Re: [Harp-L] Re: Chromatics in varied keys



What you described is what session players do when an arranger is unfamiliar with harmonica and does not write to suit the instrument.

Pull out another key chromo that puts the written key into a better fingering and your bacon is saved.

Gary Popenoe

On Mar 26, 2008, at 11:46 AM, Joe and Cass Leone <leone@xxxxxxxx> wrote:



Chromos are at a disadvantage when compared to other instruments. Now lets say a guitar has 5 fingers, 6 strings and 20 frets. That's 600 combinations. A piano has 8 fingers, 2 thumbs, and 88 keys. Thats 880 combinations (Not including smears..i.e. more than 2 keys hit by one finger). A trumpet has 4 fingers (remember the tuning slide), and 4 (practical) embochures. That's only 36 combinations. A chromo has ONE mouth, 12 holes, 1 slide, BUT the breath must be switched, so what 'Looks' like 144 combinations, is only 72. But WAIT, there's something dreadfully wrong here.

Now when you consider that many of these combinations CANNOT be acheived (i.e. hitting the 12th and 1st hole simultaneously, OR the 11th and 2nd , OR the 10th and 3rd, or any combination of those, AND the improbability of hitting a blow note and draw note at the same time, you see the problem? Then, to top it all off, there's the slide. How does one hit one note slide in and another slide OUT? Discounting double stop, chords, triads, and splits, the combinations drop off to a precious few..September..November, and these few precious few...oops, I think I lost it there for a second.

Therefore, I think it is in the best interest of the chromo player to use ANY and ALL forms of guile, artifice, and shicanery to achieve what ever the aforementioned chromaticist can, to arrive at the result that comes closest to what they desire. MY particular form of artifice is to use chromos keyed in various keys to play in VARIOUS keys (not necessarily the one the chromo is home keyed IN) to arrive at a completely different THIRD key.

Examples: I was just playing around with a backup track. It had tunes of varying keys. I was using a G chromo. Here's what I had to do:
song was in C. I had to play the G chromo in F to 'meet' the tune's key
song was in Eb. I had to play in Ab
song was in F. I had to play in Bb
song was in D. I had to play in G
song was in G. Naturally, I played it in C.
song was in Dm. I had to play in Cminor


THEN, I switched to an F chromo
song was in C. I had to play in G
song was in Eb. I had to play in Bb
song was in F. Naturally, I played it in C.
song was in D. I had to play in A (tough...for me)
song was in G. I had to play in D
song was in Dm. I had to play in Bbminor

The whole exercise was to find out WHAT key was easiest, BECAUSE: just because you have a chromo in the same key a song is IN, doesn't mean that that is the easiest 'Position' to play it in. Considering all the fills, frills, nuances, available improv., sometimes a song can be played in a different key easier and even better. Sw Ga Brown lays out in D on a C chromo BETTER than C.

Case in point: A particular Latin tune is very fast. It is what is called a Chorinho. It lays out do-able in the F 'fingering' pattern. BUT it is written in G. It is nigh impossible to do it in G. The speed is too much for breath switching. (Keeping in mind that it is written for guitar). Sooo? what to do? Am I supposed to devote half my life like that guy from Argentina (Edu du Gaita) and concentrate on 'Perpetuoso' till my face falls off? No thank you.

I WILL take a Bb chromo and DO it in MY better key of F, while the band plays it in G like THEY would prefer. We BOTH wind up with the terminal sound coming out of all our instruments AS (guess what?). That's right...we're ALL in G. Case closed.

Otherwise, I (basically) agree that playing everything on a C has merits of it's own that are so obvious as to negate any further dessertation(s) along THOSE lines.

smokey-joe

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