I’m a lifelong musician. I play mostly unaccompanied, acoustic guitar, singing, and a little harmonica.
I’ve been playing Diatonic harmonica for a long time. I play mostly in the 2nd position, the “blues” harmonica style. But I haven’t improved in a long time. I’ve tried the Chromatic, but never got the hang of it.
Lately I’m getting invited to play harmonica for others. I’m only fluent in that 2nd “blues” position, but everybody seems to enjoy it.
I’d like to expand my musical range. To do this, I need to learn other styles. I assume the first step would be to learn to play fluently in the 1st position. Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, et al.
I’ve always envied full-time harp players. I’d love to bring all my gear to a gig in my coat pocket. 
Suggestions welcome.
TIA.
If you’re serious, make sure you have 12 harps, one foe each key. I’ve seen some decent harp players just blow it because they picked the wrong harp. Remember, to cross harp, you need to choose a harp a fourth above whatever key you’re in so you can get that flat seventh. If you’re playing in A, choose a D harp for instance.
I got that. I always have all twelve harps on me. Since most of my experience is playing solo acoustic guitar, I have to be playing the right harp, or everyone will know it instantly.
Cross harp is the easy part. I want to get better at other positions.
Right now, I’m trying to learn the first position better by playing “Happy Birthday“, “Oh Susanna“, or any major-key melody I can think of. This seems like the thing I should have learned first, before tackling cross harp.
The ability to play any single note seems to be more important in the first position. Second position “blues” harp seems to be more forgiving, once you learn a few licks.
You and I must have learned harmonica opposite ways. I started playing single notes in… “first position” (?). Anyway, apart from “just put your lips together and blow” I don’t have much advice for you.
Other than that perhaps playing single notes seemed natural to me because I came from playing the trumpet, which like many wind instruments requires maintaining an… (I had to like the spelling up) “embouchure” to direct airflow into the instrument. For the record, I use what this page describes as the “pucker” technique for single notes (and it never occurred to me to do it any other way because, again, that’s pretty analogous to how you play a trumpet):
The idea of sticking my tongue on my harmonica sickens me…
Thanks for this.
Your advice, and the link you provided, make me think that I need to focus on playing a single note via the “pucker” technique, concentrating on the sound.
Regarding sickening harmonica scenes: in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the old prospector is seen eating beans and bacon, puts his dish down, and picks up a harmonica and plays it. EEK!
I’m only a medium-level harmonica player, but I would encourage 1st, 2nd, and 3rd positions. 1st for folk, 2nd for blues-type stuff, 3rd for minor key, blues stuff. You can also do 5th position for that. 1st position is difficult to sound “soulful” as your bends are not really in the right places for that. That’s why 2nd position sounds good on so many songs, because our pop music tradition has a lot of blues backbone to it and all your interesting notes bend helpfully there. Is your bending technique pretty good?
To add: (embouchure is a big one, and being able to produce full, resonant notes and control their tone through the shape of your mouth is important):
Technically, you can play in all 12 keys on a diatonic harp – a chromatic scale can be played end to end – but it’s really fricking difficult to do well (requiring additional techniques like overblowing and overdrawing and usually some fine-tuning of the reeds on your comb) and also, some keys are still going to be better than others depending on where the bends fall.
I would just start by concentrating on 1st and 2nd position, making sure you have clean, controllable bends, and you have 95% of the harmonica you need for popular music. Also practice breathing and stopping, stuff like those old-fashioned train-chugging rhythms. Another thing is learn tongue blocking – there’s a lot of first position stuff you can play single note melodies with tongue blocking and accompany them with chords by unblocking.
I’m a terrible harmonica player, so I only really have suggestions for things to buy to make it easier. Lee Oskar has a line of harmonicas that come in several keys. For example, the Melody Maker allows you to play major keys in the 2nd position. I’ve got a natural minor one on my desk here, I like it a lot.
This page has a description on what notes are altered. The listed key is the cross harp key.
https://leeoskarharmonicas.com/ufaqs/understanding-1st-2nd-position/
Oh, that’s pretty cool! I had never known such a thing existed. 2nd position is mostly major, though, minus the flat 7. I’d be curious to check it out. I assume the flat 7 is a normal major 7th. Wonder how moving around on that thing would be. ETA: Oh, I didn’t scroll far enough. Yes, that’s what happens.
If you’re serious, make sure you have 12 harps, one for each key. I’ve seen some decent harp players just blow it because they picked the wrong harp. Remember, to cross harp, you need to choose a harp a fourth above whatever key you’re in so you can get that flat seventh. If you’re playing in A, choose a D harp for instance.
ETA: sounds like you know what you’re doing. I think the main difference between straight harp and cross harp is the flat 7th and also in straight harp you blow to get your key, while with cross harp, you suck. Happy Bday is pretty straightforward on straight harp, I think, melody or chords.
Maybe I’m dumb (or a lousy harp player) but if a song’s in E minor (for example) I play a G harp, first position. (i.e. the relative major of E minor). Seems to sound OK.
I think it’s easier to play in minor keys with Melody Maker harps, possiby because I’m used to the second position, which I find more forgiving of hitting adjacent notes. If you can play in a relative minor key on a standard diatonic, you’re a better player than I am.
That would be fourth position, and it made me realize I accidentally mentioned 5th position where I meant fourth in my previous post. This would essentially be playing Aeolian mode.