Mick Jagger on learning to play harmonica:
“I’m a Little Walter fan, but I can’t remember when I first started to play harmonica. In the early days, there was obviously a competitive aspect between me and Brian, in the same way that Keith was competitive with Brian on guitar… First of all I did figure out that you had to have loads of harmonicas in different keys, which was very expensive; you had to have them because otherwise you were stuck. And you also needed reeds because they would often break and frequently be badly made…

…Then I wanted to know how you played harmonica, but Cyril (Davies) refused to tell me. So I just observed him. I used to chat to him and in the end he got kind of used to me, but the harmonica is not an instrument that is very easy to teach, because you’re not sitting there with a keyboard, saying, Oh, Mick this is how you play, you put your finger on there. With the harmonica you can’t really show someone what to do in their mouth… I’m sure there are books and tutors that you can buy, but what I did was to sit around with my one harmonica listening to records by Jimmy Reed, who conveniently only plays in a couple of keys, so there were only two or three variations. That’s really how I learned to play – playing along to Jimmy Reed records.”

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(Ref. learning to play harmonica)