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| Moderated by: Tony Provencher, Richard Hefner |
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| playing guitar and harmonica at the same time | Rate Topic |
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| Posted: Wed Jul 19th, 2006 09:17 pm |
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1st Post |
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johnbrownsdream Approved
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I play mostly old folk and blues song and want to be able to use the harp for acompaniment when I am not singing. I feel that I will either like to use chords on the harmonica or melody notes. could I figure out the melody notes by just playing the notes that are in a chord like a G chord or C chord, playing the notes that make up the chord would that sound good or would I need to use scales can someone please provide a list of chords on the c major harmonica and how to make them, I need G,A,C,F,D,B7,D and E if you want list all the different ways to make these chords also it would be helpful if you told me what holes on the harmonica mad these invididual notes draw and blow thanks matt
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| Posted: Wed Jul 19th, 2006 11:08 pm |
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2nd Post |
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Richard Hefner Administrator 
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Hi Matt, Playing chords on a harmonica is quite a bit different than playing chords on a guitar. I think for the most part you're better off playing melodies or at least single notes that might harmonize with the melody or possibly just improvize in the right key. If you're playing the harmonica "straight" then you should play a harmonica that's in the same key, so if you're playing the guitar in the key of C you should use a C harmonica. If you're playing blues style (cross harp) then you'll want to play a harp in the dominant key, so if you're playing the guitar in C you would use a G harmonica. If you don't understand what I'm talking about you probably should just take some time to learn how to play the harmonica first, then after you're comfortable playing the harmonica you can start playing the harmonica with a rack while you're playing the guitar. At that point you should be able to pick out whatever you want to play just by ear. 
____________________ Richard Hefner MP3 Page: http://www.ezfolk.com/audio/richardhefner Running Blog: http://old-runner.com |
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| Posted: Fri Jul 21st, 2006 12:15 pm |
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3rd Post |
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davebough Approved 
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If you want to use chords on the harmonica, you would usually play in crossharp or 2nd position. This would mean you would play your C harp on songs in the key of G. The advantage of doing this is that you have the I, IV, and V chords available in the key of G on a C harp. By drawing on the 1,2,3,4 holes you get a G chord, blowing on any set of holes gives you a C chord, and drawing on the middle of the harp gives you most of a V chord. You normally will have to spend a lot of time learning how to bend notes before you can play melody crossharp. It is more common to do riffs and fills when you aren't chording. With a little bit of practice you will work out how to play melody in 1st position (C on the C harp). There is more information than you'll ever absorb about this kind of stuff here: http://www.angelfire.com/tx/myquill/ dave Here is the note layout for your C harp and a discussion on chords from the above site. Basic Chords on the Diatonic To figure out the chords, you first have to know the "interval relationships" of the notes. Lets look at the notes again. Holes: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Blow notes: C E G C E G C E G C Draw notes: D G B D F A B D F A So, for blow holes 1, 2, and 3 you have C, E, and G, which is a C Major chord (major 3rd interval on "bottom", i.e. C & E, and minor 3rd interval on "top", i.e. E & G). Notice that holes 4, 5, and 6 are also C, E, G, which is another C Major chord, as are holes 7, 8, and 9. In 1st position the C Major chord is the tonic or root or I chord of the C scale. In 2nd position the C Major chord is the sub-dominant or IV chord of the G scale, which is part of the I, IV, V blues progression. For draw holes 1, 2, and 3 you get D, G, and B. This is a G Major chord, 2nd inversion (which just means the root note is in the middle--that is, a G Major chord is G, B, D, but if you play the D as the lowest note you get D, G, B--but it is still a G Major chord). Notice that the 4 draw is the same as the 1 draw, a D note. Doubling a note does not change the chord, so drawing holes 1-4 also produces a G Major chord. For 1st position the G Major chord is the dominant or V chord of the C scale. For 2nd position the G Major chord is the root or I chord. Drawing on holes 2, 3, 4, and 5 have notes G, B, D, F, which is a G7 chord. The dominant 7th note adds color to the major chord and is used very often in blues, rock, and country music. Once again you can double the D by adding the 1 draw and you still have the G7 chord. Drawing on holes 4, 5, and 6, or 8, 9, and 10 produces the notes D, F, A, which is a D minor chord (notationally Dm). The four note chords in draw 3-6 and 7-10 are B, D, F, A, which is a Bm7b5 chord. Note that this chord is the same as the D minor chord with the 6th added (called Dm6), but in a different inversion--that is, instead of the 6th note (the B) being the high note in the chord it is the low note. The diatonic harp can play only those relatively few chords. Many times, players will play "partial chords" or double stops consisting of only 2 notes, since the full chord is not available. For example, the Em chord, notes E G B, is not on a C harp. But, looking at the figure above you can see that blow holes 2&3, 5&6, and 8&9 have the notes E&G, the first two notes of the Em chord. Similarly, the F chord is F A C, and doesn't fall on the harp--but the F&A notes are there as draw notes in holes 5&6 and 9&10. Here's an important point to remember. The 3rd scale degree (the middle note in root position triads) controls whether the chord sounds Major or Minor, and sets the tonal color. Sometimes the 3rd is left out, which results in a sort of haunting or eerie effect, since the listener does not hear the major or minor sound. However, often times there are other instruments playing, like a guitar, bass, or keyboard, and those instruments set the overall feel of the music, so the harp can get away with not playing all the notes in a chord. Another technique that can be used to simulate chords that aren't on the harp is to play them broken apart. Using the above example for Em, the player could play 5 blow & 6 blow to get the E&G, then follow that with the 7 draw to get the B note. Many such combinations are possible. Finally, broken chords can be played one note at a time, which are called arpeggios. Last edited on Fri Jul 21st, 2006 12:36 pm by davebough |
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| Posted: Sun Feb 18th, 2007 02:08 am |
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4th Post |
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Mack Aroni Approved
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playing both guitar and Harmonica is a very usefull, but tricky skill. I develpod this myself a couple years ago, and all I can say is that you have to be co-ordinated. Just play guitar and try to accompany yourself on harmonica, without giving too much thought to the harmonica chords. Youll the the hang of it. Over time youll be succesfull, not to mention that youll also be learning to play by ear.
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