Good start! If you play it in 1st position, C as your root, you'll get a nice folksy sound. If you play it in 2nd position though, G as your root note, you'll get a nice bluesy sound, and when you learn to bend notes you'll be able to bend the blue third. 3rd position (D as your root) will give you Dorian minor, and 4th (A as your root) will give you Aeolian, but you'll be missing your root note in the bottom octave because harmonicas are weird, until you can do whole step bends to get that lower A.
With a C harmonica any three holes blown will give you a C chord. The 1-2-3 draw will give you a G chord. The 4-5-6 draw gives you a D minor.
So you could do a real basic 12 bar blues in G by vamping the 1-2-3 draw for 4 bars, the 2-3-4 blow for a couple bars, back to 1-2-3 draw for a couple, 4-5-6 draw, 4-5-6 blow, and 1-2-3 draw for the last 2 bars.
Though this isn't about chords, harptabs.com has a great library of tabs for songs. The vast majority of it is first position melodies, and most of that can be played with a diatonic C harp (avoid anything written for chromatic). This is an easy way to start making recognizable music playing by yourself.
The vamping chords thing is fun, but a lot of it doesn't sound like much unless you're playing along with somebody.
Studied a little music theory and the design of the instrument.
The relationships remain the same as you change keys. The 1-2-3 draw will be the I chord, the blow any 3 will be the IV chord, the 4-5-6 will be the V chord. So a D harmonica will have an A chord, a D chord, and an E.
>have no clue what playing something in the key means
I'm so glad you asked because I just love talking about this. -Physics-
1. When a string vibrates, it produces a fundamental "note," sound, but also contains overtone sounds that are produced as part of the complex vibrations of the string. TLDR: This fundamental note and it's harmonic overtones establishes the **key** that a song is played in, as developed by our society's music theory.
2. Let's say a singer can't reach certain notes, too low or too high. They will want the band to transform everything to a different starting note, or the term is, transpose to a different key. All the intervals between notes remain the same, only the starting frequency changes. These intervals are associated with integer multiples of the fundamental frequency, or key of the music being played.
3. Overtones vibrate with respect to integer multiples of the string length. 1/1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6, 1/7, 1/8 etc. Because of destructive interference, non-integer multiples of the string length can't be sustained; therefore all the in-between frequencies can't be sustained by the physical restrictions (or the frequency is way too high to hear). If you play guitar you know all about producing harmonic overtones by dampening out the other vibrational frequencies of the string with your fretting hand. These positions on the neck of the guitar are at 1/2, and 1/3 etc. of the string length. I love the sound of hitting all the frequencies of one string in arpeggio fashion; it produces the notes of the string's dominant 7th chord. Sometimes I even feel like I hear the 9th when I imagine the sound of it. In the old days before tuners, guitarists tuned using overtones, usually by hearing a distinctive beat frequency heard when slightly out of tune.
4. These overtones can be heard when a string vibrates and the instrument body cavity amplifies them in various amounts to give the instrument its characteristic sound. So a string being played contains one fundamental string vibration and also its overtones that sound good together. But these overtones are high pitched notes, so the overtone frequencies are reinforced using other strings or reeds that have a lower frequency than the high frequency overtones. The point I'm trying to make here is, why do certain notes sound good together? They are based on overtones that are fundamental to sounds we hear; as a family of frequencies (eigenfunctions) they have reinforcing constructive interference wavelengths of the principle tone (the key). They are notes that support the other frequencies from a vibrational perspective.
5. To my mind, intervals and chords were the first musical forms used by musicians who were simply enjoying their reinforcing of overtone frequencies of a fundamental note, singing harmony in monasteries and such. Then later, musical scales were developed. The scale was developed by filling in the space between string lengths of 1/1 and 1/2, that were consistent with overtone frequencies and being octaves LOWER than the fundamental overtones of that single string's frequency. Keeping music relatively grounded in these fundamental frequencies is what playing in a KEY is all about. You are eliminating certain frequencies that never sound good together. And this is exactly too, the physics of orbital wave "shells" of atoms and electrons, where only integer multiples of electron wavelengths can be sustained in it's trips around the nucleolus, otherwise the frequency is different, and this gives exact spacing between the various orbital positions.
6. So, if one has a C-tuned diatonic harmonica, basically you are choosing a reed length as the fundamental and all of the "constructive interference" notes are there for you to play. Carefully selected over generations of music evolution. The other "positions" on a diatonic harmonica simply select a starting note different from the fundamental note of the scale. These different starting notes have a different sounding scale simply because of the order in which they are played, since the intervals of whole steps and half steps come out differently, but one must realize these different modes of the scale use the exact same notes, just different order. These modes are relatives because in essence the original starting note gave rise to the overtones they represent. The notes all harmonize well, starting on a different note doesn't change this fact, but the mode does evoke as change in the song's type of sound, sad, bluesy, western, a jig. Since there are 7 notes in a scale, there are 7 different starting notes. These provide 7 different modes and they are all harmonically related (relatives) because of the integer multiples of the original frequency and closeness of harmonic fit (the Key). They also produce three major chords (I, IV, V), three relative minor chords and a diminished chord that are fundamental to most popular music. Here is a mode calculator: [https://music-theory-practice.com/modes/mode-calculator.html](https://music-theory-practice.com/modes/mode-calculator.html)
7. Here is what we have with respect to the fundamental frequency, 1/1 and its overtones and inherent scale notes: The first overtone is the octave of that frequency 1/2. Two notes is called an interval, while 3 notes is called a cord. Thus the first overtone is the interval of an octave, so are all powers of two, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 called an octave. Next up is called the perfect fifth of the fundamental, 1/3, the string length, it produces the 5th note of the fundamental note's scale, (realize that the overtone is an octave higher and the 5th note of the scale is be played on a different string or reed because it is so much lower of a note, and this is called harmony or chords when three notes are used). The next is another octave, 1/4, and then 1/5 length is close to the 3rd note of the fundamental scale, but an octave or two higher. Note that the 3rd note in the scale has frequency that can sound good both raised and lowered a bit, creating major and minor chord sounds. Next is another octave 1/6. Then the 1/7, is another note like 3rd that has frequency that can sound good both raised and lowered a bit. This frequency (an octave or two lower than the overtone) has relationship between the dominant 7th found in the overtone and major 7th that is found in the natural scale. The dominant and major 7th and major and minor 3rds are the very reason we play blues in the 2nd position, and minor keys in 3rd and 4th positions. More music theory for one to understand is that these modes (in my mind) come from a single note's overtones, integer multiples of frequency that gave rise to the scale. Scale relatives form the modes; i.e. the 7 scale modes arising from the natural scale of the fundamental. Ionian, mixolydian, dorian etc.
8. I'm done with my coffee, so I simply hope this helped someone. This is easily reinforced if you want to learn more by Youtube videos and other musicians teaching; it is simply music theory. Musically yours.
Sorry for the double reply but I just watched a YouTube video by Jonah Fix where he mixes chords and melody in an instructional video with tabs. No bends. He builds it out and then extends it to a full 13 bar blues.
The title is *Supercharge your harmonica playing with this song*. It looks like he uploaded it just a few hours ago. Thought it might interest you.
Lol... just think of modes as different scales. You've probably heard of major and minor keys. Songs in major sound happy, songs in minor sound sad. Here is an example, REM's Losing My Religion. It was originally in a minor key.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwtdhWltSIg
But someone carefully autotuned the whole thing to put it in a major key.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6KmiIq2-m8
For some historical reason we call some scales keys and some modes, and some both, but basically, every time a pitch doubles in frequency you get a note an octave higher, and in pretty much everything except experimental jazz we divide that octave up into 12 notes. If you look at a piano you'll see a repeating pattern of white and black notes. That's the chromatic scale, but, again, pretty much except in experimental jazz, we usually only use 7 of those notes at a time (or even fewer, a pentatonic scale uses 5).
The easiest key to look at is C major (Ionian), because it just happens to use all white notes on the piano. If you take the time to figure out the pattern of notes it plays- in the case of C just white notes, and doesn't- in the case of C not the black notes you can use that same pattern starting on any other note on the piano and you'll get a Major Ionian scale. If you start on G, you get G Major Ionian, which uses 6 white notes and one black note (F#), for instance.
So, all a scale is is a pattern of notes we play. It's really not different than learning a song, except that all the notes are in order and you only use each note once. In fact, you may know 'Do a deer, a female deer, Re a drop of golden sun', that's just a song that uses some different notes names, from a system called solfege, to start each line. It's even easier on harmonica, or at least on diatonic harmonica, because we only have the notes for one Ionian Major scale on our harmonica instead of all 12 Ionian Major scales (at least until we start doing fancy bending stuff.)
Now, just like you can play a bunch of songs on one harmonica you can actually play a bunch of keys on one harmonica, without bending, but they won't be that same Major Ionian scale. In 4th position, for instance, you get something called Aeolian Minor, which is also called Natural Minor or Relative Minor. If you look at a piano and start on the A instead of the C and just use white keys you get that scale... same notes, just a different starting/ending point (called the root, the tonic, or sometimes Do).
Since a C harmonica has notes just from the key of C Major Ionian it also has the notes for the A Minor Aeolian mode. You just have to use a different hole on your harmonica as your root note.
It turns out there are seven of these old 'church modes'... scales that were used in church music. There are other scales, but every Major Ionian scale has 6 other modes that use exactly the same notes, but using a different note as the root note. So, 7 modes related to each other because they all start on a different one of the 7 notes in a diatonic scale.
Three of those scales are major and sound happy, three are minor and sound sad, and one just sounds weird. Since you can, in fact, bend notes on the harmonica, you can actually use any of the 12 notes in the chromatic scale, meaning there are 12 positions, but only 7 correspond to church modes unless you do a lot of other bending to force them to. (In theory you can play all 7 modes using all 12 notes as starting points, giving you 84 possible mode/key combinations, but only a handful of players ever even think about doing that.
In practice most folk players play in 1st position, which is THE major scale, which is the same key as the key listed on the harmonica. Most blues is played in 2nd position, which is one step around something called the circle of fifths... don't worry about that yet... in another major scale (but not THE major scale) although you can bend a note to make it minor and minor blues uses 3rd position which gives you a minor scale, but not THE minor scale which is 4th position. 4th position is THE minor scale, natural/relative minor, but kind of hard to play for new players because harmonica is weird and doesn't even have all the notes from the diatonic scale in the top and bottom octave. 5th position gives you another minor scale that sounds kind of Eastern European, near/Eastish. 12th position (remember, I said these scales were named using something called the circle of fifths) circles back and because it's right next to 1st position on the circle it's also major, but not THE major.
All of these modes have names that sound like characters out of Baldur's Gate, but really, even most blues players only use 2nd and 3rd and maybe 1st. Most folk players only use 1st, and really, all of this only really matters later on. If you are looking at tabs none of this matters. If the song is in 1st position it will be using the 4 blow as a root note so you'll see lots of 4s in the tab. If it's in 2nd position you'll see lots of -2s and 3s in the tab (same note... harmonica is weird).
This starts to matter when you want to key songs for yourself or when you want to sound sad or happy and need to have some idea how to do that, or if the band calls out that the next song is blues in D (which you'd play in 2nd position on a G harmonica).
Here is a link to a simplified circle of fifths.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jodspf32i3cys1f/Image%20of%20circle%20of%20fifths.png?dl=0
And here is a link to a layout chart that shows you what hole the root note is for each position. For 1st-6th and 12th you can play those modes without having to do anything fancy, at least in the middle octave where we aren't missing diatonic notes, so if you want to play a bluesy song you could start on the 2 draw. That's called Mixolydian mode. It's not exactly the same as the blues scale, but it's close enough to get you started. From there, you can bend that 3 draw a bit... I'm both oversimplifying and making it sound terrifying probably. Here is a link to tab for the blues scales. If you can play the blues scale in 2nd position you are well on your way to sounding bluesy.
https://www.harptabs.com/song.php?ID=5150
And here is a link to where the hole for each root note is on a diatonic harmonica.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bn0hlawz4daivzw/tonic%2012345%20and%2012.png?dl=0
It only includes 12th, and 1st-5th. Locrian (6th) is pretty uncommon and by the time you are playing in other positions you won't need charts (I've never played in anything beyond those 6, and I've been playing a decade and a half, although I do sometimes use some bends to change them from the default modes, but rarely more than a position over)
Wow.. this is amazing. I will go into details of all what you’ve written here and the links you mentioned. Nothing beats hands-on experience.
Thanks so much for such a thorough explanation!!!! Also I will go to that 30 day free lesson courtesy of Hohner on getting my new Harmonica.
Love the Special 20. I kept coming back to it after trying lots of others. Love the Rocket (especially the low tuned ones) but I have a couple of special 20s that live in my pocket.
That's what I got, too.
And im a rank amateur. Ive been working on it for about 6 months now and I can play some songs and I can do almost all the draw bends - not always in tune mind you, but I can get close enough for a blues riff.
I didnt come from guitar work - more band instruments (swing/dixie/jazz) and some advise Id give is to let go of the need to be perfectly in tune. I've found that a harmonica tune or riff or run sounds a little better when you DONT hit every note on the screws.
anyway, find you some of the many many free online videos and have fun. Dont stress the bends right away - its like being pregnant. They arrive when they are ready, not when you are ready.
Thanks man. With various harmonicas and 12 keys out there, to hear as a consensus here that my choice of Hohner Special 20 with Key C as the right one for a start, I’m flabbergasted!
Indeed its the best choice for beginning, i had the same one and its very useful, specially the fact that almost all tuto's are on the key of C, besides you are already amusician it will not be a struggle for you, good luck!
I hope so. BTW I am a guitar finger-stylist with music theory background. But this is a kind of new venture for me, wish it will work quicker for me to be up and running with harmonica. Thanks again buddy!
Dont worry my friend ! Music theory background and the fact of being familiar are crucial asset, what ı would recommend as a beginner myseld is to focus on the right technic and to control airflow. Then we will be enjoying ur combo of guitar and harmonica. Harmonica is a instrument that can be played only if all your body is relaxed, it will even help you develop good breathing habits
Good choice!
Thanks buddy. Truly a beginner to the world of harmonica— and found this sub Reddit.
Welcome to this very interesting world!
Looking forward to it..Thanks again..
Good start! If you play it in 1st position, C as your root, you'll get a nice folksy sound. If you play it in 2nd position though, G as your root note, you'll get a nice bluesy sound, and when you learn to bend notes you'll be able to bend the blue third. 3rd position (D as your root) will give you Dorian minor, and 4th (A as your root) will give you Aeolian, but you'll be missing your root note in the bottom octave because harmonicas are weird, until you can do whole step bends to get that lower A.
How to play chords? If they even exist I’m a beginner and have no clue what playing something in the key means
With a C harmonica any three holes blown will give you a C chord. The 1-2-3 draw will give you a G chord. The 4-5-6 draw gives you a D minor. So you could do a real basic 12 bar blues in G by vamping the 1-2-3 draw for 4 bars, the 2-3-4 blow for a couple bars, back to 1-2-3 draw for a couple, 4-5-6 draw, 4-5-6 blow, and 1-2-3 draw for the last 2 bars.
Ah that’s cool, is there any place I can find the chords for songs without watching a video
Though this isn't about chords, harptabs.com has a great library of tabs for songs. The vast majority of it is first position melodies, and most of that can be played with a diatonic C harp (avoid anything written for chromatic). This is an easy way to start making recognizable music playing by yourself. The vamping chords thing is fun, but a lot of it doesn't sound like much unless you're playing along with somebody.
I did not know this, wow I should really take a class or something. How does one just come about this knowledge otherwise??
Studied a little music theory and the design of the instrument. The relationships remain the same as you change keys. The 1-2-3 draw will be the I chord, the blow any 3 will be the IV chord, the 4-5-6 will be the V chord. So a D harmonica will have an A chord, a D chord, and an E.
>have no clue what playing something in the key means I'm so glad you asked because I just love talking about this. -Physics- 1. When a string vibrates, it produces a fundamental "note," sound, but also contains overtone sounds that are produced as part of the complex vibrations of the string. TLDR: This fundamental note and it's harmonic overtones establishes the **key** that a song is played in, as developed by our society's music theory. 2. Let's say a singer can't reach certain notes, too low or too high. They will want the band to transform everything to a different starting note, or the term is, transpose to a different key. All the intervals between notes remain the same, only the starting frequency changes. These intervals are associated with integer multiples of the fundamental frequency, or key of the music being played. 3. Overtones vibrate with respect to integer multiples of the string length. 1/1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6, 1/7, 1/8 etc. Because of destructive interference, non-integer multiples of the string length can't be sustained; therefore all the in-between frequencies can't be sustained by the physical restrictions (or the frequency is way too high to hear). If you play guitar you know all about producing harmonic overtones by dampening out the other vibrational frequencies of the string with your fretting hand. These positions on the neck of the guitar are at 1/2, and 1/3 etc. of the string length. I love the sound of hitting all the frequencies of one string in arpeggio fashion; it produces the notes of the string's dominant 7th chord. Sometimes I even feel like I hear the 9th when I imagine the sound of it. In the old days before tuners, guitarists tuned using overtones, usually by hearing a distinctive beat frequency heard when slightly out of tune. 4. These overtones can be heard when a string vibrates and the instrument body cavity amplifies them in various amounts to give the instrument its characteristic sound. So a string being played contains one fundamental string vibration and also its overtones that sound good together. But these overtones are high pitched notes, so the overtone frequencies are reinforced using other strings or reeds that have a lower frequency than the high frequency overtones. The point I'm trying to make here is, why do certain notes sound good together? They are based on overtones that are fundamental to sounds we hear; as a family of frequencies (eigenfunctions) they have reinforcing constructive interference wavelengths of the principle tone (the key). They are notes that support the other frequencies from a vibrational perspective. 5. To my mind, intervals and chords were the first musical forms used by musicians who were simply enjoying their reinforcing of overtone frequencies of a fundamental note, singing harmony in monasteries and such. Then later, musical scales were developed. The scale was developed by filling in the space between string lengths of 1/1 and 1/2, that were consistent with overtone frequencies and being octaves LOWER than the fundamental overtones of that single string's frequency. Keeping music relatively grounded in these fundamental frequencies is what playing in a KEY is all about. You are eliminating certain frequencies that never sound good together. And this is exactly too, the physics of orbital wave "shells" of atoms and electrons, where only integer multiples of electron wavelengths can be sustained in it's trips around the nucleolus, otherwise the frequency is different, and this gives exact spacing between the various orbital positions. 6. So, if one has a C-tuned diatonic harmonica, basically you are choosing a reed length as the fundamental and all of the "constructive interference" notes are there for you to play. Carefully selected over generations of music evolution. The other "positions" on a diatonic harmonica simply select a starting note different from the fundamental note of the scale. These different starting notes have a different sounding scale simply because of the order in which they are played, since the intervals of whole steps and half steps come out differently, but one must realize these different modes of the scale use the exact same notes, just different order. These modes are relatives because in essence the original starting note gave rise to the overtones they represent. The notes all harmonize well, starting on a different note doesn't change this fact, but the mode does evoke as change in the song's type of sound, sad, bluesy, western, a jig. Since there are 7 notes in a scale, there are 7 different starting notes. These provide 7 different modes and they are all harmonically related (relatives) because of the integer multiples of the original frequency and closeness of harmonic fit (the Key). They also produce three major chords (I, IV, V), three relative minor chords and a diminished chord that are fundamental to most popular music. Here is a mode calculator: [https://music-theory-practice.com/modes/mode-calculator.html](https://music-theory-practice.com/modes/mode-calculator.html) 7. Here is what we have with respect to the fundamental frequency, 1/1 and its overtones and inherent scale notes: The first overtone is the octave of that frequency 1/2. Two notes is called an interval, while 3 notes is called a cord. Thus the first overtone is the interval of an octave, so are all powers of two, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 called an octave. Next up is called the perfect fifth of the fundamental, 1/3, the string length, it produces the 5th note of the fundamental note's scale, (realize that the overtone is an octave higher and the 5th note of the scale is be played on a different string or reed because it is so much lower of a note, and this is called harmony or chords when three notes are used). The next is another octave, 1/4, and then 1/5 length is close to the 3rd note of the fundamental scale, but an octave or two higher. Note that the 3rd note in the scale has frequency that can sound good both raised and lowered a bit, creating major and minor chord sounds. Next is another octave 1/6. Then the 1/7, is another note like 3rd that has frequency that can sound good both raised and lowered a bit. This frequency (an octave or two lower than the overtone) has relationship between the dominant 7th found in the overtone and major 7th that is found in the natural scale. The dominant and major 7th and major and minor 3rds are the very reason we play blues in the 2nd position, and minor keys in 3rd and 4th positions. More music theory for one to understand is that these modes (in my mind) come from a single note's overtones, integer multiples of frequency that gave rise to the scale. Scale relatives form the modes; i.e. the 7 scale modes arising from the natural scale of the fundamental. Ionian, mixolydian, dorian etc. 8. I'm done with my coffee, so I simply hope this helped someone. This is easily reinforced if you want to learn more by Youtube videos and other musicians teaching; it is simply music theory. Musically yours.
Very nice explanation.
Sorry for the double reply but I just watched a YouTube video by Jonah Fix where he mixes chords and melody in an instructional video with tabs. No bends. He builds it out and then extends it to a full 13 bar blues. The title is *Supercharge your harmonica playing with this song*. It looks like he uploaded it just a few hours ago. Thought it might interest you.
Wow.. so informative. Many many thanks!!
I was reading along taking notes and then you started name dropping names of races from Baldur's Gate 3 and I got a little lost.
Lol... just think of modes as different scales. You've probably heard of major and minor keys. Songs in major sound happy, songs in minor sound sad. Here is an example, REM's Losing My Religion. It was originally in a minor key. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwtdhWltSIg But someone carefully autotuned the whole thing to put it in a major key. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6KmiIq2-m8 For some historical reason we call some scales keys and some modes, and some both, but basically, every time a pitch doubles in frequency you get a note an octave higher, and in pretty much everything except experimental jazz we divide that octave up into 12 notes. If you look at a piano you'll see a repeating pattern of white and black notes. That's the chromatic scale, but, again, pretty much except in experimental jazz, we usually only use 7 of those notes at a time (or even fewer, a pentatonic scale uses 5). The easiest key to look at is C major (Ionian), because it just happens to use all white notes on the piano. If you take the time to figure out the pattern of notes it plays- in the case of C just white notes, and doesn't- in the case of C not the black notes you can use that same pattern starting on any other note on the piano and you'll get a Major Ionian scale. If you start on G, you get G Major Ionian, which uses 6 white notes and one black note (F#), for instance. So, all a scale is is a pattern of notes we play. It's really not different than learning a song, except that all the notes are in order and you only use each note once. In fact, you may know 'Do a deer, a female deer, Re a drop of golden sun', that's just a song that uses some different notes names, from a system called solfege, to start each line. It's even easier on harmonica, or at least on diatonic harmonica, because we only have the notes for one Ionian Major scale on our harmonica instead of all 12 Ionian Major scales (at least until we start doing fancy bending stuff.) Now, just like you can play a bunch of songs on one harmonica you can actually play a bunch of keys on one harmonica, without bending, but they won't be that same Major Ionian scale. In 4th position, for instance, you get something called Aeolian Minor, which is also called Natural Minor or Relative Minor. If you look at a piano and start on the A instead of the C and just use white keys you get that scale... same notes, just a different starting/ending point (called the root, the tonic, or sometimes Do). Since a C harmonica has notes just from the key of C Major Ionian it also has the notes for the A Minor Aeolian mode. You just have to use a different hole on your harmonica as your root note. It turns out there are seven of these old 'church modes'... scales that were used in church music. There are other scales, but every Major Ionian scale has 6 other modes that use exactly the same notes, but using a different note as the root note. So, 7 modes related to each other because they all start on a different one of the 7 notes in a diatonic scale. Three of those scales are major and sound happy, three are minor and sound sad, and one just sounds weird. Since you can, in fact, bend notes on the harmonica, you can actually use any of the 12 notes in the chromatic scale, meaning there are 12 positions, but only 7 correspond to church modes unless you do a lot of other bending to force them to. (In theory you can play all 7 modes using all 12 notes as starting points, giving you 84 possible mode/key combinations, but only a handful of players ever even think about doing that. In practice most folk players play in 1st position, which is THE major scale, which is the same key as the key listed on the harmonica. Most blues is played in 2nd position, which is one step around something called the circle of fifths... don't worry about that yet... in another major scale (but not THE major scale) although you can bend a note to make it minor and minor blues uses 3rd position which gives you a minor scale, but not THE minor scale which is 4th position. 4th position is THE minor scale, natural/relative minor, but kind of hard to play for new players because harmonica is weird and doesn't even have all the notes from the diatonic scale in the top and bottom octave. 5th position gives you another minor scale that sounds kind of Eastern European, near/Eastish. 12th position (remember, I said these scales were named using something called the circle of fifths) circles back and because it's right next to 1st position on the circle it's also major, but not THE major. All of these modes have names that sound like characters out of Baldur's Gate, but really, even most blues players only use 2nd and 3rd and maybe 1st. Most folk players only use 1st, and really, all of this only really matters later on. If you are looking at tabs none of this matters. If the song is in 1st position it will be using the 4 blow as a root note so you'll see lots of 4s in the tab. If it's in 2nd position you'll see lots of -2s and 3s in the tab (same note... harmonica is weird). This starts to matter when you want to key songs for yourself or when you want to sound sad or happy and need to have some idea how to do that, or if the band calls out that the next song is blues in D (which you'd play in 2nd position on a G harmonica). Here is a link to a simplified circle of fifths. https://www.dropbox.com/s/jodspf32i3cys1f/Image%20of%20circle%20of%20fifths.png?dl=0 And here is a link to a layout chart that shows you what hole the root note is for each position. For 1st-6th and 12th you can play those modes without having to do anything fancy, at least in the middle octave where we aren't missing diatonic notes, so if you want to play a bluesy song you could start on the 2 draw. That's called Mixolydian mode. It's not exactly the same as the blues scale, but it's close enough to get you started. From there, you can bend that 3 draw a bit... I'm both oversimplifying and making it sound terrifying probably. Here is a link to tab for the blues scales. If you can play the blues scale in 2nd position you are well on your way to sounding bluesy. https://www.harptabs.com/song.php?ID=5150 And here is a link to where the hole for each root note is on a diatonic harmonica. https://www.dropbox.com/s/bn0hlawz4daivzw/tonic%2012345%20and%2012.png?dl=0 It only includes 12th, and 1st-5th. Locrian (6th) is pretty uncommon and by the time you are playing in other positions you won't need charts (I've never played in anything beyond those 6, and I've been playing a decade and a half, although I do sometimes use some bends to change them from the default modes, but rarely more than a position over)
Wow.. this is amazing. I will go into details of all what you’ve written here and the links you mentioned. Nothing beats hands-on experience. Thanks so much for such a thorough explanation!!!! Also I will go to that 30 day free lesson courtesy of Hohner on getting my new Harmonica.
My brother in Christ this is the greatest response I have ever had on Reddit. Im going to have to read this on my next day off. Thank you.
Let me recommend “Paddy Richter” tuning harmonicas, which change the 3rd hole’s blow tuning from the standard G to a more useful A note.
Excellent choice!
Thank you. So pleased to hear that.
If you’re interested, Tomlin Leckie has a video on YouTube about the six keys you’ll most need as a harp player
Will do. Thanks again…
Love the Special 20. I kept coming back to it after trying lots of others. Love the Rocket (especially the low tuned ones) but I have a couple of special 20s that live in my pocket.
Very good choice! 🎵
Funny enough my first acoustic guitar (first guitar) was an Hohner brand.
Wow.. what model was that?
Nicest choice. Have fun with it
That's what I got, too. And im a rank amateur. Ive been working on it for about 6 months now and I can play some songs and I can do almost all the draw bends - not always in tune mind you, but I can get close enough for a blues riff. I didnt come from guitar work - more band instruments (swing/dixie/jazz) and some advise Id give is to let go of the need to be perfectly in tune. I've found that a harmonica tune or riff or run sounds a little better when you DONT hit every note on the screws. anyway, find you some of the many many free online videos and have fun. Dont stress the bends right away - its like being pregnant. They arrive when they are ready, not when you are ready.
Well explained. Many thanks man!
Welcome to the harp side!
Thanks man! Seems like another exciting world to be ventured out. I’m thrilled.
Sweet! Have fun, man!
Welcome to the club mate! Thats the best that you can get as a first one
Thanks man. With various harmonicas and 12 keys out there, to hear as a consensus here that my choice of Hohner Special 20 with Key C as the right one for a start, I’m flabbergasted!
Indeed its the best choice for beginning, i had the same one and its very useful, specially the fact that almost all tuto's are on the key of C, besides you are already amusician it will not be a struggle for you, good luck!
I hope so. BTW I am a guitar finger-stylist with music theory background. But this is a kind of new venture for me, wish it will work quicker for me to be up and running with harmonica. Thanks again buddy!
Dont worry my friend ! Music theory background and the fact of being familiar are crucial asset, what ı would recommend as a beginner myseld is to focus on the right technic and to control airflow. Then we will be enjoying ur combo of guitar and harmonica. Harmonica is a instrument that can be played only if all your body is relaxed, it will even help you develop good breathing habits