Written Notation Systems For The Harmonica
Most music instruction methods require the beginning student to learn the universal music notation system known as "standard notation". However, due to the fact that each ten hole or blues style harmonica is tuned to a particular key as discussed in Lesson One, standard notation is not a useful or appropriate system for beginning harmonica students. In addition, there is very little blues music available for the harmonica in standard notation.
Fortunately, all of the different key harmonicas can be easily played by learning just one simple notation system. A number of slight variations on this system exist, but all effective harmonica notation systems include the following elements:
- an element that indicates which hole number to use
- an element that indicates whether to inhale or exhale
- an element that indicates how long to hold the note for
- an element that indicates whether the note is bent, and if so, how much
The Notation System Used In This Book
In the notation system used in the rest of this book:
- The Numbers from 1-10 indicate which hole to use (referring to the numbers on top of the harmonica).
- The Letter "i" indicates an inhaled Breath.
- The Letter "e" indicates an exhaled Breath.
When writing the notes to a song or exercise, the hole number will be written above the "i" or "e". For typographical convenience, when referring to a particular note in the text, the hole number will be written first, and then the "i" or "e" directly to the right of the hole number. Below, both ways of notation are illustrated.
For example, both 
and 1e mean: exhale through the number 1 hole.
Similarly, both 
and 3i mean: inhale through the number 3 hole.
With just a bit of practice, this system will become second nature to you. If you cannot answer the following questions, re-read this entire lesson from the beginning. What does 7i mean? How about 4e?
Bending notation will be covered in Lesson Twenty, since it will not be necessary to know when to bend a note until you learn how to do so.
Chord Notation
Chords (notes that must be played all at one time) will be indicated by underlining them. For example, in the rhythm of Lesson Three, the holes 4, 5, and 6 were covered with the mouth, and then inhaled twice and exhaled twice. This rhythm, repeated twice, would be notated like this:
Just as with single notes, if it is necessary to refer to a chord within the text, it will be written out horizontally. So the chords used in the Train (Ex. 6) would be written out as 123i and 123e respectively.
Timing Notation
The last part of the notation system is the timing slash. A timing slash shows you exactly when a tap of your foot should occur. For instance, in the rhythm exercise from page 18, you must tap your foot once for each chord.
Thus one tinting slash appears above each chord. The distance between timing slashes has no effect on the timing (as illustrated in the song fragments in the following lesson), although whenever possible they will be kept uniformly distant.
Tonguing Notation and Lyrics
If song lyrics or tonguing instructions are necessary, they will be placed above the timing slashes. For example, here is the train rhythm written in tablature, from Exercise 5.
