If there's one thing they do well here in the former Yugoslavia, it's name their currency. The Bosnian BAM isn't quite as great as the Croatian kuna but still, I like it. If there's one thing Bosnia in particular does not do so well, though, it's make it easy for me to spend their fun-named money. I arrived at the train station to no ATMs or currency exchange places, which eventually led to a big fight with the taxi driver and my getting screwed in three different currencies. (Mostly my own fault for believing the shit he was telling me, but I was tired and flustered and he was big and bald and scary.) Then when I finally did get some BAM, it came from the ATM in units of 50. The first thing I bought was 2 BAMs' worth of internet, so I got yelled at for not having change. Joder.
I didn't play harmonica at all on the train so today was supposed to be a performance day. But then in rained. So I played by myself in my hotel room (sorry, other guests). I made the new rule that if I'm going to play by myself in my room, I have to learn something new. One of the songs in my set list is Heart of Gold (sorry, Mom), which has harmonica solos, but I learned the melody not the solos. So today I learned the solos. They are firmly in the beginner level. There was the slight catch, though, that the song is in G, but I play it in second position on a C harmonica. So the tabs are for a G harmonica (they came from the internet--my ear isn't that good), so I had to convert them all to a C. It doesn't entirely work because I can't play all the right chords on my harmonica (I'm pretty sure even a really good harmonica player can't simultaneously blow on one hole and draw on another), but I think it's close enough. And, it was fun. Music is pretty great, even at the beginner level.
Go Sam! Which chords can you not play? Are harmonicas designed so you can't play every major chord on every key harmonica? What a weird instrument.
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On a C harmonica, you can't play a G and a B (or a lot of other combinations) at the same time. The holes are just all weird. For example, on C the blow holes are C, E, G, C, E, G, C so the only 3-note blow chord you can play is C, in 2 different octaves. Similarly with G on a G harmonica, etc. The draw holes are a little different, but yeah, basically you're just limited in which chords (and which notes) you can play.
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