I am relearning harmonica. When I tried playing three years ago I used tab, but now I am trying to using tab and standard notation. I am interested to see what others use to play.

Also while I am posting I figured that I would save a post and ask if this pic is accurate.



Thanks for any help/voting!

Yes, for a standard Richter tuned C harp. But noting that for ITM you might want to think of it transposed down an octave. That is, with 4 Blow as C below the staff.

American folk/blues tunes are best learned by accident. Once you get an intamate feel for the instrument other forms like ITM can quickly be picked up by ear. If I get totally baffeled by a tune I look for notation to get me over the hump. But only as a last resort... Bob.

I answered both. Playing by ear is important too.

Your chart looks right. Standard notation gets complicated because you can't play every key on a C harmonica.

What can you play now (if anything)? What are you interested in playing?

I'm gonna sound really stupid, but what does ITM stand for?

I am learning keyboard, harmonica, whistle, and guitar. It's always a lot of fun to learn more about music. My favorite thing is seeing instruments connect. When I look over music it's fun to see what music I can play on what instrument and what will sound best played where.

Oh, sorry. It's a kind of Music that is both Irish and Traditional.

That's different from MIT, which is more ... technical.

Thanks! That explains why The Mel Bay's Deluxe Harmonica Method book I got from the library shows it down an octave. Good to know.

When I learned, I used tab. Then I learned notation, which I already knew, I just had to learn it for harmonica. I can only comprehend harmonica in the key of C, so if I'm reading sheet music, I tranpose sheet music in my head from the Keys of Bb to F to the key of C, no matter what key harmonica I'm playing. Any further and I have to hand transpose to get the music in C. In the corners of lots of my music, you'll see this written

G A B C D E F# G
C D E F G A B C

And then on the music, I just hand write the letters for the key of C by the notes. I'll use an arrow going up or down to denote octave issues.

I also just figure out songs on a harmonica but I can only do that with songs that I know in my head.

On my sheet music that I have to tranpose for a guitar, if I can't just see the better key, I often draw this picture, so that I can find the best key for me.

Harmonica (diatonic for me) is the one instrument where I never use any kind of notation - the thought has never occured to me even once, since I first picked one up nearly 3.5 decades ago. It has never crossed my mind, until I saw this poll.. strange that, as I could read standard notation back then too, and I read sheet music when playing guitar, and now whistle. I've never liked tab much but I find it kind of works for ukulele. I only use written notation as a supplement for those other instruments, not all the time. But harmonica, never. Well, I can't claim that I've ever tried to play any complicated stuff on the harp.. but I have never wanted to either.

-Tor

Hi Dreamer,

The image is fairly accurate for starting if you have a C tuning, and not a G tuning; other orchestral scale harmonica; bee-bop tuning; Irish tuning; diminished or augmented scale harmonicas. C notes are doubled on the standard chromatic harmonica. I don't enjoy Richter scale at all and stopped trying, although when I did, tabs were easier, whereas sheet music made more sense for more complex composed music.

Never really thought about it until now, but the harmonica is the one instrument I play that I've never used music, tabs, or notation of any kind for; I've always played it completely by ear. I've been reading music for at least 45 years too. Disclaimer: I only play them for blues, never for ITM.

ITM is about all I play


and its EAR all the way for me

By ear, on a chrom. You can't cross-finger the buggers. I want ALL the notes.

You should check out Howard Levy..

He can play all the missing chromatic notes on a standard 10 hole harp. Even more astounding is his musicality whilst doing so.

There are lots of videos if you Google it. I've tried his method before but only met with moderate success.