Best bluesy sounding key

I want to give my dad a Hohner Marine Band Deluxe/Crossover for his birthday. He’s a blues enthusiast to the core, and I was wondering which key would give the most authentic blues sound. I was thinking about E or A? I’m more of an Lee Oskar melody guy , so I’m a bit unsure.

All the best :pray:
Anders
Denmark

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Hi @Andersamigo thats a tuff question because blues are played in so many different keys

The thing to remember with blues is it’s in 2nd position on harmonica.

So If he want to play in:
E he’ll need an A harmonica
A = D harmonica
G = C harmonica
Etc…

Here a nice cheat sheet / resource for you

Hope that helps

Best
Mike

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Start him with the C harp if he wants to seriously learn the instrument, all the keys can sound “bluesy” with proper technique and note choice. Hope this helps.

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@Andersamigo
If they play along to a Blues song or backing track that’s Bluesy the harp should sound Bluesy if you find a backing track on YouTube in G and play along with a c harmonica they should get the general idea, for bending and other techniques just pop over her to this site and go through the posts there’s a lot here on various techniques

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A is a great key for blues since most guitar players gravitate to key of E!

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