From: JJTHAD~ife.uams.edu Date: Tue, 16 Jan 1996 00:33:03 -0500 (CDT) Subject: 2d position, minor
Tonight, Colin Barnes quoted me saying that crossharp works fine for minor tunes (e.g. C harp for Gm) if you make sure to bend the 3D and avoid the 7D or replace it with the 6B overblow.
>Am I instinctively flattening and overblowing? Or was she/he referring to >using second position on a C harp to play in G minor?
Yes, that's the harp for G minor. If you've tried it on minor tunes, you may well have been flattening the 3D instinctively, but unless you're an old hand at overblowing, you were not doing that instinctively, for sure. Or maybe you weren't flattening 3D and hence were playing major melodies and chords with the minor song. Notice any glares from the other musicians? But just remember that 3Db, and 2d position can do minor tunes quite nicely.
Using Eb harps for Gm tunes is really a natural position for those accustomed to crossharp. Crossharp is 2d position, Gm on an Eb harp is 5th position. Consider 5th position on a C harp. The key is E minor. Em is the relative minor of G, meaning it uses all the same notes! Of course, unless you are playing a country-tuned diatonic, when you play your C harp in 2d position, you are playing a variant of the G major scale, with the seventh scale tone lowered a semitone. Likewise, the Em scale you get on a C harp using the same notes as the G scale is a variant. The note (F natural) that serves as the "blues" seventh in the G scale now serves as the second scale tone of the Em scale. The usual second scale tone for Em is F#. So the F natural is a diminished second scale tone. This variant of a minor scale is called the Phrygian mode. The variant of the G major scale with the flatted seventh is called the Myxolydian mode. Reading a discussion of musical modes in a basic music theory book or music encyclopedia can be quite illuminating for har- monica players.
