OK, so I splashed out in the Bends sale and bought myself a big 64 chrom (unlike the slightly negative disappointed reactions I read from folks who bought Juke diatonics, this Tonica chrom has exceeded my expectations).
It's not my first chromatic, and I can do the 3rd position blues stuff reasonably well, but my long term goal is to play uptempo poppy Soul stuff like Stevie Wonder.
So I'm listening a lot to Stevie and I'm just wondering who is there who plays like that? - who else should I be listening to? Toots is wonderful, but it's soul I want, not jazz. Nothing wrong with jazz of course - just not the sound I want to play right now ;-)
Bottom line is no one sounds like Stevie, aside from his imitators.
That said, his style is quite easy to understand but not always that easy to play. He plays a lot in '12th' position to put it in diatonic terms. He plays a lot in F# with the button pushed in on a C chrom for example. Other keys he employs are Dm (3rd position), and C (1st position). He's also been known to speed up recordings to facilitate his favoured positions.
Whilst all this sounds quite straightforward and at times it seems like he 'cheats' a bit, the best part of his playing is that thing you just can't put in a bottle. His musicality. For Once In My Life is a perfect example of this. Genius.
A good book on this is Jazz Harp by Richard Hunter.
Yeah - I'm working through Jazz Harp. I did wonder if 12th position came into his sound. It certainly has a very Stevie feel at the top end on the diatonic.
A good trick I very recently found which will help you bend your brain around to Stevie's chrom playing is playing Isn't She Lovely. You can play this in F on a standard C diatonic with the 6 OB, but if you flatten the 7 draw a'la Todd Parrot, you can play it really easily.
I think Stevie may have come up with the melody on harp in F, realised it was out of his vocal range and then woodshedded to learn it a semitone lower.
On the Stevie stuff, I've quite often found that relating it to diatonic harp and then transferring it to chrom kind of breaks the mystery for me. It is awesome stuff.
Last Edited by on Apr 15, 2011 5:12 AM
You say Stevie plays a lot in F# (which is 7th position, not 12th). My evidence says that's not the case. Yes, he did it on "For Once in my Life" because the tune modulated up from F to give it some extra energy. But that's the only one I know of. Maybe there are more, and I'd love to know about them.
Chakha Khan's "I Feel For You" is one that he did play in 12th. The final track is in F#, but to play his solo he slowed the tape down and played in F. "Do I Do" comes out in B, but again, he slowed down the tape and played it in Bb. (I'd be curious about other examples of him changing the tape speed.)
Most of his early stuff is in C, using the slide-in draw notes to play blue notes in the C scale (Eb, Gb, Bb) and to play slide ornaments on those notes. Later he applied this button-jab/blue-note idea to G and then other keys.
Last Edited by on Apr 15, 2011 9:21 AM
As you know I'll always defer to you. Sorry, I'm probably mixing up my diatonic / chrom terminology and yes, I am wrong in the F# comment. Dunno why I said that.
On For Once in my life, it's a lot like playing in '12th', being F on a C, but with the button in making F#.
Let me retread the whole thing and re say what I was trying to get across.
His playing tends to lean on the keys that fit comfortably in keys like C (1st), Dm (3rd), F (12th) and by playing slide in and raising a semitone, which is all quite easy to get your head around if you've got your head around a diatonic. It all feels quite natural.
Incidentally, There Must Be An Angel by Eurythmics was in F as well as I Feel For You (recording was lowered 1 semitone from F# to play the solo.
Looking at Isn't She Lovely, That seems so obvious to be concieved in F, but relearned in the key of E to suit his vocal range.
Have I put this across correctly?
Thanks for calling me out on this. Bad comments on my part. Apologies.
When it comes to chromatic it's time to give up the position concept. Time to learn keys and what the notes are on the instrument.In the end you'll be glad you did. One secret try to learn the blues scales on the chromatic. Another secret sharp keys will let you scoop a half step from below a lot melodies. There are more secrets but the Chromatic police will get me if I give them away. ---------- Emile "Diggs" D'Amico a Legend In His Own Mind How you doin'
