Call it a moothie, a mouth-organ, a harp, a gob-iron, a vamper or any one of many fond nicknames - many people’s first and favourite instrument is the simple and inexpensive harmonica. For as little as £2.99 you can make quite a pleasant sound - and should you progress to greater things, even the most expensive harmonica won’t break the bank.

But it can be quite a job deciding between the many different kinds of harmonica available. All harmonicas give you a different note when you blow or when you suck, but the notes are laid out in different ways. We can go into the technical details of various individual instruments elsewhere, but here is the concise information you’ll need to make your choice. As with all our introductions to instruments, let’s start with the most important question:

I WANT TO PLAY…

          …THE BLUES

The single-reeded, diatonic “vamper” type is the one bought by most blues players. By careful practice, you can get a complete chromatic scale, including being able to bend notes in the authentic blues style. These instruments come in various keys - C is most common among cheaper instruments, but all keys are available so you can play along with any piece. There are two “positions” on such an instrument, so, for example, you can play in G on a C harmonica. Once you’ve mastered the two scales, you can play in any key just by switching harmonicas - just like a guitar player changes key by putting on a capo.

            …FOLK MUSIC

The ten-hole instruments are fine for general purposes, but you might want to consider a longer instrument for a larger spread of notes. You might want to consider a double-reeded instrument, slightly tremolo-tuned (where two reeds sound the same note, but slightly apart from each other, to give an “echo” or “tremolo” effect), especially if you like the sound melodeons make when playing folk tunes. Double-sided instruments are available in this type, so you don’t need as many different instruments to get all the keys you want.

Chromatic harmonicas

If you’ve ever been amazed by the playing of Larry Adler, Stevie Wonder or Toots Thielemans, well, they’re playing chromatic harmonicas. These have a lever you can push in order to move, as it were, between the white and black notes of the piano - all sharps and flats in a given key are available. This may seem tempting to a beginner, but it is better to start on a simpler instrument, then work your way up to one of these.

Once again, there are no hard and fast rules as to which is the right type of harmonica for a certain type of music. And there is no “right” key either - you can learn on any key and use the same blowing for all other keys within the same type of harmonica. If you like Irish music, for instance, you’ll find the keys of D and G useful. If you sing the blues, pick the key which goes best with your vocal range. And a harmonica should last for a long time, especially if you realise that you don’t get any louder by blowing harder - you just break the reed!