The Harmonica Competition

Last week, I self-published a dual format play and short story I wrote a few years ago called The Harmonica Competition.  I wrote the play first and then converted it to a short story to make it a bit more readable for people who aren’t interested in staging plays.

A few people have asked why I decided to write this and how I came up with the idea. This post should explain the background.

When I was quite a lot younger, I was very into playing the harmonica (or ‘blues harp’ to use the colloquial expression for the diatonic instrument).  I was in a number of bands and participated in various gigs etc.  The fact you can carry one in your pocket also tends to lend itself well to one-off, solo or accompanied ad-hoc performances in a variety of social situations.

In 1994, I got to hear about a harmonica competition that was taking place in Colwyn Bay, North Wales, so I decided to head up there to participate.  When I arrived, it became apparent that the competition was like a microcosm of society, albeit viewed through the prism of this niche wind instrument.

I met an investment banker who was there with his mistress.  Later I struck up a conversation with a couple of fellows from Birmingham and after a short period of time, it became apparent that they were car thieves.  There were a number of ex-miners who played in brass bands – and some were quite keen on consuming copious quantities of brown ale too.  There was also the usual collection of pony-tailed, leather-trouser wearing muso types you tend to get at any kind of musical gathering.  I didn’t talk so much to them, but the conversations I eavesdropped on were quite entertaining (for me, anyway).

There was also a collection of very bored women, most of whom were the wives, girlfriends and mistresses of the contestants.  I understand there are quite a few talented and prominent female harmonica players these days as well as dedicated Facebook groups and so on.  Back in 1994, however, apart from Willie Mae Thornton, they seemed to be a bit of a rarity – or at least I didn’t encounter many.

The competition progressed and I played my piece which was mainly improvisation and train impressions (this is a de rigueur skill for blues harp players, by the way) .  I noticed that the judges were quite demanding, fastidious and sticklers for the rules.  I somehow made it through my performance, nonetheless.

As well as diatonic harmonicas, there is another type of instrument which is referred to as ‘chromatic’.  My knowledge of music theory is sketchy, but these types of harmonica have a button which I gather allows the equivalent of the black notes on a piano to be played.  Chromatics are more likely to be used for music that isn’t blues, country, pop or rock, so they are typically played by Jazz performers, a very small number of classical artists and for more conventional music with less African-influenced rhythms and melodies.  The chromatic performers had their own dedicated heats.

At the end of the contest, the positions and winners were announced.  I think I came somewhere round the middle of the rankings, which I was pleasantly surprised by.  I believe there was a bit more competitive rivalry further up the order on the part of some of the more ‘serious’ contestants, but as far as I know, the results were not disputed.

For the chromatic competition, it was a different story.  There had been some chatter in the bar that a few of the judges were quite unimpressed with the standard of the chromatic competition for this particular year.  Sure enough, they duly announced that although one contestant had come first, they were not going to award him a prize because he hadn’t been good enough (in their opinion).  The judgement was not at all well received (to put it mildly).  Some cross-words were spoken and I gather it came quite close to blows being exchanged also.  I’m told some may have actually been, but that could have been the influence of the aforementioned brown ale on the part of those who informed me.   I’ll never know either way.

On the train back home it did occur that the events would make quite a good play, of the kind that might once have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on a Saturday afternoon in years gone by, although probably less so these days.  I mentally distilled the material over a long period of time and (allowing for a certain amount of poetic licence with regard to the actual events) ‘The Harmonica Competition’ is the result.

I haven’t ever staged a production of this.  Organising theatrical performances seems to be an activity that is even more complex and demanding than managing enterprise software implementation projects – a subject I have some experience of.  It seems to have a similar collection of over-sized egos, inadequate budgets, impossible deadlines and people changing their minds on a frequent basis.

A podcast recording has been suggested and this could work too, but my preference is to stick to the writing and let someone else who is more into that side of things deal with it.  If anyone is interested in staging a performance, podcasts, YouTube videos etc. please feel free to get in touch and we can talk through the details.  Until then, I hope you find the story an entertaining read.

I would like to be able to use this as an opportunity to wheel out the old joke that this is available in all good bookshops and some bad ones, but sadly, you can only get it on Amazon – https://amzn.to/3WHxqFO.