Re: [Harp-L] Harmonica within a larger Musical Framework was RE:Summertime



I agree totally with Slim about Stevie's us of the C Chromatic...if you are a practicing 'chromatician' and play along with Stevie on your C Chrome, you will see and HEAR exactly what he is doing.....

BTW check out Toots playing "Shadow of your Smile" also in Am and you realize WHY he is the KING of the Chromatic!,-)
best,
Rob P


----- Original Message ----- From: "Slim Heilpern" <slim@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2008 10:04 AM
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Harmonica within a larger Musical Framework was RE:Summertime



icemanle@xxxxxxx wrote:

If I'm not mistaken, Stevie doesn't play chromatic in all keys but gravitates towards keys that allow him to use his sense of sliding in and out of notes w/the button, or using chrom's tuned in other keys than "C".


My 2 cents on this...

I've heard several harmonica players say something to this affect, but I think it's a mistaken assumption. I just spent 5 minutes rummaging through my iTunes copy of "The Complete Stevie Wonder" and came up with the following sampling:

Alfie: Bb
For Once In My Life: F#
Isn't She Lovely: E
Fingertips: C
Kiss Lonely Goodbye: A
Same Old Story: G
At Last: Eb
Shadow of Your Smile: Am

All of the above were played on a C chrom. If I had more time I bet I could find the rest of the keys as well...

After many years of studying his work on chromatic, I'm quite sure he plays comfortably in all keys and he most likely chooses his keys, at least on the vocal numbers, for where he likes to sing them.

Also, he's demonstrated over the years that there are effective Stevie-esque button slides in every key ;-).

- Slim.

www.SlideManSlim.com

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