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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
Minor Harps in Major keys (1st Position)???
Minor Harps in Major keys (1st Position)???
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Noodles
24 posts
Jun 24, 2012
3:27 PM
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I don’t have a harp with Natural Minor tuning to try this out. So, I thought I’d put this out and see what kind of responses would surface.
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QUESTION: When playing a Blues tune in 1st position in a Major Key, are there more opportunities using a harp tuned in Standard Richter or in Natural Minor of that key?
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Below are note layouts for Keys of “C” and ”C (Nat. Minor)” harps. I got these charts from Overblow.com with the hope that Tinus wouldn’t mind since this is an educational endeavor.
Red Dots = Overblows
Blue Dots = Bends
Please review the differences between the two.
Remember that you want to play in C-MAJOR,1st Position and are deciding whether to use a straight, Richter tuned C harp OR a C harp with Natural Minor tuning. For the sake of argument, let's say it's a straight-forward Blues tune.
OBSERVATIONS
1. The 1-OB in Richter is simply a 2-blow or 5-blow or 8-blow in NatMinor tuning of that same key. That means flat thirds you can offer as octaves. Can’t do that in Richter tuning.
2. In NatMinor, 3-draw and 7-draw give you flat 7ths without bending. Flat 7ths can now play as an octave. Can’t do that in Richter tuning.
3. The 2–blow (Richter) moves to 2D–1 1/2 step bend in NatMinor
4. Moving from Richter to Nat Minor the 1-OB, 4-OB and 6-OB fall away because they play as regular notes in the Nat Minor tuning. Good news if OB'g is difficult for you.
5. In NatMinor, you can now really bend the 5-draw down a ½ step because the two reeds in the 5-hole are a full whole step apart in Nat Tuning, not a ½ step like Richter
6. The 5-OB doesn’t change to get the Flat 5
7. With NatMinor you can get the Minor Pentatonic and the Blues Scales more readily at the bottom end of the harp.
Does using a C-Nat Minor harp, have any real advantages and does it open up the harp in 1st position Blues playing in C Major?
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Noodles
View my growing photo collection of the top Harp Pros
Last Edited by on Jun 25, 2012 7:48 AM
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Noodles
27 posts
Jun 25, 2012
7:34 AM
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I'm a bit surprised that no one has any response to this
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Noodles
View my growing photo collection of the top Harp Pros
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timeistight
655 posts
Jun 25, 2012
8:03 AM
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Pretty difficult to get a major third in the first octave. Even harder to get Adam's "blue third" (i.e., between major and minor).
Might be good for a C minor blues, but off the top of my head I don't see enough advantages over Ab Richter in 5th position to justify buying more harmonicas.
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Noodles
28 posts
Jun 25, 2012
8:56 AM
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@timeistight
I get what you're writing about 5th position. But I believe that upper end layout for blow notes and blow-bends are bit better suited to what I'm used to.
After reading your response, I took out a new Manji in A and flipped on my online tuner. I wanted to try and get the blue third by bending down the 2B a bit. I was shocked that I could actually bend the 2B beyond the blue third to a full ½ step bend to the minor third, from C# to C. Then I tried it with a “pretty good” SP20 in A, that I’ve had a bunch of years. Same result.
I’m glad I recently got a tuner, but YOU pushed me to revisit that 2B bend---way down. Thank you for that. I didn’t think that bend was really available. AND, you’ve got me looking at my note charts again.
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Noodles
View my growing photo collection of the top Harp Pros
Last Edited by on Jun 25, 2012 1:44 PM
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