You were so helpful last time.
I want to play “the lonesome ballad of hattie carrol” by bob dylan.
My music sheets tell me it is played on capo 4 and the first chord is a C relative to the capo. I believe it is telling me that this is an actual E chord but I am not sure. Do I need an E harmonica?
I have harmonicas in B flat, C, D and G. Where would the capo have to be to use these?
I’m not familiar with the song, but assuming the music you have is right, you would be playing four semitones up from C, which is indeed E. To play it in C, just don’t use a capo. To play it in D, put the capo on the 2nd fret. This would be the closest to the original key. To play it in G, you could put the capo on the 7th fret, and for Bb, the 10th. However, it might be easier to transpose the chords for those keys. If the progression is C, F, G, that would be G, C, D, in G, and Bb, Eb, F in Bb. Basically, every chord will just be up a fifth for G, or down a step for Bb. The key of Bb has two flats, Bb and Eb, and the key of G has one sharp, F#. If you need more help transposing, post the chord progression.
Well, that would be true if you were playing straight harp, meaning a diatonic harmonica in the same key as the music. But a lot of popular and blues tunes don’t sound good that way and some can’t be played at all that way. Dylan and a lot of other harp players often play in “cross harp” which means you use a harmonica that is tuned to the fourth of the scale. So if you were playing a song in G, you would use a C harmonica to play cross harp. Doing that puts the notes of the G scale on the draw reeds in the middle of the harp, which are your really strong notes, and the ones you can most easily do special effects on like “bends.” Sitting here at my computer, I can’t remember how Dylan plays that one, but if you try straight harp on it and it doesn’t work, that is probably what is going on.
BTW, there are multiple harmonica message boards out there. I don’t have link because I am on my work computer, but a search will find them. Folks on those sites, will tell you exactly what Dylan did on that tune and will even give you harp tablature for it.
he most likely played that song cross harp with an A. don’t think twice is played the same way. And for the love of god, don’t soak your harps in whiskey.
Bob Dylan normally plays straight harp. Having listened to a live version of the song, it’s certainly a straight harp (at least in the version I just listened to). If it’s got that “Piano Man” folk sound, it’s straight. If it’s got that bending blues sound, it’s cross.
Or to put it in Dylan terms: “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” – Cross Harp. “Blowing In The Wind,” “Times They Are a Changing,” “Positively 4th Street,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” almost everything else - Straight Harp.