Michael Dyer

A few years ago I couldn't play the harmonica at all. Then my wife bought me a harmonica because she heard on a radio talk show that people play them when they're stuck in traffic, so I had it in the car but still rarely played it. Then I decided to write a song that would feature this instrument (it would be about a female virtuoso harmonica player who lives in the subway). I first wrote the lyrics, which took a long time to craft, with many re-writes. Then it took a long time before I found the chord progressions and melody that I wanted. Usually songs come to me pretty quickly (within hours) but this song took several weeks to develop. Part of the reason was that my harmonica skills were quite mediocre when I started so I had to greatly improve my playing ability before I could actually produce this song. Composing this song turned out to be a great motivator for practicing the harmonica. For those not familiar with harmonica terminology, both "harp" and "tin sandwich" refer to the harmonica and a "draw" involves bending notes by pulling air in (rather than blowing air out). There are two major types of harp: chromatic and diatonic. Chromatic harps have all 12 tones but it's difficult to bend notes. It's very difficult to get all notes to sound on a diatonic harp but bending notes is much easier, so I use diatonic harps. For this song I actually bound two harps together (one on top of the other - each one in a different key) and I switched back and forth rapidly between them while playing harmonica riffs.