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Harmonica Lessons: "Whiter Shade of Pale"

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[MUSIC].

For any of you who were around in the 60s,

this tune will bring back
a whole bunch of memories.

The melody went

[MUSIC].

It's a A Whiter Shade Of Pale
by Procol Harum.

A lot of 60s rock tunes had flavors
of classical music in them.

Some of them were just direct
paraphrases stolen from

famous composers like Mozart and
Beethoven and Bach.

This one is a paraphrase of a Bach melody,
and no one is exactly sure.

It's not note for note, it's kind
of a paraphrase of a Bach chorale.

But then the rest of the tune has these
lyrics that are [LAUGH] very surreal and

have to do with Chaucer and
all sorts of other

things that nobody quite understood what
in the world they were talking about.

But that's part of the charm [LAUGH] and
the mystique of the tune.

So this is A Whiter Shade
of Pale by Procol Harum.

And I'm going to start out
the melody on a C harp.

I think this one's a little more in tune.

And then I'm going to play the main
melody of the tune on a G harp.

So that for basic players you're not
going to have to bend any notes,

I hope,
to play the basic melody of this tune.

Okay, here we go.

[MUSIC].

The melody, the fake Bach melody
[MUSIC]

is the same chords as the vocal part.

And the reason why I switched from
the C harp to the G harp is because I

wanted you basic players to be able to
play this melody in a satisfying way, and

the only way you can play the melody of
this tune without having to bend a note,

is to use the G harmonica in the key of C.

So that is using the 5th hole draw.

[SOUND] That's the note C, and

that's the key we're in
[MUSIC].

And there's no F in the melody, which
is one of the notes of C major scale.

C, D, E, F, G, A, B.

It uses C, D, E, G, A and B, but not F.

That's why it works on the G harp.

Because the G harp has an F-sharp,

so we're going around that note
[MUSIC].

And I'm bending the sixth hole in
several of these basic lessons.

I'm just putting a little
inflection on it.

This is incentive for
you to learn how to bend

[MUSIC].

But you don't need to
bend to get the pitch.

It's just expression
[MUSIC].

Fourth hole

the same thing

[MUSIC].

It's in sort of a narrow
range on the G harp.

But it's very effective and
expressive, and

this is a really good
key to play melodies in.

A lot of melodies fit and
sound very lyrical, and then the Bach

chorale part again is on the C harp
[MUSIC],

and I'm going to allow you to learn this.

So if any of you want to do performances
of this, A Whiter Shade of Pale and

send me a video,
I'd love to hear it and see it.

Thanks.

[MUSIC]

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