My New Harp

My new C harp arrived in the mail today. It is a Marine Band Special 20, handmade in Germany by Hohner. I have another C harp and a G harp from Hohner, but they're made in China and they don't say "handmade," so I don't want to guess how they are made. I'm still awaiting two books from Amazon on playing the blues with it. I have never been much into blues, but I like some of the things I've heard played on the harmonica. So, now I am learning the banjo, mandolin and harmonica. It is said that the harmonica is an excellent tool to learn songs by ear and is recommended in playing the banjo. In fact, many banjo and guitar players use a  neck rack to hold the harmonica so they can play along with their stringed instrument. I don't know if I'll ever get  to that point in my musical ability, but I have a rack, so we'll see what happens

What Next?

If you follow all of the advice that you get you would exercise one hour a day, meditate one hour a day, walk one hour a day, engage in a hobby one hour a day and, depending on your interests or avocation, do other things for one hour a day. You can readily see that if you follow that regime, your day quickly fades away. Of course, you also have to do certain household chores, perhaps go shopping, pay bills, read and study things necessary to understand current affairs. For the past several days, I have been occupied with the water in our cellar. Fortunately, there was little damage, but much annoyance. I have been busy organizing and repacking my toy trains and related accessories in plastic boxes. I didn't keep track of how many hours were spent doing that, but there were enough and, when I was finished for a day, I didn't much feel like doing anything else, including playing the banjo or the mandolin.

Today, for the first time in perhaps a week, I picked up the banjo to do some practicing. I didn't do it for an hour, but maybe for a half hour or twenty minutes. I don't really keep an accurate account of the time. I think I need to get better organized. I believe that I should try a new song every week and stick with it for the week to see how that works. I should do that along with a review of the songs I have already learned. That sounds like a plan, but I also have to get busy on the front and side porch, scraping and painting. We'll see where the music fits into that.