I’m trying to figure this out, lol. It’s a little awkward.
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Use the magnifying glass icon to search for topics or headings. When you want to reply to someone’s post specifically hit reply. You can private message them with the envelope as well. You can @MidwestFolkPunk them to reference them in a continuation of a post or general reply. The rest will come with experience. There are heaps of topics for beginners here so it’s important to search the question you have before you start a new topic. Hope that helps a bit.
Toog
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As others have said, it will depend on the type of tunes you want to play or play along with, but if I had to choose one. Let’s say I’m locked up in a Turkish prison (Obviously on a trumped-up charge for a crime I didn’t commit) and I could have one harmonica; it would be A for me.
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Two cool A. Harmonica tunes. A team by Ed Sheeren and Evanesance my Immortal. Both require tissues at the ready.
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Aggghhh No! I agree, beautiful songs but I just counted the tunes I can play. Theres 38 of them, plus a couple in process and several more on the waiting list. Tissue songs are my favorites, now you’ve added a couple more. I need some psych therapy.
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sniff…Tissue Songs…
C B flat and G. At times A, Just depends on the song.
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D Minor.
It’s the saddest of all keys…
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There are several subjects of keys:
-
Tone range
As Luke saw, harps usually starts from G. Harmonicas from G to C are low harps for me and have nice harm sound. Up from C: they are high harmonicas, which I don’t like very much. High F is completely unacceptable for me.
But harmonica isn’t the only instrument in the band. In choice of key we must remember especially about bass and vocals. The Lowest note in 4-string bass guitar is E, 5-string basses can play even low B, but super-low bass notes aren’t so versatile. They push music style more to soul and jazz; higher bass notes are best for rock pop and reggae.
For vocals, the best range is one octave from A to A. If vocals fits in this range, or oven narrower (from B to G) we can expect a crowd to sing together with us (in church, for example).
Searching for a good key is often searching for a golden mean for all instruments tone ranges in the band. -
Mood
All the keys have different moods. Dominico saws that D-Minor is saddest for him. This is subjective for everyone. I think that the first person who invented key-moods relations was Alexandr Scriabin. In the XX century, he associated mood of colors to mood of keys (see “Clavier à lumières” in wiki). Here are personal moods of some keys:
C: This is the most obvious and non-surprising key for me. The Last C note in the song in C is like a strong claim for me.
G: This is joyful, but not so crazy for me. This key reminds me together singing songs in outdoor landscape with friends. I very like the guitar background e-minor chord and low vocal notes. I can name this key: wooden friendship.
D: is similar to G, but more lightweight.
As we’re looking at the circle of fifths, G key is for me most strong, heavy, wooden, and big. Then starting from D and ending as E: keys are lighter for me. More metallic. And E is the most lightweight key for me.
And then…
Bb: this key is a brass key for me. This is related to wind instruments like the trumpet. This key and similar (Eb and F) remind me of Louis Armstrong tunes.
I know that these are my subjective feelings, but I’m sure that keys has moods.
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I find the vocal range can go all the way up to D and be easy for people to sing along with.
I agree with 4-string for rock and pop, but 5-string is optimal for soul as you say, and reggae as well in my opinion, as well as hip hop.
But it sounds great in If You Wanna: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiZtXvECE_Y
And Good Morning
https://youtu.be/Zj293l5w2MU?si=r2MuOjt_VyWEHetd&t=8
And sooo many country tunes. It might sound high on its own, but it cuts wonderfully through a dense mix.
@dominico I wish I could find the chart they showed me in one of my classes when I was doing my Music Production degree at Berklee College - it was a list from the Middle Ages of all the keys and what they’re good for. One that I remember was that Bm was considered the most depressing, and a good key for “contemplation of suicide” 
wow.
In Tom Morello (guitarist of Rage against the Machine) says, “If you wanna rock hard boys and girls, lean on F#.”
In terms of harmonica range, I think I probably like the keys of Bb and B. Not too high, not too low. That’s the sweet spot for me. But not to many tunes you can use your B harp on! (Unless you’re playing some Rage Against the Machine in F# 
)
Great chatting this stuff with you guys!