[Harp-L] (no subject)

[Murray Tyler <murray.tyler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings all

I?m new to this and trying to resolve the whole position thing for diatonic. 
I?ll term my questions in terms of a C harp.

I understand the general idea of playing the harp in a different key ? eg to 
play in G, go up a fifth = 2nd position, to play in D go up one more = 3rd 
position etc. What I don?t get is the idea of which notes/holes are ?safe? to 
play and which are to be avoided.

If I express it in the Jon Gindick method of safe notes and stepping stone (not 
automatically harmonising) notes, to play second position, and ignoring most 
bends for the moment, I get the following (up to hole 6):

G ? found on 2D, 3B, 6B (safe, resolution notes) ? this seems obvious enough.
A ? 6D (safe)
B ? 3D (safe)
C ? 1B, 4B (stepping stone)
D ? 1D, 4D (safe)
E ? 2B, 5B (stepping stone)
F# - 2D bent (unknown, but works well)

So my questions are:

1. Why don?t C and E (and for that matter 5D, F) work that well?
2. Given the answer to 1, how would I work out what to play and not play for 
3rd position, or any other position?
3. Why do all the bends (1D, 2D, 3D, 4D, 6D) seem to fit OK?

Thanks and regards

Murray