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

[Mick Zaklan <mzaklan@xxxxxxxxx>]

   You know, I have used 12th position for blues playing.  I like it but I'm
not crazy about the 8 hole blow bend being about my only option for the
flatted 7th blue note.  But there are plenty of blues riffs that sound good
in there.  I don't do the position a lot; but when you think about it, you
already are kind of in 12th when you're playing 1st position.  The lV chord
change puts you there.  I've vowed to try to learn a few tunes in 12th just
as an exercise recently.  I notice that "Jambalaya" (Hank Williams) and "You
Never Can Tell"  (Chuck Berry) lie in there pretty good and I've been
messing with them.  Chris Michalek is a superb 12th position player, as
anyone who has seen him at the SPAH blues jams can attest.  Howard Levy was
the first cat I ever saw use that position and I think it's right up there
with the overblows as his greatest contribution to diatonic harmonica
playing.  He turned plenty of people on to that position.
   I have sort of a cute 12th position story.  Many years ago, I dropped by
the Windy City Harmonica club in Chicago for a visit.  There were only 2 or
3 diatonic players present; one of them was an attractive woman who used to
be a regular at the club but had moved out of state.  She told me that she
had bugged the great Don Les for harmonica lessons and he had dismissed her
as unworthy or insincere.  She even felt her gender may have had something
to do with it.  Ticked off, she went home and decided to learn "Peg o' My
Heart" on the diatonic harp to throw back at him.  My memory is fuzzy on
whether or not she was using Don's version, but she sat down with the tune
and had a difficult time with it.  It wasn't working for her in 1st or 2nd.
Finally, she found a way to get it to lay on the harp.  She went back and
played it for Don and his ears perked up immediately.  She had inadvertently
put the tune in 12th position.  I don't know if she ever got lessons from
Don, but she definitely earned his respect that day.

Mick Zaklan