Re: [Harp-L] Harmonica Positions - the public reply

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

Chesper - 

A diminished harp cannot be said to be in any key as no single tonal
center can be defined. That said, four positions can be defined
on a tuning that remains consistent from octave to octave - 

- the key of blow, 

- the key of draw, 

- the key of either blow-slide-in or draw bend (or maybe blow bend),

- and the key of draw-slide-in or maybe draw bend or overdraw.

Each position will repeat at four different pitch levels (C/Eb/Gb/A,
C#/E/G/Bb, or D-F-Ab-B) and two of the positions will have the same set
of root notes but those roots will be produced by a different action
(like draw slide in instead of blow, for instance).

You note that here I'm shifting the definition of position away from
its primary one of key relationships to its most important secondary
characteristic, the one that everybody really cares about. 

Each key position in any given tuning will start with the note layout.
This will in turn determine the location of the tonic note for that
position, which will lead to a set of actions required to travel
between the other notes in the layout relative to that tonic. 

With the diminished tuning we're concentrating, for each position, on
the layout pattern of the instrument and the associated root locations
and actions for that position. But we're doing it without having a
reference point for the relationship (the "key" of the instrument) -
hence the numberless action-based position names.

Modal considerations, like the Lydian vs. Ionian argument in jazz (i.e.
which of these scales is more stable over a major chord) doesn't
obscure the presence of an identifiable tonal center in most music,
which can usually be located by ear despite whatever modes or other
scales might be used.

Defining the key of a modally-tuned instrument (i.e. most intruments)
is a different matter, as 

1) it can produce any number of tonal centers to fit the music being
played and, 

2) with any ingenuity, the player can alter the default mode of any
given key on the instrument. 

What really matters is being able to identify the physical locations of
notes relative to the tonic note of the music, and to make that set of
relationships portable when you pick up an instrument in which the
identical note layout occurs using a different set of pitches - i.e.
the same tuning in another "key." 

For instance, if we play in G on a C harp and then pick up a D harp and
play that in A, it's helpful to understand that both will produce the
same sets of interval patterns (melodies and chords) using the same
sets of actions, but with different actual notes.

The relationship between a reference point on the instrument - its
"key" - and the tonal center of the music, coupled with names or
numbers, happens to be a mostly reliable and fairly convenient way to
do this.

It can get a bit confusing when different note layouts generate
different action patterns. For instance, the key of Eb on a C diatonic
(lots of overblows) and a C chromatic (lots of slide-in notes) are both
10th position, but the action patterns are very different despite the
similarities between solo and Richter tuning. This is where repeating
the mantra of "relationship between key of instrument and key of music"
can get you over the rough spots.

Where it really starts to get dicey, paradoxically, is where tiny
little changes in a familiar layout begin to call into question the
"key" of the instrument.

In the previous post I didn't carry the argument as far as I was
tempted to: 

What if the blow and draw notes were all reversed? What if we took a C
harp and flipped the reedplates so that C was the draw chord and the
G9/D minor 6 was the blow chord? (Admittedly not a tiny little change
but certainly  a simple one.) Is it arguably still a C harp, or is it a
G mixolydian harp? 

What if we took a C harp and tuned all the C's up to C# and the Fs up
to F#? Would we now have some kind of D major harp, a G Lydian, or a C#
locrian? Let's see, the blow chord is C# diminished. Can we say that D
(which has a fully major scale) is now the labeled key - with the
proviso that it is "labeled in 8th position"?

That's the point where positional thinking, despite its
continued utility, starts to get irksome. 

Winslow

--- Chesper Nevins <chespernevins@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Winslow,
> 
>  You are awesome. Nice description.
> 
>  Being rather new to the various alternate tuning schemes on
> diatonic, I've
> always been confused about the Melody Maker and Natural Minor
> tunings. It
> would definitely mean more to me to call them "The Lydian Tuning" or
> "The
> Dorian Tuning" (but then, I am not familiar with the common practice
> regarding these tunings).
> 
>  In fact, someone referred to a dorian tuned harmonica and I couldn't
> find
> it anywhere. Now I know why.
> 
>  I remember (maybe you were there) on another group where we tried to
> figure
> out what the positions were on a diminished tuned harmonica.
> 
>  I think we pretty much agreed that the definition of positions
> didn't
> stretch that far.
> 
>  Or else we just arbitrarily said that position simply meant the
> relation
> between key of the harp to the key of the music as you say in your
> post, e.g.,
> C dimi harp played in EM being 5th pos.
> 
>  You ask how you figure out the key of the harp (rightfully so).
> 
>  In addition, how do you figure out the key of the music once it gets
> beyond
> an obvious major/minor? Some jazz players would say that an EM chord
> is most
> related to an E Maj scale, and some would say it is most related to
> an
> E Lydscale, so we can't even be sure of the mode of the piece based
> on
> its
> nominal key center. (Maybe the person that bases his EM chord on the
> E
> Lydian scale would appreciate a B melody maker).
> 
>  I guess the idea of "positions" is really a traditional "modal /
> diatonic /
> common practice" concept ? or a floating cultural artifact, as you
> started
> out.
> 



		
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