Blues Chromatic

In recent tips I’ve been focusing on using the slide for melodic ornaments adapted from Stevie Wonder’s playing.

However, Paul deLay had his own way of sneaking the slide into his chromatic playing.

Paul’s slide slither was based on the fact that you can play F two different ways:

-- as a slide-out draw note
-- as a slide-in blow note.

But this wasn’t about single notes. It was about splits, where you get three or more holes in your mouth, then use your tongue to split the chord in half so that you play two notes, one out of each corner of your mouth. continue reading...

You play third position chromatic largely with big draw chords seasoned with various tongue blocking effects – lifts, splits, rakes, and so on, and of course you can play single-note licks and riffs that don’t need the slide.

By contrast, the Stevie Wonder-style slide ornaments I’ve described in the last few tips originate in a mostly single-note style played in first position. But you can easily work them into your single-note lines in third position.

I’ll use text-based tab to describe them:

1B = Hole 1 Blow, 1D = hole 1 Draw

< = slide-in note
/ = slide jab
~ = slide bump. continue reading...

Last time I talked about slide jabs. This time I’ll describe slide bumps.

Let’s say you’re playing in C, and you’ve got the blues scale going:

C (either blow or draw/slide-in)

D sliding up to Eb

F sliding up to F#

G

A sliding up to Bb

D and A aren’t part of the classic 6-note blues scale, but they function like chromatic lower neighbors to Eb and Bb. continue reading...

Last time, I showed how pressing in the slide on the draw notes can give you a blues scale in first position.

But you can use the slide to do more than just get those notes.

How you approach those notes and leave them using the slide is also a juicy part of this style.

You know how to do a tongue slap, where you start a single note as a chord and then slap your tongue down to arrive at the single note? continue reading...

Winslow,you wrote about playing a C chromatic with the slide in - Eb which would give you 10th position to a song played in D. I would assume you could also go right to a song in F and do third position, is that correct? This makes spending the money for chromatics a lot easier to accept.

When you think first position, you think blow chord, right?

Stevie Wonder created a way to play in first position that does two unusual things:

-- It focuses on the draw notes, using the slide

-- It creates a blues scale instead of a major chord.

The blue notes are the flat 3, the flat 5, and the flat 7 in the scale, right? In C, you add those notes to the 1, 4, and 5 and you get: C Eb F Gb G Bb

Now look at the slide-in draw notes: Eb (the flat 3), Gb (the flat 5), Bb (the flat 7), and C (the tonic note)

All of a sudden you have 4 out of the 6 notes of the C blues scale. continue reading...

If you play Draw 6 on a C chromatic, you get the note F.

If you play Blow 6 with the slide in, you still get F.

Big deal.

But wait, Paul deLay did something very cool with this.

First he played a split, with Hole 3 in the left corner of his mouth and Hole 6 in the right corner, blocking 4 and 5 with his tongue.

Now, maintaining that split, play the following sequence (I'l give you only the note in the right corner):

(B = Blow, D = Draw, < = Slide in)

6D 6B < 6B 5D continue reading...

A friend just asked me why the 4 & the 5 blow notes are the same on the chro - I saw an explanation at one time, but cannot remember what it was. I am assuming it has to do with a logical progession when the "black" notes are considered. If you can give me an answer perhaps I can impress him with it - sure can't impress this guy with licks (he is so good).

It is very difficult to find transcriptions for blues songs played with chromatics.
Any good resource for this?

Thanks in advance.

Any example songs or tabs for swing songs played with chromatic harmonica?

Thanks in advance for your answers.