quote " Am I totally off key? Any help would be appreciated."
Hi Denny
As a Dire Straits fan I've had to help you here :-)
No No, you're absolutely not out of Key. This shuffle is in E and is completely playable on a A harmonica (2nd position)
BUT this a Major type of song (like some country music songs and classical ones) and the particularity of the type of major scales is the "Leading Note". In classic major scales you always find the Leading note ONE SEMI TONE lower than the name of the scale (for example scale of G--->F#, or even simpler the C scale, one semi tone between the B and the C), and of course the Major Third (ex: C Maj : C-E, C min : C-Eb). All that to say that you'll need the D# on the second octave of the harmonica, and in order to do that, you have 2 solutions: 1) Having a modified harmonica (country tuning) of learning to play the 5th overblow.
Still if you have none of them for this song you can double the rhythmic guitar playing the shuffle of this song on the 1st octave (the first 4 holes)...And it sounds good.
I hope it has helped you
Christelle Berthon
Official website : http://www.christelleharpqueen.net http://www.youtube.com/christellester http://www.myspace.com/christelleberthon