Bill Plays Harmonica Again .....

I try to play someplace every Monday night. A couple of Monday nights per month, a couple of us get together and "jam." Our uke player is trying hard to learn how to play the blues by ear. She is a formally trained musician who has spent years studying music but somehow never picked up the ability to just listen and play or get in a groove and let it flow with the other players. I realized that part of the problem was that she was watching for my lead on guitar or uke and not listening to her own internal ear. So, for a while, I quit playing guitar and picked up my harps.

I hadn't played harp in a long time. It was fun to do it again. A nice change. And, it was also effective apparently. Every musician has a moment when they "get their groove" and start playing from inside themselves rather than from what is written on a piece of paper. Our struggling uke player had that moment Monday night while I was playing harp. She is on her way now to becoming a musician who can express herself through her music and not just a technician repeating someone else's expression.

The video above is an old cut of one of the songs that we played Monday night. I did it solo against a backing track with my very cheapo portable harp rig. But, I still like it so I thought I would record it for posterity here.