Three years ago, I started playing the blues harmonica. At first, I was attracted by its exquisite appearance, but when I started practicing, I realized that learning the blues harmonica was not as simple as I thought. It was just a small instrument with only ten holes, but it included bending, overblow, overdraw, tongue blocking, and various vibrational techniques… However, I felt the infinite charm and possibility from it. Through hard practice, after six months of learning the piano, I participated in the Shanghai Student Art Competition and won the first price with the challenging song “Big Walter” at that time. After feeling the joy of success, my passion for learning harmonica became even higher and I gradually fell in love with traditional blues and Blues culture.
However, due to my busy studies in the third year of junior high school, I almost no longer have time to practice. That was a very difficult time, and what I look forward to the most every day is the fifteen minutes of practicing the piano while cycling with friends on the way home from school. The notes played relieved my fatigue and immense pressure throughout the day, and the harmonica was already my friend, giving me strength when I was most down. During my stay at home due to the pandemic, I used my spare time to self-study the classic song 《Bye Bye Bird》 and won the blues harmonica championship at the 13th Asia Pacific Harmonica Festival and the first Dunhuang Cup harmonica competition. That was my second year studying blues harmonica.
This year, I participated in the Huaxia Harmonica Festival. Due to temporary changes in the repertoire and various other reasons, I needed to master a brand new piece of music within a week and complete the competition with it, which was undoubtedly a daunting challenge for me. However, with a deep understanding of blues music, I overcame numerous difficulties and won the championship of blues solo at the Huaxia Harmonica Festival with the extremely difficult piece “The Call”. I also met many like-minded friends.
During the summer vacation, I met my teacher, Mr. Mariano Massolo, a jazz harmonica master from Argentina and a twice nominated Grammy Award winner at the Buenos Aires Harmonica Academy, through the blues harmonica website. Under his guidance, my understanding of Jazz Gypsy deepened. He invited me to participate in the World Harmonica Festival (WHF) to be held in Trosingen, Germany in 2025. No player from Chinese Mainland has won the championship in the blues harmonica project of this event so far. I firmly believe that with my continuous efforts, I will achieve excellent results and win glory for the country.
In the future, I will maintain the original purity and passion of learning the harmonica, constantly strive and make progress.
You can find the harmonica’s 2024 Spring Music Competition performance here.