[Harp-L] Re: When Johnny Comes Marching Home

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

if you take a minor key song and put it into a major key, it's no longer a minor song. A literal transposition from G minor (2 flats) would be to C minor (3 flats, none of them built into a standard diatonic C harmonica).

You're not only transposing the key, you're also changing the mode and therefore the character of the song.

In first position major it'd go something like this:

3B | 3B 4B 4B  4B 4D | 5B 4D 5B 4B | 3D    2D |  3D    2D |

3B 4B 4B 4B 4D | 5B  4D 5B 5D |  6B  5B | 6B    5B 5D |

6B  6B 6B 5D 5B | 5D    5D 5D 5B 4D | 5B  5B 5B 4D 4D | 4B   4D 4D 5B 5D |

6B  5D |  5B 4D 4D |  3B 4B 4B 4B   3D | 4B

Rather changes the character of the song.
 
Winslow Yerxa
President, SPAH, the Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica
Producer, the Harmonica Collective
Author, Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5
            Harmonica Basics For Dummies, ASIN B005KIYPFS
            Blues Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-1-1182-5269-7
Resident Expert, bluesharmonica.com
Instructor, Jazzschool Community Music School


________________________________
 From: Harmonicology [Neil Ashby] <harmonicology@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: harp-l <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx> 
Cc: Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx> 
Sent: Monday, June 9, 2014 7:05 AM
Subject: When Johnny Comes Marching Home
 

Winslow:

This statement of yours seems unclear to me: "When Johnny Comes Marching Home is in a minor key, so it doesn't work at all in first position without using overblows or a harmonica in a minor tuning ... If you're converting it to a major-key tune that's another story. But that's a "major" change to the song's character and should be acknowledged as such."

The original "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" seems to have been written in G-Minor (Bb-Major) with 2 flats and no accidentals; therefore the tune can be easily transposed to C-Major (with no accidentals) and sound EXACTLY like the original but at a different pitch (as is often done for singers) and-then performed in 1st or 2nd position without difficulty. The "character" of the 2nd position is exactly the reason for the popularity of the 2nd position even though the notes are the same.

/Neil (" http://thebuskingproject.com/busker/2025 ")