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Playlist: Diane Lee's Portfolio

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Harmonic Healing

From Diane Lee | 04:49

This is a sneak peek into the harmonica culture of senior citizens from Gulfport Senior Citizens' Harmonica Club.

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I produced this feature as part of a final project for Poynter's 2009 Summer College Journalism Fellowship program. I discovered a group of senior citizen harmonica players based in Gulfport, Florida just by googling, and stumbled across their YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm9t5W1ppCo). Kinda cool, huh? (They are still working on building a Web site.) The average age of members in the group is 85. They all volunteer their time and energy to play the harmonica for mostly older audiences. They charge for performances, but donate all of it to charity. About 90 percent of members in the group learned to play music by ear. I found their stories behind playing harmonica, absolutely fascinating. Particularly Miley and Murray, both of whom were greatly impacted by playing harmonica.  Take a listen, and let me know what you think. Contact me at dianeswlee@gmail.com