--Third position blues chromatic is well known and well documented with plenty of great performances by solid artists.
But what if you want to move a little past that? A few suggestions.
First, listen to the best players in various idioms, such as:
--Classical
Larry Adler
Robert Bonfiglio
Tommy Reilly
John Sebastian the elder
--Jazz
Toots Thielemans
William Galison
Hermine Deurloo
Bill Barrett
Gregoire Maret
--Pop
Stevie Wonder
Larry Adler (again - largely as a Gershwin interpreter)
George Fields (Moon River and others)
Toots Thielemans (again - but this time with artists like Billy Joel and Paul Simon)
Jerry Murad and the Harmonicats
Tommy Morgan (with the Beach Boys, Carpenters, Linda Ronstadt, and many others)
Leo Diamond (Offshore and other songs of the '50s)
This is just a beginning list off the top of my head and I'm sure that many of you can add to it
Also: If you think the chromatic sounds cheesy, are you talking about yourself when you try to play it, or about the master artists listed above? Think and listen carefully on this question, and then listen again to these artists. If one or more of them has a tone you like, try emulating that.
Big Harp George has an album, Chromaticism, where every song is a chromatic song and he explores different positions. Student of Dave Barrett's. ---------- Marc Graci YouTube Channel
Since this post I've been listening to lots of these suggestions, in search of a largely single-note, amplified style that I like the sound of and want to aim at. Actually I've found it in some Garry Primich numbers.
The sound I like uses a lot of bends and vibrato. I can do the bends but my question is: is lots of bending inherently likely to destroy/detune the reeds on a chromatic? Or is it about how hard you play? I have quite a light touch and don't destroy diatonics.
Last Edited by MindTheGap on Dec 28, 2015 3:19 PM
if you are new to the chromatic and you are playing a twelve hole you might want to try to play the twelve hole like a marine band with the button in and any time you want bend a note like the marine band just let the button out use three hole blow as the 2nd hole draw note on the marine band you will be playing in Ab. This pretty easy. ---------- Paul Oscher "Nothin but the Blues" official website: www.pauloscher.com official fb band page: on.fb.me/1JMV44y
"Don't try to outplay your peers just try to out play yourself" po
Thank you Paul that's a good tip. Here I am more looking to use bends to articulate notes and add expression rather than finding actual notes. So I'm planning to use a combination of the button for proper chromatic runs, and bends for expression.
But if bending is likely to break the reeds - even if done gently, I might have to rethink.
The big shock to me, as a novice chromatic player was to realize that Stevie was playing FIRST position on "Fingertips," but starting with the button pushed in. His double stops don't work any other way. It's hard to describe, but I'm 100% sure of this. His tonic C is a draw note, not a blow note. I was sure before trying to copy it that he was playing third position, but no, not at all.
Look at his fingering around the 3:20 point in the second video below. He starts on 8 draw with the button pushed in, not 8 blow. Then: 7d (button), 7b...then quick trill on 6d, 6d (button), 6d....then 5d (button) and home to the C on 4d (button):
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Dec 29, 2015 7:43 AM
I did not listen to the clips, nor have I learned this piece, but my recollection is that the piece is in C, and he is using the button in draw "position" for a minor sound. Draw chord on a chrom is Dm6, with the button it's Ebm6, which is Cmin7b5.
@MindTheGap: Bending - if done by persuasion and not by brute force - will not harm the reeds. You can actually bend notes much farther on chromatic than on diatonic if you develop the finesse. =========== Winslow
C is a good bluesy key using the button mosly pushed in except for the G, blow 3. Using the button on B raises it up to C. This is where a 56 or 64 comes in handy so you don't have to only rely on blow 1 C in the first octave. You also have a choice with the F either blow 2 button in or draw 2. I like draw 2 because you can use the slide and get the flat 5 G flat. Of course it depends on the situation on which F to use. The button is your best friend, a musician doesn't avoid pressing certain keys on a paino or sax. They are all used.
You're quite right, Stevie *IS* playing in first position. True, he's focusing on the slide-in draw notes instead of playing off the notes of the C major blow chord. But still, he's playing in C on a C harmonica, and the only thing that determines position is the relationship between the key of the harp and the key of the tune.
By using the slide-in draw notes, you get all the notes that are defined as the classic blue notes. In addition to slide-in Draw C, he's playing Eb (flat 3), Gb (flat 5), and Bb (Flat 7). He often approaches these via the slide-out draw note a semitone below and creates various slide ornaments this way.
The notes he plays add up to the classic six-note blues scale:
C Eb F Gb G Bb
with some added notes via those slide-out draw notes.
Stevie used this approach starting with his earliest chromatic recordings, "Paulsby" and "Square," circa 1962. (Oddly, on the original studio recording of "Fingertips," he doesn't play harmonica at all - he plays bongos while the flute takes a melody that doesn't sound like what Stevie plays on the more famous live version.) Given how young he was, I wonder whether he came up with this approach on his own simply by noodling, or whether some of the jazz-oriented backing musicians at Motown heard him playing and guided him to find the C blues scale. =========== Winslow
I'll defer to Perfessor Yerxa every time, but I do recall reading somewhere that Stevie turned (turns) his slide upside-down so that in effect, the reed plates were reversed with respect to button position.
Any truth or sense to that rumor, Winslow?
Thanks,
Michelle
---------- SilverWing Leather - Custom leather creations for musicians and other eccentrics.
Playing the "B#" enharmonic is a common practice when playing in C. With the button in you have the the tonic, the minor third, the major fourth, the flatted fifth and the flatted seventh. All you need to do is release the button to blow the major fifth and you can move up and down playing that lick with ease.
Recently in possession of my first 12-hole chromatic, I deeply appreciate this advice from such eminent players. Since my chrome is in D, the concept of positions is relevant to me. On Paul's advice I will play with 9th position (in addition to third). @Dr. Hoy, I don't quite have enough info to determine which position you are referring to. @Winslow, I've found your articles to be very useful. Your work is the only place I've found a proper description of how far single reeds can be bent. I can get many half- step bends now, but have been leary of doing damage by bending too far. Now I know that finesse is the key, not the depth of the bend. ----------
Last Edited by mr_so&so on Dec 30, 2015 10:50 AM
I definitely brute my bends out on my chrometta, and they nearly always choke out or get right close to it.
It is probably bad, but I almost like the rawness of the sound it adds to counteract the very prim and proper tone of chromatics. The only thing I don't like is it adds a sliver of a moment of delay before the note starts, so I have to learn how to bend chromatics properly.
@mr_so&so (or WinslowYerxa), where is that article? I remember reading about diatonic bends a whole lot when I first started, and I am not convinced everything I read is true/makes sense.
@Bugsy -- What you need to do is stop doing what many self taught diatonic players tend to do when it comes to bending notes, which is use more breath force to force the bend to happen and once you do that with any chromatic, the bends just about never work and the note will blank out on you. Rather than doing it that way, what you SHOULD do is learn to make VERY subtle adjustments to your embouchure as well as the inside shape of your mouth to do the bend. You cannot bend a chromatic more than 1/2 step and because diatonic players often lack breath control as well as the ability to control their embouchures as well as the inside shape of their mouths, it comes as no surprise that they have difficulty in making any and all necessary adjustments in order to get the hang of the instrument. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
@Barbecue - agree with all you say *except* your statement that a chromatic can't be bent more than a semitone. This varies from note to note and from instrument to instrument, but I find I can get as much as 3 semitones from some reeds, occasionally more. =========== Winslow
@Dr.Hoy, thanks, I now understand your post above, re. Fingertips. @Bugsy, I'll be darned if I can find Winslow's article where he explains isolated reed bends and demonstrates with a sound clip. But I Googled and found these links (without working sound clips) From Harp-l list From Harmonicasessions.com ----------
Last Edited by mr_so&so on Jan 06, 2016 12:17 PM
Aside from articles, here's a sound clip where at the time I was demonstrating a 3-semitone bend on two different chromatics, using the tune "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White" (I no longer remember which two chromatics they were):
by the way, on the original Perez Prado recording, trumpeter Billy Royal bent that note down (and back up) seven semitones in a smooth slide.
When the Harmonicats covered it, Jerry Murad bent the note three semitones like I do on this clip.
Kim Wilson, playing it in first position on an unvalved diatonic, simply holds the note (unbendable Blow 6) a long time the first time around. The second time, he plays it an octave higher and bends Blow 9 a semitone. This happens to be a good first-position tune for diatonic as it uses mainly the I (blow) chord and the V7 (draw) chord. =========== Winslow
I'm still exploring my new 12-hole chrom (in D). I've noticed that second position (root on 3+), especially for major pentatonic tunes, feels very natural to me. This is probably because I've played lots of major pentatonic stuff in 2nd position on diatonic, and I'm used to the hole pattern in the middle octave. I've started to use the slider as well (to add the flat third) to create the "major blues scale". I'm having a lot of fun with this. ----------
An intuitive way to approach the chromatic is to do what you've done - take the modal scales you get with the slide out, play stuff to get familiar with them, and then start adding slide-in notes. Then you can do the same with the modals scales you get with the slide in, which will play just like the slide-out ones as long as the slide stays in. Once you get similar with a scale, start letting the slide out to find new notes and alter the scales. =========== Winslow
That would be logical but laborious. Harmonica attracts folks who want to play more intuitively, so I look for other approaches. The one I outlined above is a way of easing students into learning scales rather than hitting them cold, which is a steep climb. There's something to be said for learning by incremental experimentation. =========== Winslow
@Diggsblues - Sure, that's how I did it. I got a book of flute scales and practiced those, taught myself to play melodies from jazz tunes and such and basically approached it just like learning any instrument. I didn't really want to try to bring what I knew on the diatonic over to the chromatic; I treated them pretty much like two different instruments, applying what I knew about the piano to the chromatic.
Sure. That's what the Max De Aloe book aims to do.
My own belief is that the chromatic harmonica in C was not intended to be played in every key. It was intended to let harmonicists(?) play chromatically in the key of C, which is not the same thing at all. That's why chroms come in different keys.
I'm also learning trying to learn chrom that way, just like I did with other instruments. And trying to transfer some of that to diatonic which I play mostly intuitively, and mostly badly. Max De Aloe went out of his way to put hard to play intervals in that book of his. ---------- For every moment of triumph, every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled. HST
I remember seeing an old instruction book that also stated the belief that the chromatic was intended to be played in C but with added chromatic notes. I don't see the evidence for this, other than the fact that it borrowed its standard note layout from the middle octave of the diatonic.
And the evidence of how players use it bears no relation to this idea of playing it only in C:
- Blues players mostly prefer to play it in D and Eb minor. - Paul deLay played a wonerful solo in G - Stevie Wonder played "Isn't She Lovely" in E Major. - Toots Thielemans gets around virtuosically in all those jazz flat keys- F, Bb, Eb, Ab, Db. And in fact it plays wonderfully well in those keys.
Many things are playable in these keys that would be awkward or even impossible in C. And good players have no problem playing in most keys.
Remember. the diatonic was meant to be played in first position, but plays amazingly well in second and third. So the original designer's intent should in no way limit how you approach the instrument. =========== Winslow
Hi Winslow, But your basic blues chrom player mostly plays in 3rd & doesn't use the button (except to play in Eb).
I tried to find what keys classical harmonica pieces were written in, but boy was that hard. Douglas Tate's site, and Tommy Reilly's, have long lists of concerti etc. - but they don't give the keys! All I could find was that Vaughan Williams' "Romance" is in Db which of course is just C with the slide in.
Anyhow, it's certainly possible to play in every key on a C chrom. I would simply suggest that sometimes a chrom in another key would be a better tool for the job. And that somebody who uses a non-C chrom for that reason is in no way diminished as a musician.
@Frank the Vaughn Williams is more that just playing with the button. I'm at work so I don't have the harmonica part in front of me to give you a more detailed answer. Each key on a chrom has it's own technical and musical ups and downs. I suggest vol. 21 of Jamie Aebersol that will take you through all the keys. ----------
I agree that non-C chromatics are a perfectly valid choice depending on what you want to do. I use chromatics in various keys, usually to access chordal combinations that aren't available on other keys - which is part of what third-position players are doing. =========== Winslow
Diggs is right, D-flat is its own animal on chromatic. Even the major scale can be played in ways that make it completely different from the C scale, just by using the alternates for C (B#) and F (E#). You can use those same alternates in C but they make the action sequence very different from the D-flat sequence.
And letting the slide out and then back in on a scale note lets you play smooth chromatic ornaments that are mostly awkward in C. =========== Winslow
My big beef with keyed chromatics (other than being confused when I try to employ them) is that relying on the home key leads you to clog up the windsavers with condensation when you play C, E, and G a lot. Warm breath + cold chrom= water, and then the valves stick and you get missing notes. I recommend playing the chrom in a handful of keys other than C for that reason. I don't particularly like C, but it is easy to keep your place. I like G, F, Bb, Eb, and Ab. The minor relatives would be Em, Dm, Gm, Cm and F minor. The relative minor of C is Am, I am not fond of that key at all. Bear in mind that I tune to bebop, so the blow chord is C E G Bb.
I like F a lot! And I would like D better if I had more lung capacity, but I try to practice it so that it is more fluid, I understand that it is popular with other slide harmonica players--heck, it's third position!
Last Edited by Gnarly on Jan 28, 2016 10:48 AM
Diggs & Winslow, good point re C# being other than just C with the slide in. Duly noted.
I have read that Larry Adler played from arrangements tailored to the strengths (and/or limitations) of the chrom, rather than trying to fight his way through scores written for other instruments (using such "transcriptions" is of course a totally respectable practice in classical music). There's a 1957 book, "Larry Adler - His Harmonica Arrangements and How to Play Them." Anybody seen that?
Gnarly - I use CEGB myself - anything to get away from that damn CC thing!
Last Edited by Frank101 on Jan 28, 2016 12:15 PM
@gnarly the secret is to heat up the harmonica to body temperature before playing. I usually put it inside my shirt while I practice diatonic then it's warmed up when I want to play. Robert Bonfiglio has used a heating pad at times. When used travel from Philly to NY to study with Robert in the winter time he would always have me put my 2016 on the radiator to warm it up before our lesson.
Transcriptions of music written for other instruments are a big part of any classical chromatic player's repertoire, simply because so little has been written for it and because so much great music been written in earlier periods.
Adler himself played many transcriptions but generally avoided music that would sound ungrateful on the harmonica. Always take his statements with a grain of salt - as the man himself said about his own statements, "It ain't necessarily so."
Listen to his take on Hora Staccato, which is in Eb major. In the very first phrase there's a rapid back-and-forth between Bb and C, which happens to be two neighboring slide-in draw notes (I remember Toots remarking that Larry "got lucky" with that one). But then it's followed by some rapid back-and-forth multi-hole skips that have to be played accurately and cleanly. Difficult? Yes. Ungrateful on harmonica? No.
Bach is favored by classical harmonica players, partly because Bach often wrote for unspecified instruments and much of what he wrote could be played on any of he melodic instruments that were in common use during his time - and, later on, also by the harmonica. =========== Winslow
@diggs The problem with that is that draw notes introduce cold air into the harp, bring the temperature of the reed plates down, until they approach room temperature. If you are playing outside, the situation is even worse, unless it is a summer day. First position is not my recommendation for chrom--but then, neither is E major!
@Frank I have those two books by Adler. Interesting how he describes his effects. I should dig them out and play some of those arrangements. ----------
Finally frustrating to get comfortable to play C chromatic in sharp keys (D, A, E, B) so I get Saxony chromatic in the key of B. It waits in a drawer for already about a year as I wish to emboss it and hardly can find spare time.
Adam, while playing chromatic I suppose I use B# much more often than blow C's. Just because it's more comfortable. Actually I play blow C only when I play octaves and no B# to the left my left mouth corner. ---------- My videos. My album with Mikhail Bashakov. Seydel endorser. LoneWolf Blues Co endorser. Harmonica teacher. My facebook.
Last Edited by boris_plotnikov on Jan 29, 2016 10:23 PM
