notes on staff
ok. I have just confused myself again. thinking that I had some of this position stuff figured out, I was dabbling in one of the study songs and realized that the notes on the staff do not match what the tuner says that I am playing on the A harp.
i.e. Walk with me starts out on a B staff note but my A harp 3 draw is playing a G# but it sounds right and in tune while playing with slowdowner.
understanding that the G# is the third scale degree of E and we're playing in E, I can't see how that relates to the staff designated leading B note.
Am I missing something as in there's no key signatures on the sheet music so that the songs are written in C? that doesn't make sense either.
any help you can be will be greatly appreciated in straightening me out on what I'm seeing on the sheet mush verses what I'm hearing and seeing on the tuner
thanks for yall do,
Monty
yes. after reading your reply it comes clearer. now if I may and if I might ask one more.
if I got this right, the F is sharped in the key of G, but on a C harp (second position key of G) it plays the F natural. how does that work and why?
understanding that you could get to the F# on the 2 draw but not on the 5 and 9 draws without something more than just playing.
to actually play in G on the C harp to you have to stay in the lower octave and hit the F#?
again, I've confused myself with overthinking.
Monty
There are two ways of notating music for an instrument that is not a C instrument - whose home scale is not the C major scale.
A C instrument is one that actually plays a C major scale as its home scale, without resorting to sharps or flats produced by bending, half-fingerings, special buttons, etc.
A non-C instrument is one whose home scale is in a key other than C. Diatonic harmonicas include both C instruments and non-C instruments. On a C-harp, if you play Mary Had a Little Lamb in first position, it comes out in C. Play the same sequence of holes and breaths on a Bb harp, and the same melody comes out, but using a different set of notes – the notes that belong to the Bb major scale.
In the past, diatonic harmonica music was written at actual pitch. While this accurately represents the notes that come out of the instrument, it make a lot of work for the player who is reading the music. For instance, Draw 3 will read as B on a C harp, G# on an A harp (as you've discovered), D on an Eb harp, and so on.
David Barrett has decided to treat the diatonic harmonica as a transposing instrument. Transposed writing has a long history with other wind instruments. For instance, trumpet, clarinet, and soprano saxophone all naturally play a Bb major scale, two semitones below what a flute might play. Write a C major scale for them, and the sounds that actually come out will be a Bb major scale. To get them to play a C scale, you have to write a D scale.
Now imagine someone in a band where they have to switch back and forth between clarinet and flute. If everything was written at actual pitch, they'd have to mentally switch gears. To play A B C D E on the fllute, they'd finger A B C D E. But to play the same actual notes on clarinet, even though they see (without any transposition) A B C D E on the page, they'd have to finger B C# D E F#. However, if the clarinet part is transposed they'll actually see B C# D E F# - the same notes they're fingering. But the sounds that come out will be the desired ones - A B C D E.
If you understand the preceding paragraph, you'll see the advantage of writing transposed for diatonic harmonica. Draw 3 will always be B on the third line of the staff, Blow 4 will always be the third space, and so on.
Most blues harmonica is played in second position, with first and third following at a distance. If your music is written transposed, then you only have to learn to read in three different keys (and really mostly just one) instead of twelve. Reading music is made much, much easier.