As I fell in love with The Pogues Dirtly Old Town song that @Luke is teaching the intro in the “Beginner to Boss” course, I want to do the intermediate instrumental piece after the first two couplets so that I can play and sing the song (although nobody wants to hear me singing…). I looked for music sheets and frankly none of them are the same
But I tried to tab that instrumental section myself using a combination of the music sheet and listening at slow speed to the song to follow Luke’s advice about tabs. The music sheet I used is this one 1 (page 8 and 9). And note that I do not know how to read music sheets…
So here is my interpretation.
First it seems it is played in key of C (compared to the intro in D). So on a C harmonica I came up with the following tabs:
3 3 3 -3’’ 4 5
4 -4 5 4 3
5 6 -6 6 5 -4 4 5
6 -6 6 5 4 -4 5 4 3
3 -3’’ 3 -3’’ 4 5 4 -4
4 -4 5 -4 4 -3’’ 3 -3’’
It sounds approximately correct when I try to play along but I’m sure it’s not entirely correct.
Listening carefully, it in fact sounds that on almost every -4 and -6 the pipe player is doing the equivalent of a very short -4’/-6’ bend and release.
So for example
5 6 -6 6 5 -4 4 5
sounds like it is played as
5 6 -6 -6’-6 6 5 -4-4’-4 4 5
But although it sounds cool when I listen to the pipe player it doesn’t sound as cool when I try with those short bends compare to skipping them (probably it’s just my technique). It sounds like I’m breaking the melody rather than adding anything to it. I guess I should follow Luke’s advice and just play what sounds good.
Review and feedback would be appreciated. Thank you.
Sonny Terry, when auditioned to play for the Finian’s Rainbow stage show was asked ‘can you do exactly the same every night for three minutes?’ He replied *‘no, it always comes out different depends on how I feel’'. I don’t know what @Luke has said but in my view tabs or sheet music are fine to give a starting point, once you’ve got the tune into your head that’s the way to play it from your head and heart not your eyes trying to follow dots or tabs, it will never come out the same every time but it will have soul. Jay1
@Jay1 I fully agree. This is why there are things in the music sheet which do not sound to match to my opinion and I omitted them. Also the seemingly bend-release the pipe player is doing do not sound good when I try them and it is also not played in the intro so it sounds weird to me to play one tune one way in one place and differently somewhere else.
In the end as @Luke said several times “if it sounds good it is good”. But as I am a beginner who started learning harmonica 3 months ago, and it is the first time I try to tab just part of a song, I lack confidence and am looking to confirm my “starting point” is correct.
I’m also interested in seeing how others would tab that intermediate instrumental section as it would be an interesting way to learn how others interpret a song by hear.
Thank you
Just an add-on to the previous post. Talking to one of the other session players about music not from dots/tabs when he said ‘I’ve noticed when you’re playing you have your eyes shut’. Didn’t realise I was doing it but others have confirmed it. Jay1
@Harp63 I switch harmonica. I do the intro in D and then switch to a C harmonica for the instrumental piece. This way I can keep playing the same sequences on the same holes. I think playing the instrumental piece on a D harmonica will require a lot of bending
