Re: [Harp-L] explaining Position Playing - FAIL

[Michael Rubin <michaelrubinharmonica@xxxxxxxxx>]

Show them a piano.  Explain that a piano has every note that we use in
Western music.  Explain that a key is essentially a group of notes that
sound good together (although that's really more of a scale, but it will
probably help him.)  Since the piano has every note, they can play in every
key by choosing the notes that sound good and avoiding the notes that do
not.

Then say a harmonica is like a piano.  Even before you learn to get all
bends and overblows on a standard harp allowing the player to get all of
the notes that a piano has, a harmonica is still a group of notes.  If the
player wants to play in any key, he should find the notes that sound good
and play them and find the notes that are not in the key and avoid them.

The purpose of playing more than one key on a harp is two fold.

1.  There is more than 1 type of music.  In general, we play 3 kinds, major
minor and blues.  Each styles has scales or groups of notes that sound
good.  The C major scale is different than the C minor scale.

Until you start bending and overblowing, every note on a C harp is a white
note on the keyboard.  The C major scale is all white notes, C D E F G A B
C.  Therefore a C harp is conducive to playing in the key of C major.  The
A Aeolian scale, aka the A natural minor scale, aka the A relative minor
scale is all white notes, A B C D E F G A.  Therefore a C harp is conducive
to playing in A minor.

2.  There are sweet spots on a harmonica.  As a beginner he may not
understand this.  Which has more potential for sweetness, a blow note or a
draw note?  A draw note.  Which has more potential for sweetness, a hole's
breath direction (i.e drawing on holes 1 thru 6) that can bend and play two
notes from the same scale, or a hole's breath direction (i.e blowing on
holes 1 thru 6) that cannot bend and play only one note from the scale?
The draw hole.  Now these examples are not always going to produce the most
sweetness, but we're looking for understand a concept, not a rule that can
never be broken.

What you are looking for by playing in another key is  a lot of sweet
spots.  For example, the blues scale on a standard diatonic in cross harp
enables 1 bend and 1 draw, 2 double bend and 2 draw, 3 single bend, 4 bend
and 4 draw and 5 draw.  LOTS of sweet spots.

I hope this helps.
Michael Rubin
michaelrubinharmonica.com


On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 6:40 PM, Robert Hale <robert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> After 25 years of teaching harmonica, I am stumped.
>
> With one current adult student, I have not been able to convey the concept
> of a harmonica having more than one key capability, or why I would choose
> one of those over another.
>
> Robert Hale
> Spiral Advocate (Fanatic!)
> Learn Harmonica by Webcam
> http://www.youtube.com/DUKEofWAIL
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>