I'm a student of the harmonica. I may be stretching it a bit to call myself an intermediate player but it's somewhere in that neighborhood. Still learning, enjoying the journey. I'm thinking of volunteering to play at a nursing home near me. Wishing I had a guitar player but one hasn't showen up yet. I haven't talked to anybody yet but has me thinking, wondering about. How long to play, song selection. Did this years ago with a guitar player in Texas but this will my first time pulling it off on my own. Talking to the activity director or ...who ever.

I found interesting and amazing. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-KXhyCnN_jo&pp=ygUnUmV0dW5pbmcgYSBoYXJtb25pY2EgcmVlZCBvbiBhIGhvaG5lciBj(https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-KXhyCnN_jo&pp=ygUnUmV0dW5pbmcgYSBoYXJtb25pY2EgcmVlZCBvbiBhIGhvaG5lciBj)

Just a thought I'm struggling to articulate or put into words. I think we can all agree there is a mind's eye or imagination. We could imagine, for example, directions to a nearby store. It seems there's something like that with sound as well. Sounds, notes and intervals between notes that we can picture. Picture isn't the right word. It's auditory. Liam said something once I hope I have close. Correct if I'm wrong. Something like "You can't go anyplace with your instrument you haven't gone in your mind" There's a blues musician in the Dallas area named Hash Brown. He once paused a few seconds then said "first I have to hear it in my head...then I play it" What's this got to do with anything? It means I can practice in my head without a harp in the room. School is in session anytime I'm actively listening. Sometimes the greatest improvement is a result of listening. Something like that.

A brief statement for context, then a question. All of us are not born equal when it comes to our ability to discern a pitch or a specific note. Some musicians can hear a note like on a keyboard and tell you the note and if it's sharp or flat. Question: Can this ability be improved?

As we know, people have one hand they favor the use of over the other. I throw a baseball right handed, hold a spoon right handed and sight a rifle with my right eye. So I noticed something odd related to playing the harmonica. Given that we have a dominat side where exactly is that line? I have come to believe it is a vertical line that runs directly down the center of the tongue. Tongue slap is a perfect example. I point my tongue to the left side of my mouth. Play from the extreme right side of my mouth then lift or "slap" the comb with the right side of my tongue. If I make the simple adjustment of reversing that with the other side of my tongue, switching sides it sounds like I'm drunk. It always makes me laugh. The tongue blocking lessons cover techniques that require one to pick a side got me to thinking about the dominant line location...

I'm located in south eastern Kentucky. On Tuesday nights some of the local musicians get together and play. Following is a recording of one of those sessions.

A Saxophone, a tuba, guitar, violin, piano... Think of the special care, time and space required to play music on any of those. Years ago I hung out in a blues club in Fort Worth Texas. I watched the drummers bring in bags, large zipper bags 5 or 6 of them maybe more. A small tool kit, setting up stands, adjusting...played for several hours then carefully puts it all back in the bags. I'm not picking on drummers. I'm guessing a drummer at home has a section of the house to set for drums, a spare room. A whole room? A sax travels in a case, assembled each time, extra reeds, a cleaning cloth. It's like we get a free pass on all of that. We can play harmonicas in the rain. Nothing to plug in. Just sayin

I have a reasonably solid understanding of the classic blues chord structure, the 12 Bar Blues. 1,4,5 chord and where they change, If I can improvise to a band, recording or backing track it's because I know the chord structure. I understand that the music will follow a 12 bar pattern that's redundant and predictable. Im using 12 bars as an example. Question: Are other forms of music similar to this, in that they too follow a predictable pattern? Does folk music have a classic chord structure, classical, country, Bluegrass...? I listen for patterns in other forms of music and sometimes I can pick up a pattern, other times I don't. I'm looking for similarities between what I understand that will apply to what I don't, something like that. Thanks in advance, michael