1. What is a good blues harmonica to start off with ?

Any harmonica from the diatonic section of our website would be great for blues.

Popular beginner instruments include the Hohner blues harp,Suzuki promaster,Lee oskar major diatonic and the Hohner pro harp.

2. What is a good chromatic harmonica to start off with ?

Any harmonica from our chromatic section of our website would make a good choice but there is a large price range.

Popular beginner chromatics include the Hohner chrometta range including a 10 hole,12 hole and 14 hole instrument. The most popular choice would be the 12 hole.

Other good choices would be the Hohner chromonica 270, this is the worlds biggest selling chromatic harmonica.

3. Some notes are not playing very well on my new harmonica, is my harmonica faulty ?

Possibly but not very likely, the vast proportion of all harmonicas produced are built by hand and tested before shipping.

In the majority of cases, poor sounding holes on an instrument is down to technique.

Practice different styles of embouchure and also use different pressures of drawing(sucking) and blowing, generally on lower and higher notes on the instrument you should use a softer technique than on the middle notes...the key however, is to practice as often as you can as getting a good tone is the key to successfull harmonica playing.

Feel free to call us any time if you wish to discuss different techniques, we are always happy to help.