Learning a musical instrument was always a desire. People generally pick Guitar, but I always wanted to learn mouth organ. It is very easy to carry and I can practice or play anywhere 🙂 But the very obvious question was how to learn it. Again YouTube and some websites helped me to learn the basic stuff.
First Week
A good way to learn any complex task is to break it to smaller simple steps. The first step was to learn the basics of music. And as an Indian we all know it is ‘Sa Re Ga Ma…’ The focus was only to learn the ‘sa re ga ma pa dha ni sa’ or ‘C D E F G A B C’. After I was once comfortable with these notes, I tried to mix the combination and try the patterns of these notes (for example – sa re ga, re ga ma, ga ma pa…) You will understand if you are hitting the right notes or not by practicing for a while.
Second Week
The following week was to mix more patterns and do the same drills of practising the patterns. The crucial part of learning mouth organ was how you can control your breath. You need to blow and suck air to the appropriate notes. There are some wonderful YouTube channels which guided me how to master this technique. It requires immense amount of practice to gain mastery on this. But as a beginner I could pick it at my own pace.
Third Week
Once I was comfortable with the notes I tried some basic songs (Twinkle Twinkle, Ba Ba Black Sheep etc..). It was really nice to boost up my confidence by picking up these easy songs.
Fourth Week
I tried to learn songs like ‘Hai Apna Dil To Awara, Sholay music and so on…’ A lot of mistakes happen when you practice these songs. Initially you will make mistakes. But as you play again and again, you understand which notes to hit. Though I never practiced it seriously, but I could literally understand and play the notes as an amateur. I am still an amateur. But my wish list was to just learn a musical instrument. Believe me this was just a great fun and mind healer. Below videos on one of the song ‘Tip Tip Barsa Pani’ and one played on Republic day. I just managed to play some how 😑