Reading Sheet Music on the Harmonica

@Pigglies (9329)
United States
July 31, 2007 12:11am CST
Most people who play the harmonica read tabs, not sheet music. There are many forms of tablature for the harmonica, but it's all fairly easy to read. Since I was 8 years old, I've been in the tab reading crowd when it comes to playing the harmonica. I learned to read sheet music, but never applied it to the harmonica before because tabs were just so easy. I kept buying more and more song books already written in tab for the harmonica. Then I ran out of books to even buy pretty much. So I learned how to do the tabs myself. But it was a time consuming project. Now I'm learning the harmonica again after not really playing it for probably 2 years. So I've decided that I'll start with the chromatic and learn sheet music. So far, it's a lot of fun and just tonight I could finally play some actual songs without any tabs. It's very liberating to finally be breaking the shackles of tablature! Yay! I can finally read some notes! So if you're thinking about learning standard notation for harmonica rather than tablature, I'd highly recommend it. Then you'll be able to play just about anything. Of course, it will be kind of difficult to learn more than just key of C harps, but at least reading music on one harmonica would be awesome.
1 response
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
15 Feb 08
Since the slide pressed in sharpens the note, it is actually not too difficult to play in all the sharp keys, except that the natural blow/draw rhythm of the scale is different because the draw/draw on A/B comes in a different place. If the music is in G, for example, you simply look at the signature and know that. for one sharp, all the F's are sharp, in D, F & C are sharp, and so on. C# is a doddle, of course, because all the notes are sharp! The flat keys are a lot harder because the more flats there are, the more each hole has two consecutive notes on blow (or draw) using the slide. I believe that the way most people learn to play the harmonica (as a diatonic instrument) is probably the wrong way to learn because that pattern (b d b d b d d b) becomes fixed in the brain before we learn what the notes are. It would really be better to start learning on a chromatic harp with simple pieces in the more difficult keys (how about 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' in Eb for starters?), then one wouldn't learn the 'natural' pattern (of C, for example) and have to unlearn it when it came to other keys! In fact, each piece would have its own breathing pattern which would be associated more with the expression than with the pattern of the scale. (I wonder if I make myself clear!)
@Pigglies (9329)
• United States
15 Feb 08
Yeah, I've gotten pretty good at all the sharp keys now (until you get to 6 sharps, I hate that! I always forget which one isn't sharped then, and it's an extra sharp either way that you wouldn't expect). I can do 2 flats before I have to think about which hole I'm supposed to be on. I learned the key of C first on harmonica, but since I'm reading from the music and I don't tend to think about what each note's name is it didn't make much difference to me as far as the pattern (I can read three different clefs, and it makes it so much harder to look at something and say it's a C or whatever, but I can look at it and know which ones are sharped or flatted and where they are on the instrument). I still can't seem to get the diatonic scale into my head to read notes beyond holes 4 through 7. But I think I'm mostly sticking to chromatic now anyway since I've found that I can play so much more music.