First 3 or 4 keys to buy
Hello Players,
I just started playing 3 months agon and have a C (SP20) and A (Crossover). Im looking to get my third and maybe fourth harp over the holidays with Black Friday coming up dependign on sales. However, after that I will probably have to wait before buying anything else for a long time due to some big financial hits coming up (i.e. New kid, new car). That being said, it seems pretty common that CAGDE are the first 5 to get, but what are the most used 4 harp keys played (in order) for blues and rock? Id like to get the best bang for my buck. Thanks to all for your help.
Great info. Thanks for taking the time to reapond.
My pleasure!
I would definitely get a Bb before an E. If you do get an E or F, I would go with the low versions of those particular harps. The low F is a sweet harp. I absolutely love it!
As ErikOdhinn said, "The low F is a sweet harp." I got that instead of a regular, high F. As for a low E, hmmmm, might want to think on that one. The low F is already pretty low as is. I might just forego the E altogether.
If you are following the levels of achievement program (or the lessons in order) you'll see it starts with A then you get G (for Gary's blues) then D or C (for The Strut and Take it Easy Now). So that's a good set. A and G give the lower end, C and D give you the middle / higher end. Before E I'd probably get Bb and maybe F.
CoincidentallyTomlin Leckie just published a video on exactly this topic https://youtu.be/LmBhTzo0kWA (no need to watch it, video description contains the list and why he thinks you should get those).
Also, Winslow Yerxa's "Blues harmonica for dummies" contains this paragraph I hope he doesn't mind I quote here:
For blues, plan to acquire harmonicas in this order of keys, more or less: C, A, D, G, F, Bf — that’s the basic set you need for most blues.
In any case, in my experience getting more harmonicas is not needed so much at the beginning (I've been playing for 2/3 years now, started taking the lessons here about 6 months ago). You can stay on the C and A harps until you are good enough to play the LOA study songs, then later test the waters on other harps. G is trickier to bend on the low register, D on the middle register. Besides having to adjust to that, which just takes practice, all techniques are pretty much the same on every harp, so if you're just beginning maybe it's better for you to wait until your technique on C and A is better? I like A because with it you can bend and blow bend more easily than in other harps (thought ymmv) and I think trying to get bends on G or D would probably have frustrated me more (also I play Lee Oskars, which have the nasty enharmonic tone when bending inaccurately, so the D harp had been especially frustrating for a couple of weeks I until I managed to bend on it effortlessly, which didn't happen to me with A).
Just my 2 cents.