[Harp-L] Fourth Position--Coletrane

["John F. Potts" <hvyj@xxxxxxx>]

Jp Pagan says:

I take issue with the use of the term "repetitious,"


Well, since you bring it up, I don’t consider Afro Blue or Equinox to  
be repetitious or particularly difficult to improvise over, either,  
so long as one is comfortable playing in minor keys.  Both are  
basically natural minor blues, but use the aeolean mode instead of  
the blues scale.  You can throw in the flat 5th (B8*) if you feel  
like it and it sounds ok, but it’s not in the melody and there’s no  
need to play it unless you want to.

To play aeolean,  you just play the minor pentatonic scale but freely  
use the second and the flat sixth as well—which is the natural minor  
scale.  All these notes are available in Fourth position without  
having to bend.  So, IMHO,  it’s really easy to improvise over these  
tunes  so long as one has a feel for minor key playing.  What’s a  
little harder is making sure to play the head precisely, which isn’t  
all that hard, either, but does require a little concentration. So  
you have to pay attention to where you are on the harp to get it  
right when it comes around. On Afro Blue the head starts on draw 6.   
On Equinox the head starts on blow 5 (or blow 2 is you want to play  
it in the lower octave).

An authentic blues player originally from the deep South (U.S.) once  
explained minor key playing to me in the following terms:  “The blues  
go up, but the minor goes down.”  It took me a little while to figure  
it out, but there’s a ton of practical wisdom in what he said.

JP