Position Playing?
If a non-music playing friend were to ask you "What is position playing?," how would you answer him or her in a way they would understand you?
I answer this in the Position Understanding lesson... just want to start the thought process... it's important to understand this yourself.
Using a scale relative to the song's harmony and what harmonica you want to play.
We are all familiar with the scale do re me fa so la ti do. What if I were to play the same scale on my harmonica but instead of starting and ending on "do" I start and end on "re" The change of the first note of the scale from "do" to "re" changes the key in which we are playing in. This is called in music circles playing in modes.
Nice, I like what you guys are writing.
Here's what I would tell my non-musician friend about 1st and 2nd position.
"I'm on a C harmonica, and it's built with the C scale... obtained by using a combination of blow and draw notes up the range of the instrument. I can also play multiple draw or blow holes to create a chord. The blow chord is the I (one) chord, which is the most important chord in music, because it's the home chord... what all the other chords will resolve to. Harmonica players tend to spend most of their time on the lower six holes of the instrument. On these lower six holes none of these blow notes can be bent. A bend is a technique that allows us to slide between the standard notes, giving us bluesy sounding notes and expression.
If we play in the key of the draw chord, which is a G chord on this C harmonica, all of these notes of the I Chord can be bent, which gives us great expression on our most important notes. Making our home chord, this draw chord, our new key, we're now playing in a new key (G), which we call 2nd Position, or commonly "cross harp."
Simply stated, 1st Position (playing a C harmonica in the key of C), would use blow notes as its main notes and draw notes as stepping stones. 2nd Position (playing a C harmonica in the key of G), would use draw notes as its main notes and blow notes as stepping stones. This is what they call it "cross harp," you're playing the harmonica crossed. The old players called this type of playing "choking the harp." Playing the harp with more draw notes and using the technique of bending."
There's of course much more "deep" detail about 1st and 2nd position, but this usually gets someone going.
That was for 1st and 2nd Position. 3rd Position is a little bit harder to explain. Subway John, you started with a great approach. Anybody want to take a simplistic, but still accurate, way of describing this?
I would say, "Well, it's very complicated, and it isn't something you should try at home without proper training."
We are all familiar with the scale do re me fa so la ti do. What if I were to play the same scale on my harmonica but instead of starting and ending on "do" I start and end on "re" The change of the first note of the scale from "do" to "re" changes the key in which we are playing in. This is called playing in modes or in harmonica speak postions. Modes simply put are incomplete series of notes used to convey different feelings. Blues harmonica is most commonly played in the first three positions. We choose positions based on the availabilty of certain notes that help provide the feeling we want to convey. You probably have heard guys just wailing on one note that begs to be resolved. The availabilty of these "wailing" notes and notes of resolution within easy reach is what helps us choose one position over another. Harmonica players (especially blues players) have developed a set of terminology around different "positions" which can be somewhat confusing.
There are 19 notes available on the diatonic harmonica, players can play other notes by adjusting their mouth and forcing the reed to resonate at a different pitch. This technique is called bending. It allows harp players to utilize other scales on a diatonic harp. There is a modern technique pioneered by Howard Levy called overbending (overblow, overdraw) which allows certain notes of the harmonica to be bent up in pitch further increasing the range of the harmonica to a fully chromatic instrument.
Back to our simple scale do, re, me..... this scale corresponds to a scale on the harmonica. A "C" harmonica for example would have the following corresponding scale C D E F G A B C. Using this scale we can play a variety of old campfire tunes like Oh Susannah or folk-rock like Bob Dylan. This straight harp style is commonly called 1st postion. You are playing your harmonica in its natural key. Blues in 1st postion (straight harp) focuses on the blow notes and uses the draw notes as stepping stones. For you blues guys out there think of Jimmy Reed playing Bright Lights, Big City bending those first postion upper register notes. Sweet.
If we count up five steps from C, C D E F G we end up in second postion playing our C harp in the key of G. Note that each time we change keys our root note changes in this case to G. This position is commonly called cross harp. Cross harp is the most common position in blues harp playing. In second position playing we tend to emphasize the draw notes and use the blow notes as stepping stones. The bent notes sound very soulful in this postion.
Count up five steps from G, G A B C D and we end up laying our C harp in the key of D. This is third position, sometimes referred to as slant harp. George "Harmonica" Smith played some great stuff using third position. Third position is the most complete position of the first three. Full octave major and minor scales available in the lower register, the availibilty of 4 and 5 hole octaves and a great minor sound make third postion a favourite amongst pros and a great place to enter into the chromatic harmonica world.
If we went up another five steps from D we would be playing our C harmonica in fourth postion, five steps from A brings us to fifth postion and so on up to a total of twelve positions. More and more these days it seems like alot of people are exploring more positions than ever before. 1,2,3,4 5,6,12 postions are very easy to find on recordings of and I have heard a few pros like Mike Stevens play in eleventh position but only those who overbend.
Nicely done! Can you share songs that are recorded using 4th, 5th and 6th?
4th
Rhythm Willie's "Breathtakin' Blues" is in fourth position
Both Sides of the Fence by Charlie Musselwhite- has a 4th position chromatic solo
SHE by Sugar Blue from the "In Your Eyes" CD is also in 4th.
Sometimes folk players like Bob Dylan play in 4th. Hurricaine is in fourth position
5th
William McCoy in 1928 called "Central Tacks Blues
Eddie Mapp accompanying Curley Weaver on the song "It's The Best Stuff Yet", Mapp is playing a B diatonic in fifth position.
6th position
Eddie Mapp plays an E harp in the key of Eb to accompany guitarist Curley Weaver on his 1929 recording of "No No Blues"
How would someone else like to come up with some more modern examples? Somehow I feel more knowledgeable about position playing than before I wrote these explanations.
Thanks Dave, I'm on to your methods:)
Nice job!
I would state that I simply changed the key I was playing in.
I might also state that I am simply choosing to completely ignore some holes in order to create a different sound.
David - I am a serious student of the harmonica so by all means please correct me if anything is in error.
Ron W.