How I Found The Harmonica

My First Harmonica Memory

It sounded simple at the time. 

Just blow… and draw…and blow…and draw. 

It was Fall of 2009. I was fourteen years old and, like most fourteen year olds, thought that I was hot shit. I was a star goalie on the Varsity Soccer Team (the youngest member of the team), a lead in the school play, and the main drummer for the Rock Ensemble in high school band. Of all my passions, drumming was the number one. It filled me with more joy than any other activity and I relished the role of impersonating John Bonham and Neil Peart in band class. I was well traveled in the world- my parents had taken my sister and I traveling to third world countries when we were young; I’d lived in refugee camps in Pakistan and mountain villages in Nepal when I was in 3rd Grade. It was a hell of a way to grow up that left me with a curiosity about a great many things. 

At the time my life was a picture of sophomore existence- filled with anticipation for the future, unable to be fully present in the moment due to all of the activities that occupied my time. I thought I had my life figured out because everything was going so well; because life seemed to be flowing so effortlessly. 

Then everything changed. 

It was the Semi-Finals. The wicked winds on the soccer pitch had turned my pale cheeks a deep shade of red as I patrolled my 18 years of real estate, watery eyes searching the field for possible breakaways and double-teams. My team wasn’t doing well that game. We had fought to get to the semi-final of the ISL Championship only to arrive exhausted and beaten down from a hard season. The opposing team, Cambridge School of Weston, had arrived ready to dominate us. 

During the first half I noticed a player on CSW’s team who seemed to be running the show: “Eaglet” was the name bestowed on him by his teammates. It seemed like every play he was the one who had the ball. Sturdy with more the build of an NFL player than a high school soccer player, he had a kick that would be a nightmare for any goalie- straight and piercing with a slight curve. 

At the end of the first half Eaglet got a break away on me. I could see him barreling toward me, eyes filled with a bloodlust and determination that I can still see so vividly today. I ran out to break up the play, trying to use as much of my body as possible to shield the goal. My hand dove for the ball at the same time the tip of Eaglet’s explosive foot made contact:

Crack.

I felt my finger snap on the spot.  

Letting out a howl of pain and rolling on the ground, I had to be taken off the field and replaced by my backup goalkeeper in the 2nd half. Pulling off my goalie glove was almost impossible the pain was so intense. I finally did and didn’t recognize my finger; blown up, black and blue, it had swollen to twice its normal size within minutes. 

My mind didn’t immediately think this was the end of my soccer career. I wanted to play through it. Thankfully my coach had the good sense to bench me- and in doing so probably saved my finger…but we also lost the game.

What I didn’t know in that moment of intense disappointment was this was the end of my soccer career… and the beginning of something much more special. 

A week later I was having surgery at Mass General Hospital- 5 surgically implanted pins would be put into my finger to piece back together the tiny bones. This was my first time having surgery, first time having an injury like this. I sat in the recovery room looking at my destroyed hand and immediately my mind ran to drumming: how the doctor has very specifically said “Absolutely no drumming for the next four months”. I remember how my grandparents, who had taken me to the hospital, looked at me with those assuring smiles that I would find something else to occupy my free time. 

Four Months. 

It was an eternity.

I was fine if I lost soccer… but drumming? That was hard to take. 

Walking into the high school band room the following week was depressing. I looked longingly at the drum set and enviously at the alternate drummer playing my parts. There was a deep sense of dread over the next few months as I waited for this hand to heal. I had no idea how I was going to fill that emotional gap in my life that playing music had once filled. 

Out of ideas, I went to my band director and asked him if there was anything else I could do to play in the band: all the cool instruments like guitar and saxophone were out of the question, as I only had access to one good hand. He thought for a moment and said:

“Well, harmonica only requires one hand. Why don’t you try that?” 

Maybe it was sarcasm. Maybe it was genuine. Whatever the case I was willing to play anything. 

The next day I returned home from Guitar Center with my newest purchase:

A Hohner Marine Band Harmonica in the key of C. 

That was the one I had been told to get by the clerk at the front desk at Guitar Center. Long haired and heavily tattooed with a demeanor of weathered know-how, He seemed like the kind of guy who stuck one of these things in a rack while he played acoustic guitar at his local open mic; blowing a few notes into it every now and then to add some spice to his original songs.

He seemed like an authority on the subject. 

At the time, I thought that was the extent of what harmonica was. It was that distinct, audible flavor singer songwriters added to their sets to sound like Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen. It was the opening of “Piano Man” by Billy Joel and “Heart of Gold” by Neil Young. It was an instrument that seemed, on the surface,  so ridiculously easy that anyone, regardless of musical know-how or useable limbs, could pick up and sound good. 

The first time the harmonica went in my mouth I felt like I was a baby putting something in their mouth they shouldn’t. It felt so awkward to blow air into it, to feel my lips enclosed around this cold metal sandwich of reeds and wood. I instantly became frustrated and, being a stubborn kid of fourteen, refused to give up until I got a decent sound out of this thing.

The next few hours went very much like the first; squeaky, piercing tones that sounded more like a cat dying than that sweet Neil Young goodness I was in search of. 

Why had it seemed so easy in my imagination? Had I underestimated the instrument most people say is “the easiest instrument to play”? 

Like most things that appear simple at the start, this was merely the first act of a lifelong infatuation with this tiny little wonder. Born out of a need to know and a willingness to learn, I readjusted my posture in my desk chair, put the harmonica into my one good hand, took the first of many deep breaths, and tried again.