A short essay on harmonicas

Written by Kim, Jung Wook, class 6

Have you ever heard about music therapy and music marketing? These fact and terms imply that music affects human behavior in many ways. In fact, they do. Music with fast rhythm makes people think time has passed much faster, while slow music makes people think that time passed much slower. Just like the example I've given you, music is very close to our daily lives and has great affect on us. That's why I believe we must be friendly to it. If you haven't been very friendly to music, or if you want to become friendlier with music, than I recommend harmonica as the first step; an compact, practical, and challenging instrument.

First of all, harmonica is a small friend that travels with you everywhere if you only have a tiny spare pocket. Portability of harmonicas is well described in scenes involving a german soldier playing the harmonica over a bunker, which is not a uncommon thing in movies that feature World War II as the background. Considering that a typical blues harmonica(the ones with 10 holes) is 4 inches in length(10 centimeters), harmonica can be a good mate that doesn't bother you at all. Anywhere, even in forefront of the battlefield, this friend will follow you and cheer you up whenever you feel lonely or depressed.

This little fellow is very practical compared to other instruments as well. First, it's really inexpensive. You cannot really expect to pay less than $2,500 for a piano, do you? The cheapest violin I've seen so far was $104, and it's natural thing for an guitar to be over $150. But, harmonicas are different. Famous models, such as Hohner Marine Band, one that was used by the Beatles, costs no more than $30 and is one of the best harmonicas that exist. Also, learning to start playing harmonica is relatively easy. The fact that harmonicas are given to children as a toy in Korea is a good example; after all, all you need to do to make a note is just a blow. If you have memorized the holes which gives you the desired notes, you can start playing right away. Harmonica is really an economic and easy choice compared to others.

That's not everything in playing harmonica, just like a piano. Much efforts are required to play harmonica's real tune, just like Lee Oskar, a famous Danish harmonica player. To play its real tune, you need to master some techniques known as bending, overblows and overdraws. Blues harmonicas are known as the most bluesy instrument due to special sounds given by these techniques, and they give you extra notes that doesn't exist on the typical blues harmonica(a typical blues harmonica doesn't have F, A of lower octave and B of higher octave). Learning and mastering these techniques are challenging, but accomplishments that you'll feel after you've got your first bend notes would be huge. These accomplishments will encourage you, and make learning a little more easier.

I strongly believe that harmonica is one of the best ways there are. There are very few instruments just as mobile, practical, and challenging as this instrument, and that's the reason I believe it is one of the best ways to make friends with music. Don't you think it would be fantastic to make friends with harmonica? Why don't you start right ahead?

GLP에서 쓰라던 essay.

아웃라인때는 막막했는데 나름대로 끝은 맺었다.

어찌?永 끝은 봤으니.....

그래도 약간의 아쉬움이 남는 에세이.