MUSIC KEY CHART

[henrymouni]

This is an excellent chart created & compiled by Joe Leone and turned into a chart by Tom Mann!
See PDF below.
It is explained in full on the chart.



Henry.

[Gnarly He Man]

This chart is a must have for keyed chromatic players--kudos to all concerned.
Note that blues players who use chrom for third position get their own column!

[LJA3395]

THANK YOU. THIS CHART WILL GIVE MY GRANDSON ANOTHER WAY TO LOOK AT SCALES.

LJ

[wolfman]

       HI 

[henrymouni]

       HI 

 Howdy Tex!



 Henry.

[wolfman]

     Hard at work, ?

         Tex

[henrymouni]

     Hard at work, ?

         Tex

Nah!


An anthropologist decides to investigate the natives of a far-flung tropical island. He flew there, found a guide with a canoe to take him up the river to the remote site where he would make his collections. About noon on the second day of travel up the river they began to hear drums. Being a city boy by nature, the anthropologist was disturbed by this. He asked the guide, "What are those drums?"
The guide turned to him and said "Drums OK, but VERY BAD when they stop."
Then, after some hours, the drums suddenly stopped! This hit the anthropologist like a ton of bricks, and he yelled at the guide: "The Drums have stopped, what happens now?"

The guide crouched down, covered his head with his hands and said, "Harmonica Solo!".


Henry.

[wolfman]

      How low can you go?

[Opus314]

Hmmm... I still have a lot to learn...

Looking at the example on the PDF file it discusses playing an "A" chromatic to music in the key of Eb...

Ok, the tune is in Eb... so... the Eb major scale contains these notes... Eb F G Ab Bb C D

So, unless the tune modulates... (and with exception of momentary transitional/connecting notes... which if sustained could probably be classified as an interim modulation)... the notes of the melody will be notes from the Eb scale...

And as I understand it chromatic harmonica's "key" are typically defined by the note sounded by the 1-hole blow... right? (and on some chromatics the 1-hole is not necessarily the left-hand most hole... i.e. Hohner Chrometta-10's 1-hole is 3rd from the left)

At any rate... regardless of which note is sounded on the 1-hole blow... if the tune is in Eb... they your going to be finding and playing notes from the Eb scale... no matter what their hole number on the harmonica at hand...

So, my question is how are you "actually making sound in C" if your playing to a tune in Eb?

I'm sure I'm missing something obvious... so educate me please.

Thanks.

[playandteach]

Apologies in advance, I haven't looked at the pdf, but transposing instruments work this way:
Your 'play' note C 'sounds' the key of your instrument. So if you have an A clarinet you use the same C fingering that you use for all other clarinets (to stop you having to remember which instrument is in your hands) and out comes an A - it transposes a minor 3rd down.

So, if you know how to play a C scale on your C chromatic. That sounds a C scale. Someone puts another instrument in your hands and off you go with your C scale. Then you find out you were given an A instrument, so you have just played a 'sounding' scale of A.

On an A instrument (sounding down a minor 3rd from your standard C) you actually need to play the holes as you know them on a C harmonica a minor 3rd higher than C position in order to get a sounding C scale. This means that a 1st hole draw note on your A instrument feels to C players like an Eb in position, but is actually a C.

In the days before valves and Bohem system woodwind instruments, things like the horn and the clarinet could only fake some of the notes, and you were really limited to a narrow choice of keys before you had to pick up a different sized instrument. The hangover is that we now have fully chromatic versions of those early diatonic wind instruments that have been kept for particular tonal characteristics (and the way a passage lies on the instrument rather than just ease of fingering). But these instruments are still named after their forebears.

Clarinets are weird because you have to get into the second register (the clarinet register!) before you start to see why they can be thought to be in their keys - back to how they overblow (don't get me started on that one).

Strangely recorders don't work this way, you have two sets of fingerings, depending whether you are playing Alto or Treble. That's evolution for you.

[Ray J]

It was much easier on Wikifonia 

Ray 

[henrymouni]

Hmmm... I still have a lot to learn...

Looking at the example on the PDF file it discusses playing an "A" chromatic to music in the key of Eb...

Ok, the tune is in Eb... so... the Eb major scale contains these notes... Eb F G Ab Bb C D

So, unless the tune modulates... (and with exception of momentary transitional/connecting notes... which if sustained could probably be classified as an interim modulation)... the notes of the melody will be notes from the Eb scale...

And as I understand it chromatic harmonica's "key" are typically defined by the note sounded by the 1-hole blow... right? (and on some chromatics the 1-hole is not necessarily the left-hand most hole... i.e. Hohner Chrometta-10's 1-hole is 3rd from the left)

At any rate... regardless of which note is sounded on the 1-hole blow... if the tune is in Eb... they your going to be finding and playing notes from the Eb scale... no matter what their hole number on the harmonica at hand...

So, my question is how are you "actually making sound in C" if your playing to a tune in Eb?

I'm sure I'm missing something obvious... so educate me please.

Thanks.

 Here is the first line of 'King Of The Road".
 If we look at say 'for' in 'C' it is 2 blow = 'E' using a 'C' Chromatic.
 If we look at it in 'Eb' it is 3 blow = 'G' using a 'C' Chromatic.
 If instead we use an 'A' Chromatic, playing in 'Eb', 3 blow is 'E', same as playing in 'C' on a 'C' Chromatic.
Therefore, if you play a tune in the key of 'Eb', using an 'A' Chromatic, you are playing in the key of 'C'.




 'C'
Trail——er   ..     for      sale    ..    or        rent.
   5         3,          2        -1,            2         -2.
   C         G           E         D             E          F.

 'Eb'
Trail——-er   ..     for      sale    ..    or        rent.
  -5*      -3*,         3        -2,            3          3*
   Eb       Bb           G         F             G          G*


Key of 'A' Chromatic harmonica

            1       2       3        4       5       
Blow     A       C#    E        A       A       
Draw     B       D      F#     G#     B


Henry.        

[henrymouni]

Move to the top of the page.

[Anita]

Hi everybody

I'm working on a chart (.pdf) that may help me learn to play the harmonica from sheet music. I have attached a .png file to show you what I mean. Helpful suggestions are welcome. If such a chart already exists, please let me now, since I couldn't find it on the internet.

greetings
Anita

[Blowout]

Hi Anita,

There's a similar idea, laid out differently, here (scroll down the page a bit) :
http://www.hoerl.com/Music/music2_notes.html

But the act of putting one together yourself would be helping you learn already.

cheers Howard

[Pat Cat]

Here is a chart that has helped me. If it's to small to read let me know and I can email it

[dougharps]

Joe's chart is good and lays out the "keys" of the sheet music at the top in keyboard note order.

Since I had already committed the Circle of Fifths (or 4ths) to memory for diatonic use, I use the Circle and position numbers to get the same results. The position numbers are all relative to the home key of the instrument, which is designated "1st" position.

In the circle of fifths moving clockwise goes by 5ths and counter clockwise by 4ths. In the circle of fourths clockwise goes by 4ths and counterclockwise by 5ths. Either will work, you just have to notice the direction of the circle.

You should look up the circles so this doesn't seem so complicated. It really is not as confusing as reading it may seem.

Starting from C on one side is G (2nd position for a C instrument), and on the other side is F (12th position on a C instrument).

The position (location of the scale on a given instrument) for playing Eb music on a C instrument is called (C-1st, F-12th, Bb-11th, Eb-10th) Tenth position (Eb position per Joe). On an A chromatic 10th position is (A-1st, D-12th, G-11th, C 10th). C is Tenth position on an A instrument!

I did this without looking at a Circle of Fifths, because I know it after having organized my keyed diatonic instruments in that order before playing keyed chromatics. Instead of memorizing the circle I just used it regularly to choose instruments from my set of 12 diatonics.

The music I play seldom has sheet music, just lyrics and chords at best, so I use keyed instruments and my ear. Since I already could play chromatic harmonica in a few keys, keyed chromatic harmonicas allowed me to play and improvise in all keys with a shorter learning curve than doing it all on a C instrument. Using chromatic instead of diatonic on some songs gave me access to all the sharps and flats without learning extensive overbending on a diatonic.

I play Americana, folk, and roots music and different singers and different bands frequently change the key of a song, so this approach works well in these circumstances. If I were intent on playing classical or standards in the original keys, I would focus on learning it all on a C instrument and not go the keyed chromatic route.

From my experience, most keyed harmonica players either organize by the circle of fifths (or 4ths) or by keyboard scale note order.


The circle of fifths gives other information as well, specifically the order in which sharps and flats are added to keys.

Doug S.

[Anita]

You should look up the circles so this doesn't seem so complicated. It really is not as confusing as reading it may seem.

I know about this circle but that's not what I'm looking for. I don't read music (yet) and I don't play any other instrument. So, for me, at the moment, it is only important to know, when I see a music note, with or without sharps or flats, on a staff: which hole, blow or draw, slide in or out. I have even made online flashcards for it. (Note on one side, hole etc. on backside).

I will re-read your post in two years or so 

[Anita]

Hi Anita,

There's a similar idea, laid out differently, here (scroll down the page a bit) :
http://www.hoerl.com/Music/music2_notes.html

But the act of putting one together yourself would be helping you learn already.

cheers Howard

I had found that site, but thanks anyway for your help! I agree with you that putting it together myself is indeed useful for learning it 

[Anita]

Here is a chart that has helped me. If it's to small to read let me know and I can email it

Thanks !

[Edward Brock]

I like the idea of learning to read the music notation.
That way when you get it, you got it.
My problem is I'm too comfortable with tabs.
My wife says I'm musically Lazy.
I sure am gonna miss her. 

[Dee]

These are all very helpful. I do read music, and play piano a bit. Have lots of music in that format, so hope to keep those skills up, in addition to reading tabs. But while learning the chromatic "keyboard" having the tabs and harmonica diagrams are a wonderful aid.

Thanks all,
Dee

[llumagsara]

I like the idea of learning to read the music notation.
That way when you get it, you got it.

Edward, you can download https://musescore.org/   (it's free)
then here https://musescore.org/plugins you can download harmonica tablature plugin, so you can for example open a midi, have it in sheet with tabs and hear it...

good health

Agustín

[Anita]

 probably known to most of you but interesting for newbies like myself, here I found some interesting charts as well:

https://www.harptabs.com/ruler.php