RE: [Harp-L] Twelfth position - Does it Appeal to Others Like it Appeals to Me?

[Steve Shaw <moorcot@xxxxxxx>]

> Over the past year and a half, I've gotten more comfortable playing in
> twelfth position.
> I usually choose this position in a country/folkish song or a pop-ish
> sounding song, something with a pronounced major feel. Even though the
> chords we can use come at unusual places, and we certainly have to scope
> them out, it almost seems to me that twelfth position is the "other first"
> position on a diatonic harp.
> I am curious if anyone ever uses twelfth position when playing Blues or
> anything in a minor key.
> I ask because I haven't had that work for me and not sound strained/forced.
> (My cats observe that twelfth position seems exactly eleven times worse than
> first position and couldn't I please put that thing away !!Now!!)
> Brad Trainham
 
If I remember correctly, 12th position equates to Lydian mode on a diatonic harp, which for me usually means "playing in G" (what I tell the guitar man) on a D harp.  In true Lydian tunes the augmented fourth will crop up in the tune somewhere.  It occurs very occasionally in Irish tunes.  I have one or two other tunes that could be played either in first or in 12th because that augmented fourth is not present anywhere in the tune, though imaginative harmony could "suggest" that it is there.  In Irish tune sets (medleys), played on a diatonic, it's nice to use 12th because it gives the potential for a "key-change" when going into the next (carefully-selected) tune.
 
I wouldn't regard 12th position/Lydian mode as in any way sounding "minor," by the way.
 
Steve Shaw 		 	   		  
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