Ga13acho

The main reason I bought my first chromatic harmonica was to learn to play Stevie Wonder's solo in "For Once In My Life." So, being me, I bought the cheapest one I could find. As I was trying to learn the song I realized that the crappy harmonica I'd bought didn't have enough range to play the high notes at the end of the solo. So, when I finally got a decent beginner level chromatic harp I knew I was going to have to make another attempt at this song. It's humbling to try and play a harmonica at all after listening to Stevie Wonder. His playing is so clean and technical but there's also a lot of beautiful nuance to his timing and the way he bends his notes. "For Once In My Life" is pure audio joy. I can't think of another song that conveys the feeling of joy like this one does.

I love the original song, and as I was looking for a new tune to try out on the harmonica this one seemed like it might be a good fit. It was also fun to go down a mini-rabbit hole on Youtube and see all the other great covers that have been done on Radiohead's Black Star.

"Yolanda" by Los Gatos Negros is one of my favorite songs. I've wanted to learn to play this Cumbia tune on the harmonica for years. I started trying it out last year in the Fall and realized that it's in a weird key (B) and I'd need to play it on a chromatic harmonica. Then my cheap-arse beginner chromatic had a reed go flat as I was learning the song. I had to go through literally 3 different harmonica orders via Amazon after that to finally land on a new chromatic harmonica that didn't have rattling reeds! After all the technical difficulties, the months of waiting on Amazon shipments/refunds, my earnest but amateur attempts at learning this song, I've started to feel like I'm "stuck" on it, and it's time to just record it and move on, even though I'm doing a pretty mediocre job of representing it. Hopefully I can come back to this at some point in the future when I'm a better player. If you want to hear the real thing you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt5q9UIgxIo

Wishing a Happy Thanksgiving this week to all you Turkeys out there ;)

We break down the 1997 Masterminds film starring Patrick Stewart and discuss important life lessons it taught us.

Me playing the hymn "How Great Thou Art" on the my Hohner C harmonica.

Here's me learning to play Lake Of Fire from Nirvana's Unplugged album. Great song, I enjoyed figuring it out. Played on a Fender harmonica, key of A.