Always Referencing The C Harmonica?
Sun, 05/04/2014 - 10:14
Hi David,
I'm still trying to fully wrap my head around the whole "always referencing the C harmonica" thing. I get it when it comes to scale degrees (as you talked about in MT Study 2) but when it comes to the actual reading of your music notation on The Strut, all written note are tabbed with C harp notation and the D harp that I'm playing doesn't match the notes as written.
Can you help me understand this a little more clearly, in fact understand it at all. I've been following the videos as layed out as suggested but aside from scale degree "theory", I'm still quite lost.
Thanks for your time David,
Bill
Hello Bill. Yes, this can be a confusing subject. Let's take this in stages...
Let's start with just TAB. If you see a 4+ in my notation it means to play the 4th hole on the harmonica and blow. Most students just use the TAB... it tells you where to go... a physical location on the harmonica.
If you read 4+ 5+ 5 6+ it's the first four notes of "When The Saints Go Marching In." If you're playing this on a C Harmonica you find that the actual notes are C E F G. If you memorize the notes of a C Harmonica, then you quickly realize that you can move that melody down to the 1+ 2+ 2" 2 (C E F G) or up to 7+ 8+ 9 9+ (C E F G). Cool... the knowledge of that C Harmonica has helped you to start thinking about what you're playing and how it can be moved around on the harmonica. It's worth-while to get to know one key of harmonica, and the blues chords, in one key.
Here's where the clarification for your question comes in...
You can play that same melody on any harmonica... hole-for-hole it's the same... it's just higher or lower in pitch to match your new key. The harmonica does the changing of the keys for you... you don't have to know more than the layout of one harmonica.
If we do a song in the Key of D you would need to memorize the D Harmonica and what sharps are in the Key of D. And the same for the others. So, if you want to READ in the actual key you're playing in with a given harmonica you need to memorize all twelve keys and the layout of all twelve harmonicas.
This is a lot of work, and honestly work not needed because the harmonica does the transposing for you. Grab another key of harmonica and play 4+ 5+ 5 6+ and you get the same melody, just in that key. As a harmonica player you don't need to know the pitches to be able to play a given melody, you just play the correct holes and away you go. If the band requests a key change, no problem, you grab a different harp and play the same holes.... easy.
So, the upside is that you only need to memorize a C Harmonica and its related chords for the blues. If you always imagine that you're playing your C Harmonica you can learn how to make relations.
The downfall is that if someone asks you what "note" you're playing. In this case you can either tell them the degree of the scale ("I'm playing the root note) or simply use the chart I provide you on the website that shows you what notes each harmonica has for each hole.
I hope this clarifies it a little. Though it seems strange, we do this all the time in the music world.
Here's one for you... did you know that when a trumpet plays the written C on the page that it sounds B-flat. Or an Alto Sax when playing the written C it sounds E-flat. The music world is full of "this-is-that."