David's Tip of the Day: Work hard, but don't be in a hurry...

Work hard studying the harmonica, but don't be in a hurry. If you're in a hurry, you introduce stress into the learning process, and what should be a fun process to develop your skills on an instrument becomes a daily chore.

Set goals, and work hard to reach them, but always be aware of the fact that we're working on the performance of music on an instrument, which is a high level skill. To play a passage of music on the harmonica requires breathing (blows/draws), movement (left/right), tongue positioning (articulation/bending/tongue blocking), timing (when and how long to hold), tremolo/vibrato (when to start and how fast), dynamics, note recognition if you're reading music, tracking of time if you're playing with others... and the list goes on. To develop this requires many layers of skill sets to take place in a methodical way in your practice time.

So, to sum up...

If you're anxious to get better, study more... more hours in the day... but be relaxed in your determination.

If you don't have more time to devote to your practice, then get over it... get to work and be grateful for the time you do have to practice and enjoy the time... it's fun to play an instrument!