Re: 12th position??!@?

[haandruss@xxxxxxx (Harvey A. Andruss, III)]

>Anybody out there actually use this postion on a regular basis?  What songs,

Howard Levy, for one  -- others will know the songs off the tops of their
heads. He likes to call it flat first position in his video.

>or types of songs does it work on?  The fourth note of this G scale on a D
>harp falls on the draw7 so it's nearly impossible to get the note flat by
>bending (draw6 is only a half step down from there in pitch)...or is it?

But that 6 overblow gives you the major scale (Ionian) you're looking for,
as does the 10 hole, 2 half-step blow bend, and 3 hole half-step draw bend.

The Lydian is the 'brightest mode' to play over major chords and is used
quite a bit in jazz and fusion music (Ionian or major scale is the next
brightest).  There's even a jazz theory called Lydian Chromatic Concept
that starts with this scale as the basis from which all others are derived.
Pretty darn important to some people (I think Dizzy Gillespie and that
boppin' clan were big on b5s or #4s that define this mode).

I also backed into this position by trying to play with some Sonny Terry on
a C Richter (he plays Bb cross a lot).  The other nice thing I found is you
can get the minor third fairly easy (for blues, jazz minor) by nailing that
3 draw bend all the way down 3 half-steps, bending 6 or overdrawing 9 (I
still can't do this :( ). The flat 7 also comes in for blues, but with more
difficuly -- 1 hole overblow, 4 hole overblow and 8 hole 1/2 step blow
bend. It's a pretty 'major' position.


Regards,
Harv       haandruss@xxxxxxx - opinions my own