Attention: Harmonica Players, need Advice

[Mr Lucky Pants]

My friend and me need to get a harmonica...we play in the key of Eb on guitar and need something that will match up well. I've heard that the Hohner Special 20 in the Key of C is thee harmonica to buy for beginners, but am unsure whether this will mate up well with our songs, since we tune our guitars flat and need that tuning for the songs we are covering.

[Boondock Dave]

For playing in Eb, your main options are an Ab harmonica or an Eb harmonica. Harmonicas give you one chord when you draw (suck), and one when you blow. Drawing on an Ab harp gives you an Eb chord, blowing it gives you an Ab chord. (You use both for playing melodies.)

Using a harp that's 4 steps up from your key is called "cross harp." It's advantage is that by sucking, you can bend notes up, so you have more notes to work with. This is the basic method for playing blues harp. Get an Ab.

Using an Eb harp for playing in Eb may let you get certain major-key melodies. But it's a more old-fashioned folk music sound.

[e021708]

 

For playing in Eb, your main options are an Ab harmonica or an Eb harmonica. Harmonicas give you one chord when you draw (suck), and one when you blow. Drawing on an Ab harp gives you an Eb chord, blowing it gives you an Ab chord. (You use both for playing melodies.) Using a harp that's 4 steps up from your key is called "cross harp." It's advantage is that by sucking, you can bend notes up, so you have more notes to work with. This is the basic method for playing blues harp. Get an Ab. Using an Eb harp for playing in Eb may let you get certain major-key melodies. But it's a more old-fashioned folk music sound.

 

 

i thought you actully would bend notes down while drawing playing cross harp.

[Boondock Dave]

Up or down, it depends on where you start. I'm a guitarist, so I tend to think of bending up, because that's what you do with a string.

[davidsol]

it's not so much a question of how you tune your guitar, more a question of the key in which you are playing a particular song.e.g if you are playing a song which is not a blues number in say f sharp, you will need an F sharp harmonica i.e the song is usually in G but you tune down one step. For blues songs, you need a harmonica which is 5 steps up from the key of the song so if your blues is in E flat, you will need an A flat harmonica.

 

It's not easy to find "flats" in shops unless they will order them for you, you would probably need to get them from the net. Also, if you buy "flats" you probably won't be able to play along with other musicians who don't tune down as you do.

 

Hope this helps.

 

David