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Forums :: General Discussion

tongue block 1 c scale

3 replies [Last post]
Tue, 03/21/2017 - 15:59
Rich60
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Joined: 03/18/2017

Hi 

 New here and a green horn besides ,but I am working on Tongue block study one 

and the c scale lay out is c scale but are we not using a A harmonica and four blow a A ?

Rich

 

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Wed, 03/22/2017 - 08:25
#1
Goran Begonja
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Joined: 03/21/2017
Hi RichI also just started

Hi Rich

I also just started yesterday. Scale will be in a key of harmonica. So if you are playin on C major harmonica, it will give you Cmajor scale. On A major, you will play A major scale. That is beauty of the diatonica harmonicas :)

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Sun, 04/09/2017 - 12:32
#2
alishamfarmer@y...
alishamfarmer@yahoo.com's picture
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Joined: 03/31/2017
Can you translate that for

Can you translate that for someone who doesn't know what you mean by 'key' or 'scale'?  I don't mean to be obtuse but music theory is an abstract concept for me.  So while I'm sure you adequately answered that question, I didn't follow.

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Sun, 04/09/2017 - 14:41
#3
Expert Winslow Yerxa
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Joined: 01/16/2010
Some scale basics

A scale is just a series of notes that go from one note to the next closest higher note, and then the next closer higher note after that. In most scales, the ones called major or minor, the eighth note in that sequence will complete the scale.

If you look at a guitar, the metal bands across the neck are called frets, and when you press down between two of these frets, it changes the pitch, or speed of vibration, of the guitar string when you pluck the string. When you get to the 12th fret, the note vibrates exactly twice as fast as the note you get when you play the open string. Any two notes in this 2-to-1 relationship (one vibrating twice as fast as the other) are an octave apart.

Most scales don't include all 12 pitches available between the first and 12th frets. When you include all 12, that's called the chromatic scale, which includes all the pitches in all possible keys.

Most scales include 8 or fewer notes (including the one an octave higher than the starting note) out of the 12. They may be spaced one fret (or one semitone) apart, two semitones apart (two semitones equal a whole tone), or in a few instances, three semitones.

The pattern for a major scale is often expressed as Tone (i.e., whole tone), Tone, Semitone, Tone, Tone, Tone, Semitone. Or for short TTS TTTS.

If you apply this pattern starting on C, you get C D E F G A B C. There's the C major scale.

One thing to note about the notes of the C major scale is that there is only one semitone between E and F, and between B and C. All the other notes are two semitones apart. This makes a difference when you start to build other scales.

If you apply the TTS TTTS major scale pattern starting with A, you get A B, C# (C harp, one semitone higher than C), D, E, F#, G#, A.

Note that in both scales, all of the first 7 letters of the alphabet are used to name the notes of the scale.

In both cases the TTS TTTS pattern is the same, but the notes are different.

Let's say you play this:

(B = blow, D=Draw, plus hole number)

4B 4D 5B 5D 6B 6D 7D 7B

On any key of harmonica you'll hear the major scale pattern, which will probably sound familiar. But on each key of harmonica, the note names will be different, as in the example above of C amjor and A major scales.

Does this make sense?

 

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