A Musical Christmas

A Musical Christmas. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

This time of the year I’m always a bit hard pressed to come up with last minute gift ideas, especially for the grandkids who by the way are growing like weeds. But this year I might just have an idea and I wanted to share it. Gary Allegretto is the Harmicowboy who entertains and teaches well just about everyone how to play the harmonica. Gary talks about why the harmonica is so universal.

ALLEGRETTO: There’s several reasons for that and you can see it when you go as I do into situations where kids are in a group, kids that are being told what they can and can’t do because they’re in a hospital or in a refugee camp and under severe post traumatic stress syndrome and all that. Kids are attracted to things that aren’t intimidating especially when they are in those kinds of situations. And a harmonica is small. It’s child friendly, only has 10 holes.

Allegretto tell the kids it breathes like they do, in and out.

ALLEGRETTO: The other thing about the harmonica is the warmth of the tone and I can’t over emphasize that. Harmonica’s just sound like human voices. They just have that same tone that we have when we sing. All those reasons make a harmonica very, very friendly to children. One more obvious one that comes to mind is that you can carry it anywhere.

I play the keyboards and guitar and can’t just cram them in my pockets. Allegretto has travelled all around the world teaching kids how to play the harmonica.

ALLEGRETTO: I started an organization called Harmonikids and I was endorsed by Hohner professionally and they got on board with me and they started making harmonicas available at a cheap cost for me. At first I just bought them out of pocket and handed them to the kids and then I developed a method to teach them which is so simple that they learn a song right away and then learn three more in the course of an hour.

So are you with me yet. A harmonica would make a great stocking stuffer this year for kids of all ages and Gary has an extra incentive.

ALLEGRETTO: We’re talking about the Harmonikids model harmonica which Hohner has just released in time for the holidays. It’s going to be in music stores and on their website at hohnershop. Hohner is h-o-h-n-e-r. Just Google that and you’ll find the site. It’s good for adults and children but as you said it’s a perfect stuffer because a portion of the proceeds from the Harmonikids harmonica go to my programs to help challenged kids around the world.
And that makes it perfect. And it’s only $12.99. No batteries and it will last a lifetime.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.

www.garyallegretto.com
www.hohnershop.com
www.harmonikids.org