It might be interesting to get some idea of how many on the forum play diatonic; how many play chromatic how many play both and the different musical genres played? To kick off I play chromatic, have played diatonic but not now and genres are anything the studio ask for Jay1
Lee Oscar Major Diatonics, and Natural Minors. Love em!
Diatonic – blues and jazz. Chromatic as needed or appropriate, but I haven’t invested the time to really play it as it should be.
Crossovers.
So far it’s 4 diatonic /1.5 chromatic Jay1
Mostly Diatonic
I play a bunch of Sp 20’s backed up by East Tops, Sonny Boys, Lee Oskers.
I have also added Lucky 13 power benders as I love the deeper 1 2 and three, great for Sonny Boy Williamson style stuff.
And I’m now making slow progress on my East Top forerunner, planning to buy a few more of these for the William Clarke/ Paul Delay type stuff.
The music I play is West Coast blues and Chicago Blues, but I’ve started adding soul and Cajun as these are fun to play and break things up a bit. Sometimes the wife will ask me to play some country or bluegrass because she loves that, and I’ve been promising her I’ll learn some Irish stuff too it’s getting the time
@Andy2 Getting the time is always a problem. I mostly play my C Forerunner just using the others if it makes things easier. For Irish reversing the slide doesn’t work on Forerunners as they have the notes laid out in alternating, zig-zag pattern, On rare occasions I’m asked to play Cajun or Irish music I tend to use a Tremolo chromatic I picked up for next to nothing in Singapore several years ago, it’s Asian tuned which is a bit odd.Jay1
Asian tuned? Blimey I bet that’s a nightmare to play?
Nightmare to listen to plays all the right notes just in a different order. Jay1
A harmonica designed by Morecambe and Wise!
I’ve had a bit of luck today, I’ve got an old 12 hole marine band harmonica the kind that Sonny Boy Williamson II played, but when I bought it years ago ( in the 80’s) it was awful out of the box, anyway with my new found gapping and tinkering skills I’ve managed to bring ye olde harp back to life, and it now sounds like a brand new harp. It cost me around 30 quid in the 80’s they’re double that now. So I’m really pleased this is going in my gig bag, if I get the opportunity to play it I will, the Vamping and SuperVamping I’ve been learning from a vid @davidkachalon posted works really well on this harp and it’s actually helped with the technique more, I’ve been transferring it over to my Lucky 13’s listening to Sonny Boy play on YouTube has also helped point me in the right direction it’s a lot better than it was anyway
In the 80’s I believe from one of my old catalogues they were available in Richter and Solo tuning, I’ve never had one, don’t think I’ve even seen one. What tuning and key is yours? Jay1
It’s in a C tuning and it’s a Richter, plays really well.
I play both , love David Barrett’s lessons , blues harmonica.com, for chromatic, very challenging
Just my Diatonic Seydel Session for now.
Earlier in my practice (currently 6 months in) I wanted more harmonicas such as paddy richter D/G, low G, etc and I will eventually get em but with the stuff I’m currently practicing this is actually more than enough
As a fairly casual harmonica player at the moment, I share time equally between diatonics, chromatics, octaves and tremolos. I’ve got a playlist of different genres which I play on all 4 different harmonica types.
Unfortunately I’ve never been able to “bend” after spending hours trying!! So the blues is pretty much out. Tends to be pop, folk and a little classical.
Yuriythebest –
Nice photo of the harp. So much more interesting and inviting than overhead shots of the covers that the companies use