Ok, I hope I can explain this clearly. Try and keep up ok? lol
I knew a guy once who knew when someone was playing a Chromatic. I never could understand how. The other day Joe Lee said something to me about learning a song and to just learn the diatonic parts and not to worry about the Chromatic stuff (paraphrasing). Don't worry about the Chromatic? lol....I would never even have known!! I've read similar things relating to Chromatic parts of songs. My question is "how do you know?"
I hope I don't end up kicking myself and feeling foolish if the answer is so simple and this was a dumb question. But the song he mentioned was Thunderbird from Little Walter. I listened and if I was just to listen, like any other song, I wouldn't have noticed anything different about that than anything else. I wouldn't have said "wow...what the hell is he playing."
I saw a Youtube clip of a guy ( a beginner/intermediate) attempting it. He switched harps halfway into the song. Is it a key thing? Or is it just more notes? What gives it away? Is it that I would try to pick a key to play along and then suddenly the key would change?
That song is in the key of D..."D natural" is what we always called it and he switches into 3rd position with the chromatic C. (some guys think you just "have" to be in D-minor to do 3rd with that chromatic which is simply not true). I'm surprised you don't hear the change in the sound of the instrument...the chromatic sounds very very different from the G diatonic he uses in 2nd. I was a teenager when that tune came out and if memory serves, it was the B side of My Babe. I am not dead certain of that...been a long long time. (the question used to go around about "did Walter steal some of the notes from Jimmy Reed's "Boogie in the Dark" or did Jimmy Reed steal some of Walter's notes from "Thunderbird". There are a few, just a few, similarities.) What I meant, in my response to you, is that you can learn the song note for note with the diatonic and worry about going into 3rd with a chromatic after you have it down cold. The guitar lines are really just the same old boogie woogie we used to hear from those old time hillbilly guitar players...Carl Perkins, Hank Thompson, that crowd. Cal Green with Hank Ballard's Midnighters used those same lines for the backing on "Is Your Love For Real" Do NOT LET YOUR guitar player stray off those basic lines...if you do, the theme of the tune is lost and you'll just be another jammer. Maybe your ear isn't refined enough yet to hear those changes, I dont know about that because I always heard them very easily. (even from 6 years old) Yea yea yea, I know. I have been belittled by a few "know it alls" here who say thats impossible, etc etc etc. You can just imagine how much sleep I lose over their lameness. I really dont know how to tell you a method to learn to hear when the harps are switched other than to say the trite "keep listening over and over again and get mileage with it". That's not much help, I admit. Some of the real hitters out there (not the lamers) can make those switches so fast even I miss them sometimes and then dont catch up until a few bars on down the line. One of the slickest examples of that is Piazza in his "Who Knows Whats Going On'. That is a brilliant piece of Chromatic work and it took me almost 8 hours (scattered over a few days) to get it down, and I was using one of those slow-down machines too. He slides into a G diatonic sooooooo subtle in the closing...kinda like Walter does on "Flying Saucer". Don't sell Musselwhite short on that either. I heard that old varmint sailing along in basic second position playing very strong and then suddenly I started hearing some different stuff coming out and then I realized he'd switched harps into FIRST and was just "cooking them biscuits" while I was a victim of his sly misdirection. You seem to be sincere in your efforts with this damn fool instrument and I salute you. I'm not so hot as a teacher, by the way. I do have some knowledge and some skills but it's always driven me bat crazy in trying to TRANSFER that knowledge to someone who wants it so much. That's about the best I can do, man. Regards, Joe Lee Bush ---------- Democracy: 2 wolves and a sheep voting on what is for dinner. Liberty: A well armed sheep contesting the outcome of that vote.
Last Edited by on Jul 30, 2011 5:04 PM
Chromatic has a different tone quality - bigger and more organ-like the way Walter and most blues harmonica players use it, which usually involves wide splits and chords.
When you play single notes, the notes themselves have a different tone - more like a clarinet or soprano sax than diatonic.
Also, the notes are laid out differently, giving you a different quality to the chords. In D on a C chromatic (third position, the most popular way to play blues on a chromatic), the chords are dark and sort of mysterious.
I'm trying to be as non-technical as possible in describing this. Listen to some of Walter's instrumentals where he switches back and forth, and try to hear where the sound changes - FLying Saucer, Teenage Beat, Blue Lights, and probably others I'm not remembering at the moment.
Or maybe an easier one for distinguishing the chromatic is to listen to the original Muddy Waters recording of "I Just Want to Make Love to You." The tune is in D. Behind the vocal, Walter plays a C diatonic in third position. Then he drops out while the band vamps for a few beats, and comes back in playing his solo on chromatic, and it sounds HUGE - very different from the much more voice-like diatonic. After the solo, he drops out again and returns to C diatonic.
Last Edited by on Jul 30, 2011 6:41 PM
"Maybe your ear isn't refined enough yet to hear those changes, I dont know about that because I always heard them very easily. (even from 6 years old)"
Some people have a naturally good ear. I heard an interview with Steve Winwood's brother who said that at the age of 3 SW would climb up on the piano bench and play notes on the piano along with tunes that happened to be playing on the radio, picking out the right notes by ear.
IMHO, the most important thing for a harp player to be able to hear is what passages of a tune can't be played effectively on harp so they will know when to lay out. So many harp players just plow through parts of a tune on which they would have been off not playing at all.
"Silence is the 13th note of the chromatic scale." Now THAT IS THE GOSPEL! hvyj just sent that pitch right out of the park.....that is profundity at its best! Joe Lee ---------- Democracy==> 2 wolves and a sheep voting on what is for dinner. Liberty==> A well armed sheep contesting the outcome of that vote.
timeistight: "It helps if you play a little chromatic yourself."
EXcel;lent point. If you get a chromatic and start playing it, you'll start to hear what it sounds like and it'll be easier to know it when you hear it.
Ok I've been doing some messin' around last night and this morni9ng and now I'm really starting to worry! lol
Ever see that episode on Sienfeld where Kramer is telling Elains boss (Mr Pitt) to stare at this 3D painting and he will see a spaceship in the painting if he stares hard enough? Pitt never sees it. That's what I feel like...Mr Pitt.
I have been listening and improvisng along with Thunderbird and I can't hear any difference. I don't even have that big of a problem improvising over the whole song on a G harp. Ok, I don't know the song so I'm not really playing anything good and a lot of notes sound bad; but I could find the right ones if I took my time and played around....but I can match the sounds. Toward the end I have to play around and find notes higher on the harp, but I find a couple that fit. Some fit better when using an octave for some reason....or maybe it sounds better to my apparently faulty ears...lol.
Toward the end I can also find notes on my C harp but again higher up around holes 5-7. But listening, I don't hear a change...that's scarey!
I actually watched this guy play it and I actually watch him switch harps right in front of me but I hear no difference! I've played it over and over. Too much loud music? Are my ears shot...lol. Yikes!
As stated above, the timbre for chrom and diatonic is quite different. Another way to tell the difference is if tongue slaps are used. The chords on both harps are different (draw chords on chrom are more dissonant). You can also listen for bending (very limited bending on chrom).
2nd position diatonic and 3rd position chromatic is easiest to tell apart, 3rd diatonic vs 3rd chrom is a little more difficult (holes 4 to 7 are same layout as a chromatic).
Hold the train!!! Maybe this has been a communication/interpretation issue? I have been interpreting this "change" to be the song played in one key half way through (or whatever) and then at some point the rest of the song is played in a different key. Then after seeing the video above he confirmed my thinking by switching harps middle to end. Now I went back to the actual song and played along again with my G harp. Play a few notes, stop, try and copy the lick/notes and then move on to the next few notes and repeat the process. Suddenly I got to 1:07 of the video I will post below, and heard an octave that I couldn't produce on my G harp. Reminded me of a train whistle. I got my C harmonica and there it was!
So rather than thinking of half a song in one key and half in another I should have been looking for the different sounding "instrument?"
The octave I couldn't get on my G harp but could on my C harp comes at 1:07. Embedding is disabled on this clip so I used the link....sorry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r3Ea7uCJKA ---------- Tommy
So rather than thinking of half a song in one key and half in another I should have been looking for the different sounding "instrument?"
Joe Lee says..YES (some songs actually change keys...this one does not. Just change the harp from G diatonic to C chromatic ---------- Democracy==> 2 wolves and a sheep voting on what is for dinner. Liberty==> A well armed sheep contesting the outcome of that vote.
We've got a song where I swap from a G played in first to a C played in second. It's about the tone. The second part of the song is all about gratuitous bends and wailing. It's a good trick to have in your bag, and all you really need to do is practice swapping harps on the fly.
