I'm sorry to do this, but a Richard someone from intel.com wrote and asked me if I could post this to him. Well, I tried but my server does not know his so.......
Steve Levine (among others) asked about different positions on the harp. This is my offering.
I am offering the following as a none musicologist/none reader of dots, with only a small amount of music theory to hand.
Please feel free to pull me up when I go wrong. And to the highly musicaly literate of you, please be patient with me :-)
The errors are all mine.
Heart felt thanks to my music Guru , John Howling Dog Brown, without whom....
It seems that most of the HARP list people are blues or jazz based players. It also seems that many readers are not aware of the different modes or keys that can be played in, on a single, standard tuned, diatonic harp.
I am a folk singer/multi musician, as such I play mostly FOLK MUSIC. Folk music is good practice on the harp as so much English traditional music is MODAL by nature. The HARP is a great way to learn about modes of music, a better instrument than most really, as it is such a modal instrument by nature. I have learned more about modes with the harp in the last year,than I did in the last twenty eight years of playing other instruments.
This bit about modes....
This is for the beginers among us.
If you start to play a tune in a different position than 1st position C (on a C harp). Then you are more than likley to be playing it a different key, or CROSS HARPING as it is commonly known.
Mind you If you start on G on a C harp you may still be in the Key of C. So you have to play around a bit to work out where you are. A piano/synth/guitar can help establish the key you are in, if your not sure.
This next bit is not usually (in books I have looked at anyway) mentioned.
If you play in a different key to the home key of the harp, not all the notes of the scale will be available. Some may be with bending others will not. This is not a problem for a lot of tunes that you may wish (or need) to play in another key on a given harp. Many, many tunes do not use all the notes in the scale anyway.
This is obvious when you think about it, but not that obvious when you first discover that you can plat in more than one key on the same diatonic harp. At the begining I assumed if it was a C harp or tin whistle and I played a tune on it, then that tune was in C!
Yes, you can laugh but it's true, and I bet I'm not the only one who was confused by it all.
On a piano or keyboard intsrument, starting on ANY WHITE NOTE and playing ONLY WHITE NOTES, until you get back to the note you played first but one OCTAVE higher you will be playing a scale of some sort. The CROSS HARP table in my last posting gives a little simple information about those scales.
You can (it seems) consider playing in (say) Dm on a C harp as being in the KEY of Dm. Or as playing in the DORIAN (Dm) mode of C on a C harp. As I understand it both statments are correct as far as they go. A classicaly trained musician may disagree, but as John says, "It doesn't do to be too hard and fast about this".
In practice, (I speak as a guitar player here) if you say I'm in the key of Dm, the guitar/banjo players will know what to play. If you said, "I'm playing in the Dorian mode of C" they may know, but they may tell you what you can do with your "bloody dorian mode"!
A lot of us are aware of playing in second and maybe third positions, but that's all. Below is a table of other keys you can play in.
A list of harp positions and the Keys (or modes of C) that you can play in on a Standard tuning diatonic follows. (Taken to be a Key of C harp for ease). I have a chart for all the other keys, but it would take too long to type in. Transpose to suit the Key of your harp.
This table follows the Circle of Fifths, which Tony (somebody) adopted in the 1970's. I think it is the standard now. (Anyone???)
The table I took this from has Em and Am in reverse positions, and I assume that the name of the positions was taken from the most common position to play in it pecking order. Anyone add to that?
HARMONICA CROSS HARP KEYS. (DIATONIC and CHROMATIC).
KEY of harp = C KEY Mode
1st position C Ionian (Home key) 2nd " " G Myxolidian (useful for blues) 3rd " " Dm Dorian (useful for jazz) 4th " " Am Aeolian (Relative minor of C) 5th " " Em Phrygian (quite a few folk tunes) 6th " " F Lydian (Some pentatonic tunes) 7th " " Bm Locrian (Turkish and Balkan tunes)
I asked Brendan Power about Bm, as I can find tunes in all the other positions, but none in that one. His reply was "If you can play in six out of seven modes, your doing well, don't worry about the seventh (Bm). A few Turkish and Balkan tunes and that/s about it for Bm". So I thought, "O.K. I can live with that"! Does anyone out there know any (well known) tunes in Bm?
In passing, sixth position (F) or phrygian was Frank Zappa's favorite mode/scale for playing on the guitar.
I am including a far from compleat, but growing list of stuff that John and I play on the harp. I like to use a tremolo tuned instument for MORRIS DANCE tunes. I have a double sided C/G by Bandmaster (Eastern Europen made) Honer Golden Melody in F for this stuff.
The Bandmaster is LOUD, robust, cheap, not too wet a sound, but best of all It's tune like a chromatic so I have a full three octaves of useable notes to go at. Very useful for Irish dance music.
Not all these are Folk Music, but the folk ones are listed in the key it is played in on a C harp.
Some of the songs can be played in THREE KEYS on the same harp, without resorting to bends. With bends so much more becomes avaliable to the player. This list is not exhaustive, and it may be that you can play more of the tunes in it in more than one key (with or without bends) than I am aware of. It is just our own little list.
As a rough rule of thumb, If you can play a tune on the straight tuned harp, then you can play it on the Am natural tuning too. Now and again you may run out of notes on one harp, to find it can be played better on the other.
List of Mouthi tunes. (For a major diatonic). The Key in brackets, () assumes a C harp is being used.
An old man came courting me. Both Sides Now. Bound for the Rio Grande. Brahms Lullaby. Captin Kelly's kitchen. Dashing white sergent. (A tricky one, good practice). Dirty old town. Duram Goal. Early one morninng. Fare the well Eniskillen. Four strong winds. Harvest Home. (Irish jig). Helston Fury Dance. I hear you love a Conacht maid. (Uses bottom of harp). I live not where I love. I vow to thee my Country. (Holst, that bit from the Planets :-) ). I'm a rover, seldom sober. Irish Washerwoman. Jammie Foyers. Keel Row. Lark in the clear air. Last of the Summer Wine. (BBC T.V. theme tune, hated in Holmfirth!!). Lesson too late for the learning. Lovely Joan.(Dm). MacFerson's Rant. Men of Harlech. My name is Delany. (Oh, to be in sweet England again). New World -Dvorjak. (Main part anyway :-) ). Portsmouth. Rakes of Mallow. Shenandor. Shepherds Hey. Shoals of Herring. Sky boat song. (Can play in Keys C, G, and F on a C diatonic) Speed the Plough. (Uses bottom of harp). Telstar. The Ash Grove. The Boys of Blue Hill. (Irish jig). The Devil among the tailors. (Another tricky one). The Nutting girl. The October winds lament around the Castle of Drumore. The Parting Glass. (Start at hole 8) The Sash my Father Wore. The White Cockade. The girl I left behind me. Where have all the flowers gone? William Brown. In the bleak mid winter. (Start note, blow 8=E) This land is your land. (C and G).
NOTE: The key in () is for a harp in Cm. The major scale starts at hole 3 draw. Nearly two octaves. Practice playing melodies using this.
A taste of honey (Dm). All my loving. (Eb). Amazing Grace. (C). And I love her. 1 bend (Fm). As I entered Cork city. Bridge over troubled water. 1 bend. Come ye ow'r frae France. (Dm). Drummer Girl (Dm) Steley Span. Drunken Sailor. Elenor Rigby. (Dm) 1 bend, play chords. Gaudete. Give me that old time religion. House of the Rising Sun. (Dm) 1st position. I say a little prayer. (Eb). I'm only sleeping. (Cm) (A Beatles song). In the bleak mid winter.....(A bit easier in this harp, not as high). John Barleycorn. (Star of the County Down). Joshua fought the battle of Jerrico. (Dm). Let it be. (high). Londonderry air. 1 bend. Lovely Joan. Lovely on the water. (Dm). My old man said follow the van. (TRICKY). (Eb). A Good show piece! Sky boat song. Something in the way she moves. 1 bend. Spanish Harlem. 1 bend. St. James Infirmary. (Cm). Sunny. (Cm). Swing Low Sweet Chariot. Take me home country roads. We three Kings. 1 bend (Fm). When Johhny comes marching home again. (Dm). Who will buy this.. (Dm) From Oliver.
So there it is. I hope it helped Steve Levine and some others too. It should print out ok on an epson compatible printer if you want the lists.
