Sundancer, without getting political and commenting on the merits of any of the things you mentioned, your comment did remind me of something I just heard from the director of the San Diego Summer Music Institute at the end of program concert. He mentioned that the US congress has just allocated more money for music in schools and that this was a good thing for the country, because people that experience the process of learning to make music well on an acoustic instrument (he included vocalists at a serious level but excluded pop singers :-)), learn something that is deeper than just music about what is required to master something, and that this knowledge and experience will make them better citizens.
By the way, if you know any musicians that have not yet graduated from high school, I highly recommend the SDSMI program where students spend a week in the dorms at SDSU and learn from some very high level teachers. My son loved the program and will probably go back every year until he graduates from high school.
I call the notes that are "on the harp" GIVEN notes, as in, you get them without "working" the harp.
The notes on a diatonic harmonica is cleverly arranged so that the first octave (holes 1-4) gives you two GREAT chords--but if you can master the draw bends, all (save one) of the chromatic notes are there too.
Just sayin' . . .
Last Edited by Gnarly on Jul 09, 2016 7:49 AM
The layout on diatonic harmonicas today, known as Richter tuning, was set up originally because in most music, the vast majority of music uses two chords, the I chord and the V chord and the harmonica was originally designed to ONLY be played in 1st position and this layout was supposed to be so that most people could easily remember where everything is on the instrument and 95% of the playing techniques being used on it for the last 100 years, it was never designed to produce that in the first place. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
As Gnarly and Barbecuebob point out, there is a lot of music theory "built in" to the Richter harmonica. This makes it fairly easy for a novice to get a tune out of it and may be part of what leads to the impression that it is not a "real" instrument. It's low cost and portability also contribute (When is the last time you saw someone pull out a tuba and start playing it badly? :-)) I am finding that, while the built in theory in the harp can allow you to make music quickly without first learning a bit about music, it can also help you understand music more deeply. When you learn a tune in 1st position, then learn to play that same tune in 2nd and 12th position (the two keys vary from the key of the harp by only one note) You gain an understanding of the relationship between keys and where the circle of fifths comes from that you won't get from a textbook.
As to what the Richter harp was made for, I have found that fun to explore. I hesitate to post this in a thread where barbequebob is possibly monitoring, because the timing is awful (It seemed ok to me when I made the recording, but something has shifted since then. Perhaps the bits shifted in the digital record :-)) Anyway, it is just playing around and I would encourage anyone who plays harp to try using it like it was meant to be played. It is interesting how with many inventions, harmonica included, the best and most popular uses were far from the inventors mind while it was being created.
I worked my whole life trying to get respect for the instrument and raising awareness for what it can do. The "I only play from the heart" is more of an excuse for not learning the instrument. Now days I just shut up and let the harmonica do the talking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyqHYvvGpuo ----------
""My next step is I want to learn to identify a key just by someone telling me the notes or chords in it on the fly."
That's what key signatures do, Nate." Timeistight
I know key signatures, although I have to count the flats or sharps to get them. (And then run them through 'Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle' for the sharps or 'Battle Ends And Down Goes Charles Father' for the flats.
What I don't have is the ability to do it quickly when someone says the notes. For instance, if someone is playing an Ab, a C and a Eb I would have to write down the flats and compare them to figure out what other notes were flat and then figure out the key... so B E A are flat, but we aren't sure about D and G and we know C is natural... so what key options does that give us... I can work it out very slowly
Or when a guitar player tells me the chords he's playing C Major etc. I can recognize that those chords are in key X without having to write stuff down. (I actually, in my head, read key signatures by using the circle of fifths, although there is this little bit of competing knowledge from a theory class years ago that involved counting from the last sharp or flat.) I can usually get the key by asking what chord they are resolving on (and I'm golden if they actually know what key they are in... although bass players, for some technical reason, seem to know they are in, for example C, but don't know if they are in major or minor.)
What's frustrating is I know I have most of the conceptual framework in place. It's just the boring memorizing parts that get me. Although I've been making slow but steady progress on that too.
I am late to this but based on the initially comment about "playing from the heart, yada,yada,yada", that's about 85% of all harp players I see at local jams. They couldn't play a blues scale, any scale, if a gun was put to their head. And then they start talking about their fantastic 5 watt amp.....
"For instance, if someone is playing an Ab, a C and a Eb I would have to write down the flats and compare them to figure out what other notes were flat and then figure out the key... so B E A are flat, but we aren't sure about D and G and we know C is natural... so what key options does that give us..."
Ab - C - Eb is an Ab major triad. If that's the I chord, you're in Ab; if it's the IV chord, you're in Eb; it could be the V chord in Db but the V chord usually has a seventh.
A lot of times, it doesn't matter that much if you guess wrong. If you picked up an Ab harp to play Eb in second position and it turns out you're in Eb, then you play first position until you can switch harps.
This stuff isn't rocket surgery (or brain science). It isn't even really rote memorization: it's more just experience.
Last Edited by timeistight on Jul 09, 2016 2:00 PM
Key signatures clue you in to what notes are used, but do not tell you the key. If I see that there are no sharps or flats in the key signature and no accidentals, I can be sure I can play the piece on a C harp, but I don't know if it is in C Major, A Minor, D Dorian or a few other options. Looking at the last note can be a strong clue as songs usually end on the tonic, but it is not foolproof.
When looking to add songs to my repertoire, I frequently look through a songbook for pieces that have no accidentals. These are easy to spot and easy to play. Even if you can't read music, you can scan through a piece and if you see no accidentals, you know you can play it on a harp without resorting to overblows.
Here we are again with the old 'I get no respect as a musician because I'm a harp player' story. Oh dear, how sad, never mind. Do you play music to be respected, or because you love music and the instrument? Do you not get respect because you're not a great musician and haven't earned it, or because your chosen instrument is not taken seriously? I doubt very much if Sonny Boy or Howlin' Wolf lost sleep at night because the harmonica wasn't taken seriously.
Then the other half of this story is heaping disdain on all the 'other' harp players whose ignorance and arrogance let them think they could play without having learned theory. Those players are what gives 'us' a bad name. I wonder if Sonny Terry memorised the circle of fifths?
I have a friend who has played harp all his life. He is amazingly ignorant of theory. I'd say he could play rings around most of the people on this forum. ---------- Lucky Lester
@nacoran The circle of 5ths tells you about sharps and flats, and what chords are 1, 4, & 5. To the right clockwise from C is G, adding F#. Sharps continue from there, D has 2 sharps, F# and C#, A has 3, F#,C#, and G#, E has 4, F#,C#,G#,and D#. Notice that each move clockwise adds a sharp, and they follow the order of the keys.
For flats counter clockwise you add a flat each step. F has a Bb, Bb has a Bb and Eb, EB has a Bb, EB, and Ab, etc.
If the 1 chord is G, to the left on the circle is C, the 4 chord, and on the right is D,the 5 chord.
@didjcripey My original post was specifically about a player who was unaware that blow 3 is the same note as draw 2.
You bet your ass that the players you named could tell you which notes were where--they might not have used the same language, but they knew the layout.
I think what we are discussing here is not the difference between theory training and experience training, we all know of brilliant musicians who can't read music or spell chords. What Gnarly described in the OP is the problem of someone who really does not understand music, but thinks they do.
I think anyone who studies an instrument long enough to make the first advances in proficiency is amazed by how far they have come and what they sound like compared to where they started. At this point their ear may not have developed enough to be able to tell the difference between their recently vastly improved playing and that of the top pros on the instrument. If their ear never improves, they honestly think they have achieved a level of proficiency that takes others years of hard work and study just by playing "from the heart"
Last Edited by STME58 on Jul 10, 2016 9:44 AM
@nacoran: to learn to "spell" scales off the top of your head, spend 20 minutes or so each day writing out the letter names of the notes in each of the 12 major scales.
A practical rule of thumb to use at a jam or gig: if you are told the key, and given the chord changes, mentally convert the tonics of each chord to degrees of the scale of the key u are in. Then pick a position that gives you a scale or scales with those notes. This is is what I do as a starting point to determine what harp to play if an unfamiliar tune with other than I-IV-V changes gets called. Not perfect, but simple, direct and useful enough to work most of the time, keeping in mind that if the key is minor, you may also need to know what kind of minor. Faster and simpler for me than a circle of fifths analysis. But, YMMV.
@STME58: It's the difference between not playing any bad notes and playing right notes. This makes all the difference, but, as you say, it is a distinction not recognized by many who are too busy playing from the heart.
Last Edited by hvyj on Jul 10, 2016 11:04 AM
Every time I've heard "I just play from the heart" or "I just play what I feel" it has been shorthand for "I don't really know how to play the thing and I am not going to spend any time learning how. I think I'm great."
You can't play what you feel if you can't play in the first place.
That always reminds me of this story Wynto Marsalis tells:
Tenor saxophonist Frank Foster was playing a street concert from the Jazzmobile in Harlem. He called for a blues in B-flat. A young tenor player began to play "out" from the first chorus, playing sounds that had no relationship to the harmonic progression or rhythmic setting.
Beautiful, that should be the last post on this topic, because really, how could you improve on that?....concise, funny and gets the point across, brilliant, just like the man himself.
I know I'm the "theory" guy but I've met plenty of people who don't know anything about theory sound great on harp. But very few of them can play anything besides blues in 1st, 2nd and third position and 3rd position on chromatic.
I wasn't born understanding theory and probably went around 15 years knowing less theory than I would want my bandmate to know. I did start picking up on theory after around 1 month of playing, and this deepened greatly with each successive year. But around the time I had been playing around 15 years I was sick of bumping into the "I don't understand how to do this" wall and I got serious about knowing enough theory to play with any situation save for complex jazz.
Knowing theory has enabled me to play in a wide variety of music situations, some of which paid very highly and some that had a huge audience and some where I got to share the stage with musicians I really respected. Bandleaders always appreciate being able to communicate with me and often I translate a non theory bandleader to the rest of the band.
I have been able to explore playing in every position in every style of music that I understand how to play on diatonic, chromatic, bass harp and harmonetta. I easily added instruments to my arsenal such as mandolin, electric bass, keyboards and theremin. Am I a pro at these instruments? I used to be on mando, that's gone from lack of practice, but I can figure something out on them.
I will say my musical interests has led me to play some very esoteric stuff that is not for everybody's taste, but I can rip out a cross harp blues solo with the best of them.
Anyway, my suggestion is to do what you want. Enjoy music however you want. BUT if you play from the heart, don't be surprised when you are asked to play out of the band.
Gnarly, I barely touch the harmonetta anymore. Recently, it has been a bit on slider bass, a lot on jamming on the diatonic no matter which position or style of music the song calls for, a lot on train and fox chase rhythms as taught by Joe Filisko on the David Barrett website. He gave me a membership when I did an interview. I actually did the first 2 levels of achievement, perhaps one day I can be accredited as a harmonica teacher ;) I have been transcribing jazz sax solos and playing them slowly on both diatonic and chromatic in all 12 keys, thanks to the amazing slow downer, and I've bought Yvonnick Prene's "100 Jazz Patterns for Chromatic Harmonica Vol 2" but it is printed in teeny weenie eye strain o vision so I am currently rewriting the whole book into a notebook and plan on going crazy on it for a while.
