Sentimental mood
Thu, 09/26/2013 - 08:03
Hi Winslow,
I'm looking to add some jazz to my solo repertoire and heard lee Oskar do a version of sentimental mood on a blues harmonica blow out session.
Do you know what tuning he was using for this? At the moment I'm using c and Ab harps to cover the positions
I guess chromatic would be another option but I'm not that familiar with it yet.
Thanks
G
Fri, 09/27/2013 - 03:00
#2
Thanks Winslow,
I think I'll
Thanks Winslow,
I think I'll experiment with the 1st and second position (melody maker) for a while. I guess for bending expression In 1st i could try valving also.
Thanks again, much appreciated
Gareth
I'm not familiar with Lee's version and don't have recordings handy to check.
But let's look at the tune itself.
It's in two different major keys, with the second key pitched four semitones below the first. So C and Ab harps could work for first position in each key. You could also use second position with either Country or Melody Maker tuning - Ellington's soloists all bent notes and used expressive devices that could work well on harmonica - check out the 1935 Brunswick recording, for instance (In F and Db). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGS9rV1ZMgE
Lee has all sorts of strange tunings beyond the four that he sells, and maybe he has some clever arrangement to make two such distant major keys come out of the same harp. But, short of playing chromatic, I think the two-harp solution - especially in second position - is a good one.