Does the circle of fifths apply to alternative harp tunings in respect to figuring out positions? Why I ask this is because I have a rarely used Lee Oskar MM in G which is labelled in cross harp eg it is basically a C but the tuning is a mix of country tuning & Paddy Richter combined. The first position though is in the key of Am(d). Personally I find this aspect confusing as eg wouldn't a Paddy Richter C harp be an Am harp if played in 1st pos, but they are labelled C. Also what position would one be playing in if the root note was C?
One of the tunes I do play on my MM is Ghost Riders in the Sky which is in the key of Am
I think I'd need a layout chart in front of me to answer specifically about positions on alternate tunings, but I'll take a stab at the principle. The way we label positions refers, in the strictest sense, to the pattern of blows and draws, combined with the whole you start on, to create a major scale.
For the purposes of comparing it to a regular tuned harmonica I think I'd think in terms of what hole your tonic is going to be on, so wherever your tonic (root) note is would determine position, but even when we talk about a standard harmonica the word position is a little fuzzy, since you can play a major scale, for instance in third, but most people who talk about playing in third are going to be using it for a minor scale. The definition that would stay the most constant would be what hole is your root (as long as you have a 10 hole harp) but in an alternate tuning your whole pattern of blows and draws is going to be thrown off. I'm messing around a lot with my minor tuned harp right now. I'm not always sure what note I'm going to produce when I hit a hole, but as long as I approach it from the perspective of what key that hole belongs in I seem to do all right.
If you are using tab it would be all thrown off, so converting things into the names of notes and comparing the layout charts for the standard vs. melody maker could at least tell you what holes you should be playing. If you are doing it by ear I think you'd just have to hammer out some new muscle memory. As for what to call it, I think I'd use the hole for the root to name it.
As for the name of a key, that's got to do with the pattern of steps between the notes in the scale, so if you sit down with the layout for an Am diminished harp you'll see the pattern creates a different pattern than a regular minor scale. If you really want to learn about that I'd read up on modes. The idea is that if you have 12 notes (Ab A Bb B C Db D Eb E F F# G) and you are going to use 7 of them (some form of flat natural or sharp for A B C D E F G) there are different patterns you can use to create them that give you your different scale. It's then a matter of looking at your harmonica chart and figuring out which type of scale playing it without bends gives you and then getting totally confused again when they start naming things by positions other than first because it makes it much crazier to explain.
So, that's the best answer I can give. Hopefully someone can do better. The circle of fifths tells you which degree of the scale you'll have to bend. Modes tell you what different patterns of steps are what scales and your harp layout chart let's you see how to make those scales.
I need a drink. And I don't drink. :)
edit: gave it a listen, they totally ripped of the melody from 'When Johnny Comes Marching Home'. It's fun to write new lyrics to old tunes. :)
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Last Edited by on Jun 25, 2011 5:00 PM
I think I may have gone off the rails somewhere in there. If someone can make more sense of that I'd really appreciate it. I sort of hoped that by explaining it I could figure it out for myself.
nacoran > thanks. Bit much for my grey matter to fully understand. I don't read music or use tabs. I hear a tune and play around with different harps positions/ tunings to see what best fits. I found Ghost Riders fits perfectly on the G MM but believed I was playing it in 1st & naturally thought C. I played it at a Bluegrass Jam to the confusion of all the pickers & we finally got it figured that it was in Am. They loved it and are intent on learning it and including it at future jams. It plays the same on a G harp that I retuned to PR tuning for playing fast fiddle tunes so I guess then it would be in Em.
Quote edit: gave it a listen, they totally ripped of the melody from 'When Johnny Comes Marching Home'. It's fun to write new lyrics to old tunes. :)
Can't quite agree with you on the ripped of melody. Tried to play 'When Johnny comes marching home on my MM & it's quite different but close. And, 'it's fun to write new lyrics to old tunes' gave me a bit of a chuckle as Ghost Riders was first recorded by Burl Ives over 50 years ago but became a huge hit for Vaughn Munroe in the 50's. Later on Johnny Cash revived it and it again became a hit. My earliest memories of playing Ghost Riders was on a wind up gramophone with replacement stylus needles. Now that dates me! And it's early morning here so the drinks will have to wait.
It does change a little bit from "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" but the basic melody is there. If you Google the two they turn up an entry on SongFacts. They call it 'based on' which is a better description than ripped off. I know Ghost Riders is an old song, but WJCMH is Civil War era!
For the purposes of telling other people what key it's in I'd say the easiest way would be to find the note it resolves on and tell them it's a scale where that's the root. I didn't even get that far in my train of thought. I was getting more philosophical! So, yeah, find the root of the song and use that to coordinate with everyone else. I'm at the point with my theory that I know the ideas but not the application. I spend a lot of time counting up and down the scales in my head.
For the easiest way to think about major/minor/diminished, etc. look at a C chord.
A C Major chord has the notes C E G (4-3) A C Minor chord has the notes C Eb G (3-4) A C Augmented has the notes C E G# (4-4) A C diminished has the notes C Eb Gb (3-3)
(at least if I'm doing the math right in my head.)
You count on a scale like this:
(Ab A Bb B C Db D Eb E F F# G)
The harmonica is an easy instrument to play, but it's not a great instrument for picturing theory. All major chords have the same number of notes in between the each of the notes, four between the first note of the scale and the second, and three between the second and third.) On a piano you can sit there and figure out which sounds like which, but on a harmonica it's already built in. The hard part is when you have to explain an alternate tuning to someone playing another instrument. The easiest way might be to hand them a sheet with the layout of the harmonica on it and tell them what holes you are playing.
There was a video a while back of a German guy who had developed a harmonica that lit up. There was a knob on the end that let you change colors. I'd actually been thinking it would be sort of cool to have a harp that had a little LED for each degree of the scale, sort of pushed out towards the end, that would light up when each note was hit.
All the writing would be backwards! I play mostly by ear and when I have to figure out what hole I'm on I often have to put my finger on the harp and pull it away from my face slowly so I can figure out what I am doing. It makes tabbing songs out for people a real drag. I actually really enjoy the part of figuring the song out. Anyway, you'd use my invention in the mirror and you could see what hole you were playing, complete with the writing transposed the right way round!
Thank you nacoran. Lots to absorb. I too have difficulty in explaining the notes/holes I am playing and often to find the resolve note I stick my tongue on the hole & then my finger and remove from my face slowly. Tabbing out something for others is a painstaking task.
Like your idea of the LEDs for each note. But hey it should be really easy with todays technology to have a tuner pick up on each note and be able to have a program that tabs it out. This site has the LED on notes on a harmonica:-
A MM in G, labelled in cross harp. It's basically a C, but the first position is in Am(d)
is very unclear. My best guess is that it's labelled as a C, it plays in Am in first position (that would surprise me) and it plays in G in second position. but I don't think anyone can answer your question unless you list the 10 holes and exactly what notes you get from the blow and draw reeds and how it's labelled. ----------
Andrew. ----------------------------------------- Those who are tardy do not get fruit cup.
Last Edited by on Jun 26, 2011 5:18 AM
A simplified formula for chords would be: Major Chords=I+III+V (example, notes for the chord of C major are C E G the first, third and fifth notes of the C major scale. Minor Chords=I+bIII+V (using the lower case B for the flat symbol) Seventh Chords I+III+V+bVII ( the notes of the major chord plus the flatted seventh).
Positions are about which note you start on, these are closely related to (but exactly) modes.
Scales are about the distance between notes. The root note defines the key of the scale, the distance between each note in the scale defines the type of scale it is. Major, minor etc.
Every time you go up a harp position, you go one step round on the circle of 5ths. Eg, if you are playing a C harp, 1st is C, 2nd is G (one step clockwise on the circle of 5ths from C), 3rd is D (2 steps round on the circle of 5ths from C) etc. So no matter what tuning you are playing the circle of 5ths will always tell you which key corresponds to which position, as it is always talking about the root note. (Not the scale you are playing, and not the hole you are starting on the harmonica).
Also complicating things is that LO alternate tunings are labeled in the second position key. Eg a LO MM labeled G, is pretty much a standard tuned C, with a few alternative notes. – Confusing! So I think of a LO MM in G as a C harp.
OK, so lets a assume we have a standard C and MM in G(same-ish as regular C) – The root note may be in a different hole or blow/draw on a harmonica depending on the tuning, however this does not effect the position/key relationship. Eg, If I was playing in 12th position on a standard Richter tuned harmonica in C, the key would be in F, and I could find the root note on the 5 draw. However if I was playing in 12th on the Melody Maker, I would still be in the key of F, however the 5 draw on a MM is F#, so in order to play the root in 12th I would need to play the 5 draw bend, which is F.
So, the circle of 5ths will still always tell you what you which position is related to which key. However, depending on the tuning the root note maybe in a different place on the harmonica. – Also you will have to make allowances for the fact that LO alternate tunings are labelled in 2nd position.
Nice explanation Baker. I understand why they did it, but I think Lee Oskar, in an attempt to simplify things, made the harmonica world more complicated. Alternate tunings are fine, but labeling keys differently just adds a whole layer of confusion that didn't need to be there (except of course they were removing a layer of confusion for people who don't want to think about positions.)
@Aussiesucker A 'standard' harp is labelled as to the major scale that can be played on it and when tuned paddy ,only has the 3 blow altered to enable play of the sixth note of the major scale.So it is still a C harp and the circle of fifths applies as per normal. A MM labelled G is not really a C harp because you can't actually play a C major scale on it because of the raised 5 and 9 draw notes. But you can play a major G scale,so technically you could say it is in G and have it labelled as such without mentioning second position. Now the circle of fifths which is a progression of Sharps =*. So G (*) D ** A *** E**** You can play a major scale G on your MM but the only full scale you can play in D on it is Dominant (from blow 3)and the only full scale you can play in A is Dorian) so Ist position is G second D and third A .So same as a standard harp in G I think Lee by naming the key as second position has caused some confusion by implying therefore that the 'actual' key of the harp according to the circle of fifths is C.But it isn't as you cannot play a major scale C on it. Anyway to me the logical way to put this Harp into 'positions' is Ist=G major ,2nd D dominant ,3rd A minor dorian , 4th E minor I think Lees reason was for marketing purposes in that second position has a mojo about it?But then again i suppose people would of been very disapointed if they bought a harp in C to find that they couldn't play in C on it. Interesting discussion love to hear some more ideas on this. Of course all the above implies no bending to achieve scales. Beer o'clock.
Baker ,I understand your explanation but to quote you, eg a quote I don't disagree with:-
"Every time you go up a harp position, you go one step round on the circle of 5ths. Eg, if you are playing a C harp, 1st is C, 2nd is G (one step clockwise on the circle of 5ths from C), 3rd is D (2 steps round on the circle of 5ths from C) etc. So no matter what tuning you are playing the circle of 5ths will always tell you which key corresponds to which position, as it is always talking about the root note. (Not the scale you are playing, and not the hole you are starting on the harmonica)."
The Lo MM labelled in G (2nd pos) is labeled in Am for 1st pos. This does not fit with:- 'Every time you go up a harp position, you go one step round on the circle of 5ths. Eg, if you are playing a C harp, 1st is C, 2nd is G (one step clockwise on the circle of 5ths from C)'
I am still somewhat confused. Incidentally I have mistakenly ordered the wrong key LO harp because of this confusion. I wish he would take away this layer of confusion by labeling like other harp manufacturers.
I retuned a G harp to PR & can play this tune same holes as a MM. The root note is now Em (3b) for this tune but, is first pos unchanged from that of being a G harp? I dont think so because I have some Irish fiddle tunes in key of G that can be played on this harp in 1st pos & which on a normal diatonic need some 3d". So Em pos would actually be 4th? on my PR G harp and wouldn't Am be 4th, not 1st, on a MM labeled G (2nd pos). I NEED A DRINK!!
Hope you enjoyed the beer ;-) Three blow on the paddy G isn't 'E minor' it is just E. The notes that follow are what make it an E minor or E Major scale. E is the 6th note in the major scale of G so you are playing in 1st position,G. A lot of Irish songs start on this 6th scale note but it is not always the Key of the song.Dirty old town is another example of this.
Here are a couple charts from the Lee Oskar site, and the circle of fifths, including the minors around the inside... so, they do do some strange voodoo...
Let's use the C, since they provide us with the chart. It looks like, since they label 2nd, you would count back one space one the harp to find first, but instead of the major key you have the minor instead, so if you are thinking of it as being labeled in 2nd and assume it would be F in first, you're half right, since D minor is the relative minor for F. Third position does in fact follow the circle of fifths, so you have G and 4th position manages to switch directions! It's the minor of the position it's labeled in!
So, up is down, right is wrong and the brilliant logic of the original diatonic is laid bare for all to see.
Remember all keys are just patterns of sharps, flats and naturals, so if you really wanted to write out all the notation for each key you could see why this works this way, but it's giving me a headache! :) Labeling them this way might actually be a blessing, because it forces you to rely on their chart instead of the circle of fifths, which breaks down and doesn't show you what you need to see on this tuning. I don't even want to contemplate what positions beyond 4th turn out to be!
Now I need a beer really quick (it's 4pm). If I absorb all this will I become a better player or will it just help stall off on Alzheimers? Seriously though, thanks guys for the explanation. I was aware of the Lee Oskar charts above but not the 'inner circle' on the circle of 5ths.
But it's still got me confused. A MM in G (2nd) plays Am in 1st on 'Ghost Riders' but eg if using a PR in G (normal 1st pos) puts the root note for 'Ghost Riders' the same as for a MM 3b, hence wouldn't it be Em? And if LO was making PR tuning he would label the normal C harp as G and put 1st pos as Am?
I think I will give the circle of 5ths a pass and use the charts as being more readable if not understandable. Bummer, I now cannot always rely on my fingers counting up to 5 whilst reciting the ABC.
But really many thanks as you have all put your grey matter to some hard work & I will have to put in some study to fathom this out.
Last Edited by on Jun 28, 2011 11:01 PM
