Hi harmonicians.
I’ve got a question about diatonic harmonica non-blues improvisation. Harmonica isn’t my first instrument. I have learned to improvise on the piano, and when I started to learn harmonica, I visualized a piano roll in my mind and translated piano keys to harmonica notes. Key of tune/harmonica does not matter. I’m still thinking on C. For example, if I got to play a tune with those chords: F C d Bb i can play that in that ways:
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pick F harmonica and play in first position, thinking about those chords: C G a F or…
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If I need a more bluesy sound, pick the Bb harmonica and play thinking: G D e C
That way works nice in my brain, but there are some challenges.
When I want to describe notes or licks that I play for other harmonicians, I will say:
" i’m playing notes c b e f e d but on harmonica F so that notes will really some other ones. I don’t care which exactly".
I feel that message will be very unprofessional. I am right?
Most of diatonic harmonicians are shaped by tabulatures so they expect which channels exactly I’m playing. There is little problem. Often I don’t know which channels I play. I know which notes I’m playing if that harmonica will be C, so I’m thinking in C.
That way of thinking led me to a reliable understanding of melodies, but I’m worried if I want to teach somebody, I will do him wrongful brainwashing.
So I’ve thought it over and maybe It’s good way of thinking in C is by roman numbers. For melodies exactly as keyless chords progression are decribed: F C d Bb will be I-V-vi-IV. For me will be hard to swich my brain and start to thinking by numbers insted of C-key notes. But it maybe will good starting point to fresh minds? Diatonic harmonicas are key-independent so thinking about notes as numbers maybe is good idea… I’am right? That will help avoid misunderstandings or brings more problems?
And there are another question: sheetnotes.
I heard that there are some diatonic harmonicians who can read sheetnotes in some key and play it on harmonica on other key. For only thinking about it my brain starting to boiling. I think that there is something to be determined. If there is composition for the band. And we need to create whole score for harmonica/bass/drums/piano and we know that this tune will be played on Bb harmonica. Than we can do transposed sheetnotes exactly as for trumpeters? Of course: for other instruments notes will be untransposed. And what about chords? Is good idea to write chords transposed for harmonica and untransposed for other instruments? Or maybe completely reject C-key chords for the benefit of the roman numbers?
Assuming: is good idea for harmonicians to completely replace notes names and chords to roman numbers and always write sheetnotes transposed to C-key and describe above key of harmonica? Or maybe force us to learn concert-pitch notes for non C-key harmonicas? Or always dual-thinking: transposed and untransposed?
Is there some industry standard for this?