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

[Michael Rubin <michaelrubinharmonica@xxxxxxxxx>]

Neil,
When you transpose the song to the key of D, it remains a minor song.  The
notes you are playing are all white notes and therefore are members of the
D Dorian scale, which is a mode of the C major scale.  Coincidentally,
there are other D scales that use all of these notes, so this melody is not
necessarily dorian.  The D aeolian scale has all of these notes as well as
do others.  For the purpose of this discussion we'll call it dorian.  But
that does not make it in the key of C.  When using a mode of a major scale,
the key is now the same name as the new root.  Therefore this song is now
in the key of D.  Since the third note of D is F#, but you are playing an
F, you are playing in D minor, because the third note lowered one keyboard
note is what they call the minor third.  There are situations where a minor
third is played in the melody of a major song, but this is not one of
them.  Since the key of D is third position on a C harp, this song is now
in third position.  Even though D dorian is a mode of C major, the song is
not in first position.  However, you have now created a very easy way to
play this song!
Michael Rubin
michaelrubinharmonica.com


On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 8:36 AM, Harmonicology [Neil Ashby] <
harmonicology@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> That is correct; I caught that (minor issue) while thinking last night
> about transpositions (and adjusted the attached quoted message).
>
> Next step: Why not then Chromatically Transpose from C-minor upward by 2
> semi-tones? Would that be the C-Major Dorian Mode?
>
> C-Minor (Chromatically Transposed):
>
> C  G  C  C  C  D  Eb[D#]  D  Eb[D#], C Bb[A#] Bb[A#], G Bb[A#] Bb[A#].
>
> C-Major (Dorian Mode?):
>
> D   A   D   D   D   E   F  E   F,    D  C  C,   A  C  C.
>
> How would that change the "character" of the tune? Same pattern of
> intervals should have exactly the same character.
>
> /Neil (" http://thebuskingproject.com/busker/2025/ ")
>
> On â6â/â9â/â2014 at 6:33 PM, "Winslow Yerxa" <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
> >
> >The example that you label as C major is actually C minor.That's
> >why it's so tough on a C major diatonic harmonica - Eb, Ab, and Bb
> >are all notes that belong to the C minor scale, not the C major
> >scale, and hence are not built into a C major diatonic harmonica.
> >
> >Winslow
> >
> >________________________________
> >
> >From: Harmonicology [Neil Ashby] <harmonicology@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> >To: harp-l <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
> >Cc: Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>
> >Sent: Monday, June 9, 2014 1:40 PM
> >Subject: Re: When Johnny Comes Marching Home
> >
> >Why don't I just figure these things out first because I had not
> >previously been transposing between G-minor and the C-Major scales;
> >I had probably played "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" from some
> >old tabs instead of the real sheet-music and the tabs were not
> >correctly transposed (which seems to be quite common).
> >
> >According to the actual sheet-music:
> >
> >[Corrected Version]
> >
> >In G-Minor:
> >
> >g  d  g  g  g  a  Bb  a  Bb,  g  f  f,  d  f  f.
> >
> >In C-Minor (Chromatically Transposed):
> >
> >C  G  C  C  C  D  Eb[D#]  D  Eb[D#], C Bb[A#] Bb[A#], G Bb[A#]
> >Bb[A#].
> >
> >Yup, as Winslow has indicated, that is a rough transposition to C-
> >minor.
> >
> >/Neil (" http://thebuskingproject.com/busker/2025/ ")
>
>