Playing With Others

Playing Along With Recordings

Playing along with recordings is an excellent way of honing your harmonica skills. It is important to make certain that you are playing along in the correct key, however. Your C harmonica can be easily played in four different keys: C Major, A Minor, D Dorian, and G Blues, reflecting the scales studied in this book.

As you already know, folk songs will probably be Major, unless they have the plaintive quality that often accompanies the Minor Scale. Blues songs will tend to use the Blues Scale. Play each likely scale along with a song that you like, and if one sounds right, you are probably in the correct key. Unfortunately, without having a harmonica in all twelve different keys, there will be many songs that you cannot accompany.

Which Key Harmonica To Buy Next

When choosing additional harmonicas, you will find the following most useful and versatile, in this order: A, G, D, and E for playing with guitars, F and G for playing with keyboards, and Bb, F, and Eb for playing with horns.

Although the may be enjoyable for solo playing, D# (or Eb), B, F#(or Gb), C# (or Db), and G#(or Ab) are usually not too useful for playing with recordings or other musicians.

Playing With Other Musicians

When playing with other musicians, always ask what key the song to be played will be in, and, if possible, whether it uses mostly Major, Minor, Dorian, or Blues scales or chords. At first, try to stick to the songs in this book, since you already know what scales to use with them.

Major songs will be most easily played if the key of your harmonica is the same as the key of the song, that is, in First Position. With your C harmonica, this will mean playing songs in C.

Blues songs will be most easily played if the key of your harmonica is five half steps up from the key of the song, that is, in Second or Cross Position. One half step is the distance between any two notes on the piano that are next to each other. With your C harmonica, this will mean playing blues in G.

Minor songs will be most easily played if the key of your harmonica is three half steps down from the key of the song. With your C harmonica, this will mean playing Minor songs in A.

Dorian songs will be most easily played if the key of your harmonica is two half steps up from the key of the song. With your C harmonica, this will mean playing Dorian songs in D.

The following chart will help you decide which harmonica to use when playing with other musicians. Decide what key the song is in, then locate that key in the top row, above the columns of the chart. Then decide whether it is Major, Minor, Dorian, or Blues, and locate the correct row along the side of the chart. Where the row and column intersect, you will find the correct key harmonica to use. For example, if you know that a song is in the key of A, and it is a Minor song, you will want to use a C harmonica (look down the A column until you reach the third, or Minor, row). For your convenience, all of the places in which a C harmonica can be used have been indicated in outline type: Major in C, Minor in A. Dorian in D, and Blues in G.

This chart can also be used to help you and your musical partners decide what key song to play. For instance, if they wish to play a song in a Minor key, and you have only a C harmonica, you will look in the Minor Row (third from top) until you see a C, then look to the top of that column to find out what Minor key song will work with a C harmonica (an A Minor song). If you have A, C and G harmonicas and want to play blues with other musicians, look for the A, C and G in the Blues (bottom) row, then look to the top row to find that you can play Blues in E, G, and D.

Timing And Other Musicians

Tap your feet together to make sure that you agree on the timing of the song, and remember that the rhythm notation of songs in this book may sometimes double the number of taps per note, for ease of reading.

If you are tapping together but your song seems to be much slower than theirs, this may be the case. Also, as explained in great detail in Progressive Blues Harmonica, many Blues and Jazz songs "swing" the beat, a subtle but important rhythmic variation that is beyond the scope of this book.

About Progressive Blues Harmonica

The first few Lessons of Progressive Blues Harmonica are similar to the first lessons of Progressive Harmonica Method, so as to enable readers to use each book independently.

Later lessons cover blues material in greater detail, including "first position", "second" or "cross position", and "third position" playing. Many examples of blues, boogie woogie, and rock songs and riffs are provided, as well as instructions on bending techniques, creative improvisation, swinging the beat, tonal effects, some blues style folk songs, and how to play a blues train. A recording is available to accompany the Progressive Blues Harmonica book, as is an additional book, Progressive Blues Harmonica Licks.