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[ton]

Hey all,

I see these pop up from time to time. LO harmonic minor and natural minor and got me curious

Since I'm just starting to play and just getting single notes down I just want to know can I easy use one of these? Me and my band play a song I'd love to try and add some harmonica to that. I just recently learned that the song is played in E minor. I figured out that a G harmonica is related to that and that's what I have. But if I would buy a LO E harmonic or natural minor would that be an easier fit to play? If so would the natural or the harmonic be better and what's the difference?

Looking further then just one song. Which other minor keys next to E are useful to have to cover multiple songs?

thanks & keep on playing!

Ton

[Frank]

Scroll down to the Natural Minor and Harmonic Minor harps and give it a read.
http://www.leeoskar.com/harmonicas.html
Natural Minor and Harmonic Minor would have the same blow notes but the draw notes have different ones that have been changed.
Harmonic Minor harps give you the sound of traditional Yiddish/Russian/Greek sounding music where as the Natural Minor harps give you more of a sound like many Pop songs from the '70's and '80's.
 If you can you really should get one of each and remember with the LO Natural Minor they're giving you the 2nd Position key, not the 1st Position key like you'd get with a "normal" Major keyed harp.
They also have a chart on the LO site that'll give you relative pitch for all the harps so you'll know what to expect. I love my Natural and Harmonic harps, they've really helped to spice things up and get me back into playing.

[ton]

Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm expecting to be playing mostly songs in Irish folk area's to start. Looking at the Em layout for the natural minor and I see the same note names as the G Major. If I look at the harmonic the seventh note is raised to D# which makes the layout a harmonic minor. I get that. But since I'm just starting out and I'm just happy to be able to hit single notes. I just want to make sure that the raised D to D# would not 'bite' the song if I'd play the harmonic D# and some others play the D from the natural minor.

Since the natural is noted as cross harp and Folk songs are mostly mentioned as straight harp I would guess the harmonic would be better suited for me to start with. I just want understand if I can hurt if playing a Harmonic Key while perhaps the others play the natural key. It's one note, what would be the odds me hitting the D# with my limited skills at the same time the violin playing the natural D!

I'd love to own all different keys in all different brands. But since I'm just starting out I should buy what I expect to use often!

Cheers,

Ton

[Frank]

Here's the key chart for the LO Natural Minor Harmonicas:

And the Key chart for the LO Harmonic Minor Harmonicas:

Study these and you'll see the difference between a Natural and Harmonic minor harp.

[Burning Thunder]

Thats some good resources! Thanks for posting!

--BT

[Frank]

Here's another one that may help you figure out which key Natural or Harmonic harmonica you'd want to buy.