Mastery



<BTW: Missing notes is a misnomer. Violin has only 4
<strings. Where do all those OTHER notes come from?

<It's about time that somebody pointed out to 
<the uninitiated: There are NO missing notes on 
<the diatonic (even basic Richter) there are 
<just people who don't know where to find them.

I'm sure the gentleman meant no offense, but- - - I'm
~initiated~, and know where to find the ~missing
notes~. That's hardly the point.

The diatonic harmonica certainly does have a couple
notes ~missing~. ~Incomplete~ might be a better word,
but who wants to split hairs???  I think the writer
was forgetting the definition of ~diatonic~, which
means that the harp is laid out to supply the notes in
a diatonic scale [for ~C~: C, D, E, F, etc,. And not
C#, Eb etc. which would be ~chromatic~ notes]. The C
diatonic harp is called a ~C~ because it is laid out
with 3 diatonic octaves of C- - - Except it doesn't
quite do that; for reasons most of you know from
reading any of the ~Learn Bluesharp In 30 Seconds~
books. The first octave [holes 1-4]is missing 2 tones
[F, A]. The 2nd octave [4-7] is a complete diatonic
scale. And the 3rd [7-10] is missing one [B]. To say
that one can produce these missing notes by bending or
going to another octave doesn?t change this fact. It
would be like removing the e string on a guitar and
saying that it?s not really missing because you can
still produce the sound by pressing a fret on
neighboring string.

Now I?m aware that some of you might not know what I?m
babbling about. I would ask your indulgence. But I am
soliciting advice from others who have wrestled with
this. When it comes to visualizing and familiarizing
yourself with where every note is, so that you KNOW
your instrument's layout [the thread started in
~playing by ear~] the shortharp has a lot of
counter-intutitve things going on. This is something
that a harplayer has to deal with- unlike any other
instrument: the facts that the 3 octaves on the harp
are all different, and that the way you produce those
notes changes on the third octave so that every thing
you ~drew~ on the first two octaves, you now blow, and
every thing you blew, you now draw. Combined with the
fact that all three octaves are laid out differently,
and that notes are missing from the diatonic scale in
the 1st and 3rd octaves, it makes for a relatively
complicated approach to the instrument.

Or, of course, you can have a totally ~Eff  IT~
approach and refuse to approach the instrument in this
way at all. In which case, I respect your opinion but
I?m not looking to debate whether it?s worth it or
not. In the same light a chromatic player has NONE of
these problems and might think I am just avoiding
learning my chops, literacy or intervals [thinking in
intervals, btw, as Iceman said, helps A LOT], but that
would be inaccurate too. I?m looking for folks who
went through the same stuff and found solutions. This
list has all kinds- for which I?m grateful.
Robb



		
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