Hey everybody,
I’ve been doing harmonica for just over a year now. Recently, I joined a church band and the band leader passes out sheet music for the next gig. First off, I don’t know what key the song is in. And secondly, how do I translate the sheet music into harmonica tabs? I’ve included a song that were are going to do some time in September. I need to practice before then. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!
Raven
Wow! Great to welcome church harmonica player. I played harmonica in church for many years. Now i’m playing piano on church. I think that isn’t good idea to translate notes to tabs. I think that better will be play directly from that sheet. Maybe will be usefull chart made by @HarpinBobbyMcB ( Scales - #14 by HarpinBobbyMcB ).
…But I think that this song is too hard for starting to learn notes reading.
Firstly - I reccomend to little workout:
Sheet notes that You uploaded are made for whole choir. It’s little hard to determine main melody. Here I found simpler notes for that song:
https://musescore.com/user/180241/scores/171740
I’ve also made some tabs for couple of popular church songs:
…but
I think that best way is to play by ear. Maybe You can meet with band leader and he/she will play song on piano or sing note by note and he will teach you to play that song.
Hi, Raven @12crowe and welcome to the forum.
I agree with Jan @JanDomanski that the sheet music you posted is far, far too difficult for a beginning harmonica player. You did not say anything about your harmonica: is it a 10 hole diatonic? What key is it? Is it a 10, 12, 14 or 16 hole chromatic?
I am sorry to say that regardless, this is probably beyond a quick solution. 
I have a full set of 10-hole diatonic harmonicas. Those are good ideas about tuning your ear to the music. But can you look at this piece of sheet music and know what the key would be for say a guitar player?
Ravin
If you look right at the start of the music there’s the treble symbol & the time signature 2/2, but nothing else, i.e no sharps or flats, That absence of sharps or flats in the ‘key signature’ tells you that it’s in the key of C.
You’ll need to know where the key signature is, and the scales in that key. Then figure out the most appropriate key for the harmonica (depends on the style of music - gospel is often 1st position i.e. the key of the song and the harmonica are the same). I’m not music reader, so I go through note by note and label each one (e.g write D beside each D). Then I go to the harp and find where each note is (e.g on a D harp, D is +1, +4, +7 and +10). Then I look at how the music ‘flows’ up or down (it’s easier if you already know the tune) to figure out which D on the harp is best for that part of the tune, and write that under the note (e.g +7) . It’s laborious, and rarely correct first time through, but you learn a lot about where notes are. Then you can try it with guitar chord charts!
I do it slightly different. I read step through the score & label each note relative to the key, with the ‘root’ of the key as 1. So in the key of C a D would be 2, a G would be 5 & so on. This sort of notation is called ‘scale degrees’. I also have a mental map of how the scale degrees sit on a diatonic harmonica, again with 1 as the root of the key - the blow notes are 1 3 5 1 3 5 1 3 5 1 & the draw notes 2 5 7 2 4 6 7 2 4 6.
This may seem a bit odd at first, but thinking of things this way makes tunes very portable to different keys since all major key diatonic harmonicas share the same pattern, i.e. 4 blow is always 1, 4 draw is always 2 & so on.
Since I think the same way about a guitar fretboard & the keys of a piano I can take a tune there as well. 
It may not suit you. I does suit me. Worth considering. Each to their own. 
Thanks Maka,
I figured this out on my own using the Bend It Better app, but it’s good to hear a confirmation from you that I am on the right track. This is my first try at a question on The Forum and I’m getting good feedback from everyone.
Thanks,
Raven
@12crowe Welcome to the forum!
Yeah, Google “Key Signatures” and find a cheat sheet of what sharps/flats correspond to what keys.
As someone else said this song is in the key of C. I would probably approach it with an F Harmonica.
I agree with what everyone else said, it’s best to approach these songs kind of by ear.
I am encouraged by the fact that Dolly Parton could not read sheet music. Train your ear seems to be the take home message. But, I can’t help but wonder if the music is written in the key of C, why not play the song with a C harmonica?
Raven
As you learn more about the blues harp and the notes that can be bent for each of the different harps (i.e. C harp, F harp, Bb harp, etc) you will eventually appreciate why, for example, an F harp can be more appropriate than a C harp for some songs in the key of C. I could try to explain it here, but that would require a quite ling reply – and you will learn it all much better through patient study and good lessons.
