of the key note is, and so on. You have to give yourself a chance to learn by risking playing along and not getting it right to actually learn how to get it right. And if someone will help you by telling you the key of a song you\'d like to play along with, that\'s fine. It\'s always okay to ask for help. That\'s one reason why playing often with other people is a great idea.

Once you have a song or two that seem to be working with your harmonica, just noodle around. Play the song several times and try to make something happen, but don\'t quit if it doesn\'t think of yourself as an adventurer in a new land, and let your ears learn new information to help guide you. Playing by ear for five to ten minutes a day will work wonders for your musical ear, and, as long as you don\'t worry about playing everything perfect immediately, I think you\'ll find yourself having fun and making progress at the same time. Some of you may be uncomfortable with this unstructured approach, preferring specific assignments, like learning a song or scale. Of course scales and songs are good to learn, but there is more to learning to play than memorization and facility.

You can improvise. All that\'s required is a willing spirit. Start by playing one riff that you\'ve discovered. Vary it a little. Keep going, not worrying about time or comparing yourself to others, and soon you\'ll have a small vocabulary all your own. a little stable of riffs. Good improvisers don\'t spontaneously come up with new material every time they improvise a solo they play based on whatever they\'ve learned from past experience and apply it to the situation at hand. Often improvisation is simply a matter of varying a familiar phrase or song a little bit. Create your own little playbook of patterns or phrases little musical phrases that you like. Experiment with them until you own them. Keep building your repertoire, adding some new element every now and then different rhythm applied to the same notes, a new riff stolen from an old song. As you do this, don\'t think too hard, and whatever you do, don\'t invite Mrs. Nelson the evil piano teacher from your childhood who beat the joy of music out of you into your head. When you play music you are telling a story.

When you improvise you are making the story up on the spot, like you do when you are spontaneously called upon to entertain your children or friends. There are certain types of stories that have been told for a long time, and storytellers often embellish these older tales to give them new life. Listen to recordings of harmonica players. How are they telling a blues story, or a country story, or a Celtic story? Listen and absorb these other styles, then try your hand at a few notes. Fill if you can begin one, or end one. Join the many voices around you, and give yourself permission to fool around.


By Alex Wess teacher of harmonica and music theory.