MP
654 posts
Jul 11, 2010
3:20 PM
|
-some time ago a friend of mine loaned me a copy of Jerry Portnoys Masterclass instructional.
he uses an A harp throughout but here's the thing.
when he gets to positions he says A is first, E is second, B is third (and here is where he departs) 4th C#, 5th D, and 6th F#?!!-
it doesn't follow the circle of fifths. in the circle of fifths an A harp in 4th is F#, 5th is C#, and 6th is Ab.
what kind of system is Portnoy useing? it makes no sense.
MP
hibachi cook for the yakuza
doctor of semiotics
superhero emeritus
|
GermanHarpist
1631 posts
Jul 11, 2010
3:26 PM
|
Obviously a wrong understanding of positions... :)
When's that book from?
|
MP
655 posts
Jul 11, 2010
3:41 PM
|
howzit german!
it's a 3 CD set with booklet copyrighted 1997.
i just listened to it before i posted to make sure i was clear on what he was saying.
he says this on the 3rd CD, 2nd cut, and plays 'when the saints come marching in' in 5 positions with the designations i mentioned above and a passing reference to 6th, also mentioned above.
----------
MP
hibachi cook for the yakuza
doctor of semiotics
superhero emeritus
|
MrVerylongusername
1126 posts
Jul 11, 2010
3:47 PM
|
I remember reading somewhere that Tony Glover's book had errors in it about positions too. I think the circle of fifths naming convention is relatively recent and 'back in the day' they were just named in the order that players tended to learn them. Probably the same applies to Portnoys series.
|
hvyj
438 posts
Jul 11, 2010
3:54 PM
|
The Circle of Fifths method of designating positions did not come into common usage until the mid 1980s when Charlie Musselwhite used it in "The Harmonica According to Charlie Musselwhite", his now out-of-print instructional book.
Before that, most of us (like Jerry Portnoy and Tony Glover) referred to what we now call 5th position as 4th position. Actually, before Musselwhite's book, there was no common terminology for positions once you got past third. In the old days, I originally called 12th position 6th position (Jerry is calling it 5th). But now, the Circle of Fifths method gives us all a common frame of reference.
Portnoy's materials are not "wrong." Before the mid 80s we all called positions by whatever designations we were originally told or taught--I think Portnoy even mentions this in his materials.
Last Edited by on Jul 11, 2010 3:55 PM
|
MP
656 posts
Jul 11, 2010
4:09 PM
|
HMMM.
i know for a fact that james cotton goes by the circle of fifths.
portnoy doesn't mention anything in his materials in reguards to the topic at hand.
i agree somebody(big walter?) must have given him this system.
i just find it interesting.
MP
hibachi cook for the yakuza
doctor of semiotics
superhero emeritus
Last Edited by on Jul 11, 2010 4:10 PM
|
GermanHarpist
1632 posts
Jul 11, 2010
4:30 PM
|
hvyi, wasn't there some kind of logic that was taught with the positions? Some reasoning?
Some of them (cotton?) must have understood, that what they were doing was exactly that: Following the circle of fifths, and departing off the 'planned' scale one note at a time.
Still now the whole positions stuff is confusing enough... wow, back in the days it must have been quite a nut to crack... !
|
tmf714
180 posts
Jul 11, 2010
5:45 PM
|
I own the Harmonica Materclass cd's and booklet.
Jerry does mention the circle of fifth's,and is aware of that system-but that's not how he learned.
He charts out two versions-one for the key of song-one for key of harp.
The charts progress normally,all the way up to 6Th position -he does name different keys for positions 4,5, and 6 than you would see in the "circle of fifths"-it is just the way he learned-it's not incorrect,just different than what you may be used to seeing.
Last Edited by on Jul 11, 2010 5:57 PM
|
hvyj
440 posts
Jul 11, 2010
6:15 PM
|
@GH: You guys are spoiled because of the resources available on the web. 25-30 years ago there was minimal instructional material available and once you got beyond third position there were as many different designations for higher positions as there were authors and they were all different.
And there was almost no info published on how to play in the "higher" positions. There was no "system" like we have now. All this stuff we discuss so freely now was largely shrouded in mystery. That's one reason Madcat is so highly regarded--he figured ALL this stuff out and mastered it.
Do you have any idea how difficult it was to figure out how to play in 5th position (C natural minor on an Ab harp) with no instructional material whatsoever? On the other hand, once you figured it out and used it successfully, it did make you feel like you had really accomplished something.
I remember clearly after I got web literate sometime early in the 21st century and stumbled on to the "Diatonic Harmonic Reference" website. WOW! Stuff that had taken me 8-10 years to figure out on my own was all laid out and explained for anyone who had a computer and cared to look at it. I was blown away.
Most of what i learned in my first 20-25 years of playing was learned by trial and error in live performance situations. Also, I had the good fortune to play with a number of good musicians who explained stuff to me. But they didn't know anything about harmonicas.
I had photocopied a chart from a Hohner pamphlet that had diagrams of the notes available on diatonic harmonicas in all 12 keys (I eventually laminated it. I still have it and use it for reference). When musicians would explain musical stuff to me, I'd go home and look at my chart and try to apply what they told me to harp. Then I ran into a bass player who actually knew how a diatonic harmonica was laid out and he showed me scales and the relationship of scale tones to chord tones which dramatically advanced my musical development.
i actually stopped playing regularly for a number of years because i felt i had hit a wall and no longer had anything to say--no artistic expression. I was playing ok, but I felt like I was just regurgitating the same old stuff over and over. It was during this hiatus that i figured out 5th and 4th positions on my own with my little chart. After a while, i started playing regularly again and I found I was able to play all kinds of material i was never able to play on a diatonic harp before.
So, I really appreciate the resources available today on the web. It makes things so much easier and advances the state of knowledge about the instrument considerably.
Last Edited by on Jul 11, 2010 8:43 PM
|
MP
658 posts
Jul 11, 2010
11:47 PM
|
i'm spoiled rotten.
----------
MP
hibachi cook for the yakuza
doctor of semiotics
superhero emeritus
|
Mojokane
80 posts
Jul 12, 2010
12:31 AM
|
ha ha ha...me too. I stumbled on a position today...
And I had no idea which position it was. I thought JP said G (he really said D), so I grabbed a C harp and made it work pretty well.
Knowing it was not quite the key, because there was some difficulty.
But it fit rather well.
I have a ways to go, before I hit the "wall".
Great blessings for those who do their homework, indeed.
I love the sound of a good first or third position. I get all excited playing stuff again...it just enables me to express, and speak the language even better than I previously imagined I could. Unfortuantely, I have little patience,(ADDHD or whatever it's called),and find studying the other positions frustrating at best.
|
MP
670 posts
Jul 12, 2010
2:34 AM
|
good ole 3rd pos, mojo. just like a chro.
----------
MP
hibachi cook for the yakuza
doctor of semiotics
superhero emeritus
|
barbequebob
1020 posts
Jul 12, 2010
9:07 AM
|
I'm in agreement with hvyj on this one and until earlier in this decade, the way Portnoy's listing of the positions, much like Tony Little Son Glover's book, Blues Harp, which came out in 1965, that was pretty much the accepted way of doing things. Since the beginning of this decade, wit more info available on the internet, more playing od the diatonic in more positions, and actually more players having a better overall knowledge of theory compared to generations past, listing them in the Circle of 5ths has been the norm.
Trust me, you younger players and newer players have 500% MORE info at your finger tips (both right and wrong) thatn when I started out back in the early to mid 70's when for blues harmonica, all that was available were Tony Glover's book (then his follow up Blues Harp Songbook in 1973), Balckie Shackner's books in 1975, and really not much more than that.
The music theory stuff I had to learn on my own and I wish I had even a ten thousandth of what's available now. Even the tuning info wasn't available back then either.
----------
Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
|
hvyj
443 posts
Jul 12, 2010
9:42 AM
|
Then there was also Tommie Morgan's Blues Harmonica which was published in 1971. He had different designations for positions depending on whether the harp was being used for a major or minor key. So, in his book, second position major was different than second position minor. He had six major positions and six minor. But if you cross referenced them, there was only a total of 7 positions categorized in his book (which i think is still in print).
Richard Hunter's Jazz Harp came out in 1980 and Glover's Rock Harp came out in 1981.
I have to disagree w/BBQ Bob, though. There's at least 1000% (not 500%) MORE info readily accessible now than in the 1970s and early 1980s.
You guys don't know how spoiled rotten you really are!
@Mojokane: That's how i first learned to play in third position, too. When I was first starting to play out, I was sitting in with a 2 piece band (keyboards and drums), and the keyboard player called Bb by mistake when he was actually playing in F. I played an Eb harp and it seemed different somehow, but sounded ok. He apologized to me at the end of the tune, but commented that the harp i was playing seemed to work anyway. That's how I first learned to play in third position, although I didn't actually know that's what i was doing until after the end of the tune.
Last Edited by on Jul 12, 2010 10:03 AM
|
Joe_L
447 posts
Jul 12, 2010
10:05 AM
|
I don't think they are "spoiled rotten."
In fact, I think it's harder now. A person has so much information available to them that they have to sort it all out and decide which program to follow.
Back in the 70's and 80's, one had to listen to records and hunt sounds. When you got it, it was a big enough deal to keep one motivated to press on moving forward. If a person was lucky enough, there were harp players around to watch. In those days, nobody told you anything. You were on your own with limited training materials.
Personally, I find the Internet to be a very distracting place. Youtube, blogs, websites and forums can defocus a person from their quest to gain knowledge and master the instrument.
People still have to persevere, practice and learn. If one isn't willing to do the work, the end result is the same.
|
hvyj
444 posts
Jul 12, 2010
10:11 AM
|
In the old days, I found it harder to work hard and make progress because I was working harder trying to figure out what I was supposed to be working at instead of working hard at those things that would actually improve my playing...
|
Joe_L
450 posts
Jul 12, 2010
10:48 AM
|
I was pretty fortunate. I was living in the Chicago area when I was starting out. There were a lot of great harp players around. The first Glover book and being around harp players that I could observe helped me figure out a lot.
|
DeakHarp
92 posts
Jul 12, 2010
11:19 AM
|
How about asking the artist what harp you are playing ...i did that alot in the 80's then i would go home to try to play it ... on my Turntable ...and said man this sounds flat ...I finaly got hip to a picth tune turntable ...and it was night and day ..But when someone hipped me that CD's were in 440 picth automaticly ...I broke down and got a CD player ... Now my records rest .....it was like WOW i can find the notes now ...That is how i learned .. My next leap was when i started TB .....And the day I met James Cotton .....@ the Stanhope House in 89'
|
barbequebob
1022 posts
Jul 12, 2010
12:08 PM
|
There's tons of information now, and things like repairs and maintenance alone there's waaaaay more info on it now then when I started back then. Heck, in the 80's, I attempted to publish the tuning set up that I found on Hohner harmonicas and being also part of the Cambridge harmonica Orchestra, we had a helluva harp deal direct from Hohner that no store was getting, and the tuning info was gonna be published in SPAH's newsletter, but when Hohner got wind of it, they threatened to take that harp deal away and so I had to put the kibosh on that in a hurry or lose that sweet pricing deal.. Back then, revealing ANY tuning information was like being a spy stealing government secrets and now this stuff is all over the internet.
Ther's so much more info now than when I started (and don't go telling me you can't find info because there FAR more of it available now), but with the internet, along with all the good information, on the other hand, there is a TRUCKLOAD of MISinformation as well.
----------
Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
|
walterharp
406 posts
Jul 12, 2010
12:15 PM
|
geeze, that means i discovered the circle of 5ths for harmonica in 1978 when i had my case laid out so they could be put in that way??? :-) guess nobody really told me to do it that way, it just made sense based on listening to tunes like giant steps....
yeah, i agree, i never had anybody around to tell me how to do anything.. just played
and denoting major or minor in addition to positions makes sense to me, certainly if you are playing 3rd position in minor on a d harp, you better tell the band e minor, not just e. although which type of minor is usually not an issue with blues bands at jams.. just call it minor or it gets confusing to most.
Last Edited by on Jul 12, 2010 12:18 PM
|
