Harmonica Notes: Happy Birthday

Hi There!!!

armonica Enthusiasts,

After an introduction to the harmonicas. Here I am with the first lesson “Happy birthday Notes” on Diatonic harmonica “Hohner Silver Star” C Scale. This harmonica has 10 holes and each hole produces a peculiar sound on drawing and blowing into each hole. Below is a sample image of a 10 hole harmonica numbered from 1 to 10. I have played this on Silverstar but you can use any 10 holes harmonica provided it should be diatonic.

This tutorial for the Happy birthday tune contains happy birthday harmonica notes in a number notation, where a positive number denotes blowing in the hole eg. 4 and a negative number denotes drawing from the hole number eg. -4. A number denotes a particular hole and sound.

Happy Birthday, Notes:

4 4 -4 4 -5 5

4 4 -4 4 6 -5

4 4 7 -6 -5 5 -4

-5 -5 5 4 -4 4

To begin with, a 10 hole diatonic harmonica, place it in your hands. Keeping number 1 on the left and number 10 on the right side of the mouth. If it does not have numbers imprinted on it, make sure the highest pitch should always be on the right side.

Let’s begin with playing the Happy birthday tune or music. Since this is for beginners who do not have any knowledge of music, we kept it simple just you need to remember the number of the holes while playing. First, it seems difficult but later on, you will get used to it. There are few tricks to remember the holes which I will share later on. To begin with, remember the number marked as positive is to blow into and the number marked as negative is to draw from. Let’s demonstrate the first line:

Blow into 4 Blow into 4 Draw from-4 Blow into 4 Draw from -5 Blow into 5

You need to follow the same rule with the rest of the notes as well.

Stay tuned for upcoming blogs.