[MUSIC]
Hey, now I'd like to play for
you a very simple classical piece.
Because I've just done some
unaccompanied classical pieces so
far in the beginner's section.
And I'm gonna play this one first
unaccompanied, and then with piano.
It's the Minuet in G by Bach.
It's a very simple little tune.
I'm gonna play it first in
the key of C on the C harmonica.
[MUSIC]
That's
just the first
part of
the tune.
It's much longer, it does go into
some more difficult stuff, but for
now I'm just gonna play the first part.
The only technical difficulty in
this tune is the jump of the octave.
And it's in three.
One, two, three.
[MUSIC]
You have to get
used to going
[MUSIC]
and also it's like
playing the scale.
[MUSIC]
So with these simple classical pieces,
suppose there is a minuet in G, and
you wanna play it on
the diatonic harmonica.
And you wanna have a very pure sound.
Well, its kinda hard to do it in
second position because you gonna have
to bend notes
[MUSIC]
to play it in G.
[MUSIC]
And to get that F sharp,
you need a over blown note,
which we don't know how to do yet.
And which is kind of,
it's not the easiest thing in the world
to get it sounding beautiful and clear.
So you know what?
[SOUND] I'll pick up the G harmonica.
And when you play a melody on
another key harmonica, that melody
it's in the same exact place as if
you were playing it in C on a C harp.
[MUSIC]
But if you're reading it,
if you're learning how to
read music on a harmonica.
Someone sticks a piece of music in front
of you and you look at it and you go,
it's in G.
Why don't I pick up the G harp?
And then you have to start thinking,
wait a minute,
G on the G harp is the fourth hole blow.
Because G on the C harp is the second
hole draw, and the third hole blow.
And so, and also it's a sixth hole blow.
So it's a different
hole on this harmonica.
And then you get out your pen or
pencil, and
you start writing in numbers and arrows.
That's okay in the beginning.
If you want to try to read music
on any other key harmonica,
except the C harp,
it's kind of challenging.
But what really helps,
what makes it a lot easier,
is that if you can sing the piece first.
[MUSIC]
And you know that
it starts on the fifth note of the scale.
[MUSIC]
So if you are singing the names of
the notes it's five, one, two,
three, four, five, one, one.
So whatever harmonica you pick up,
it doesn't matter what key it's in,
if you know what the first
note of the scale is.
[MUSIC]
One, two, three, four, five.
You should be able to
start on the fifth note.
[MUSIC]
Whether it's a G harmonica,
an A flat harmonica, an F harmonica.
And that's a little bit
of advice to you for
learning how to read or even think about
music on other key
harmonicas other than the C.
[MUSIC]
[MUSIC]
So now, I'm going to play the Minuet in G
for you, along with pianist
named Matthew Ganong who
kindly recorded these,
some of these classical pieces for
me that, some of which I'm gonna do later.
So here we go, the Bach Minuet in G.
[MUSIC]
And you notice
when I played it,
I didn't play
it with any heavy
blues vibrato or
anything like that.
So if someone says, play us something real
pretty in a nice major scale, I say okay,
I'll shift into that personality,
into that mode of performance and do it.
But let me do it again.
I'm gonna improvise a few little
ornaments on the Minuet in G.
And just play a little bit of variety just
to give you an idea of something that you
might be able to do.
>> One, two, three, two, two, three.
[MUSIC]
>> Just a little something.
[MUSIC]
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