Try a Harmonica!
The harmonica is a great addition to any musician’s inventory. From the solo on Billy Joel's "Piano Man", the introduction to Neil Young's "Heart of Gold", the wailing blues of Supertramp's "Take the Long Way Home", the Harmonica works with almost any instrument on a surprising array of music genres.
Sonny Boy Williamson - Sometimes credited as the Father of Blues Harmonica. He lent his playing to many artists apart from his own records including Eric Clapton and the Yardbirds.
The most common incarnation of the Harmonica is probably the Diatonic or "Blues Harmonica". This is the instrument played by many folk/rock artists like Bob Dylan and can be a fantastic addition to the repertoire of the solo guitarist allowing for a greater catalogue of songs or solo passages in the existing set of songs.
Diatonic harmonicas are set into a fixed key (such as G, E or C for example) and the song will need playing in this key if they're to sound at all in tune. You can often transpose the guitar or accompanying instrument to fit however if you didn't have the key you needed.
James Cotton, a noted player who recorded with Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf
You might also like to look at a Chromatic Harmonica - these are less common but do offer the flexibility of having the full range of notes at the push of a button on the side which tunes the available notes up into their respective sharps - C becomes C#, E becomes F and so on. Perhaps the best known user of a Chromatic harmonica is Stevie Wonder.
While versatile the Chromatic harmonicas do have limitations - a degree of musical theory knowledge is required to get the best out of them, and their single reed nature does mean that bending a note will not sound as good as the Diatonic harmonicas. The windsavers built into the harmonica also mean that 'overblowing' as a technique to raise the pitch is all but impossible unless they are removed. Because of these limitations they are more popular in Jazz and Classical music as the range of notes is still greater despite the lack of expressive features.
We have a great range of harmonicas available on our website. Feel free to take a look and start jamming today!