Help...a friend has asked me to play on Firecracker, a Ryan Adams tune with what sounds like simple, beginner-like harp playing on it.
Well, I can't find a harp in my collection that gets it right. Closest seems to be a Bb, but I seem to be blowing on what sounds like him drawing. I suspect a funky tuning but just don't know.
Hopefully, this embeds the Youtube version I'm working with.
I just tried it on an Eb harp in 2nd position (Bb) and get what I think is a perfect match. Start working on the 4 draw and you'll hear a lot of the notes and general chords/tonality start hitting home.
Thanks. I'll ask the guitar player to move the capo as he seems to pick the key that works for him and it is often different than the record anyway. We're doing When you're Young and Shakedown on 9th Street along with 16 Days as well. Figures that when he picks a song with harp, it's harder to do than just making stuff up on the other tunes.
Any of you players that like Alt-country want to start a new thread on songs you do?
Story on the subject of Alt-country and the major scale: My neighbor said he had a song he wanted me to play harp on. I listened to him play it and I said, "That's a country song." He said, yeah, but I want you to blues it up with your harp.
Now, I've been doing my best to listen to the Buddha's teachings on here, so I decided I would learn the basic riff of the song and comp the guitar instead of blowing blues riffs over the major pentatonic.
Anyway, he insisted the song was in the key of G, but as I learned the riff I recognized it as nothing more than a Descending Major Pent in the key of C. I got to thinking, and there is only one note difference between the two keys' major pent scale. Maybe another subtle "trick" that's good to know if you are short a harp and somebody calls out something major to play!
If you find a harp that is blowing where you think you should be drawing on a song you probably are only off by one harp on the circle of fifths. Just try the ones on either side.
Question to Buddha or anybody with more theory than me:
Neighbor still wants me to do what he calls a "Bluesy harp Solo"in the song. If playing typical blues licks over a major scaled country song ISN'T the best musical way to approach the situation, would it be acceptable to play minor pentatonic licks over the song key's relative minor?
i.e. If the song is in G I could play Minor Pent E scale?
Nacoran, thanks for the link. That's a good idea, but I'm not really into special tunings. I can get all the notes I need by overbending. I'm digging into theory here.
Buddha, yes I can probably make an mp3 of it one of these days. And to be honest, I'm not really into playing blues as much as I used to be. I've been taking your advice and not trying to play harp licks. I have been visiting alot of guitar players websites looking for new material to play and I came across one guy's tip about playing the A minor pentatonic scale over C major chords. I hadn't tried it so I wanted to see if anybody thought that sounded feasable, or if it was internet B.S.
So if I wanted key of C 12th position would be a G harp. The 4d would then become the major 6th, and the 6d natural would be the major 3rd. Those are all still notes in the major scale. I've never played them and had them sound bluesy, but maybe I've been doing it in the wrong context.
You say you like 12th for country. On another side note, I have noticed that the minor pentatonic "rock" guitar licks I have been stealing from the web sound the best in 3rd position as opposed to 2nd.
Preston I'm sure you know this, but the A (relative) minor pentatonic A C D E G
Are the same notes as the C major pentatonic C D E G A
So yes playing Am over C would sound fine (and very major). I've only tried to keep to the pentatonic when playing cross harp or straight harp.
12th certainly looks feasible but similarly with 2nd position you need to get those 3 draw double-step bends, which I find difficult to incorporate accurately. And as Buddha says, you can bend the 6 draw to add a little blues scale colour.
What do you mean when you say 3rd position - is that relative to the actual key or the relative minor? For example, for a song in C major, the pentatonic in 3rd position (a Bb harp) would be tricky - at lest to me, as you'd need the 5ob. But if you mean playing 3rd in Am (a G harp) over C major chords - well, then I'd say you're already playing 12th position!
At least I think so, as I've no doubt confused myself with all this theory
You are right. I'll be honest to say that so far I've never made an attempt to understand minor chords. I knew each key had a relative minor 3 half steps down and thats ALL I knew. It never dawned on me that the minor pent. scale would match it's relative major chords major pent. scale. Makes my head hurt a little bit, but it's slowly sinking in.
When I say 3rd position, I mean 3rd position on the harp, relative to the major key. But I see where you are going.
