This program describes Harmonica Tablature for any piece of music entered on the treble stave.
It can be used for any type of harmonica – Diatonic, Tremolo, or 12, 14, or 16 hole Chromatic.
The music can be saved and reloaded later.
When you save the music, a file of type ‘.music’ is created which can be reloaded for further work. A corresponding file ‘out.txt’ is also created. This file can be read into a word processor, formatted as preferred, and then printed for a hard copy.
Copy the file 'harmonica.zip' to a suitable working folder, and unzip it. The files include the executable program 'harmonica.exe'. To make the program easily accessible, set up a shortcut to the 'harmonica.exe' file.
The source code is the file 'harmonica.cba'.
Other files include several tunes created by the program, (which can be loaded using the File – Load menu), an example of printed output, and two .jpg pictures used by the program.
When the program starts, the type of harmonica defaults to a 16-hole Chromatic.
A treble and partial bass stave is shown, together with leger lines, covering the range of notes available on a 16-hole chromatic harmonica.
A single starting note is shown for middle C. This is assigned a note number 0, which is shown below the note.
Initially, the note is a quarter note (Crotchet). It is highlighted in Red to show it is the currently selected note.
Its duration can be altered using the left or right arrow keys – press the right arrow key to increase note duration - for example a half note (Minim) or Whole note.
Pressing the left arrow key will decrease note duration to Eighth or Sixteenth notes.
Note that dotted notes are not used. For harmonica playing, the small increase in duration (half as long again as the original note) is assumed to be absorbed into the playing style.
The shape of the note changes to an ellipse of appropriate width.
The note can be moved up or down the stave using the up and down arrow keys.
As it moves, an icon of the Selected Note is displayed in a centre box.
A Rest can be entered if required, and its duration set in the same way as a note, using the left and right arrow keys. A Rest is shown as a blue/green rectangle.
Clicking the 'Add note after Selected' button will display another note, which can be positioned and adjusted as described above.
Notes are numbered from 0 upwards across the screen. If more than 16 notes are entered, a music Scrollbar becomes active, which enables scrolling the stave to the right of the screen. Up to 400 notes can be added in this way.
Use the music scrollbar to scroll through the music.
It is helpful when finding your place in the music to enter a Bar Line after each bar of notes. This will be saved when you save the music, and will be included as a " ¶" character in the printed output.
Tablature is a text-based system indicating which holes of a harmonica should be used to obtain a required note. There are many tablature methods – the one I've chosen is a composite of several of those often found on the Internet.
Tablature is used as a simple alternative to reading sheet music. However, learning to read music is always recommended.
The idea is simplicity and ease of reading. It should be possible to recognise the note information quickly, and to enable the player to press in the slide (if necessary), move to the required hole, and play the note.
Let's take a look at tablature for the 12-hole chromatic harmonica first. This type of harmonica has 12 holes and 48 reeds. The top cover is engraved with numbers 1 to 12 indicating each hole.
Hole 1 (top row) provides middle C if Blown, and a D if Drawn. Pressing in the slide provides (bottom row) C# if Blown, and D# if drawn ..
Pressing in the slide always sharpens a note by a semi-tone.
So, example tablature characters are ..
5 means Blow hole 5
-5 means Draw hole 5
*5 means Slide IN and Blow hole 5
*-5 means Slide IN and Draw hole 5
That's it.
So the tablature for a scale beginning at Hole 1, C4 and going up to C5 is:
1 -1 2 -2 3 -3 -4 5
Now what happens if you play a 14-hole chromatic harmonica?
This type of harmonica has the same holes as a 12-hole harmonica – plus two extra holes on the left for lower notes down to low G.
The cover plate will often be engraved with two dots – followed by numbers 1 to 12 as before.
For consistency, I've referred to
holes from the left of a 14-hole instrument as numbers 1 to 14.
So middle C will now be found by blowing hole 3, and D by drawing hole 3 .. and so on.
This means tablature for the scale beginning at Hole 3, C on a 14-hole instrument is:
3 -3 4 -4 5 -5 -6 7
A 16-hole chromatic harmonica has all the holes 1 to 12 of a 12-hole instrument, plus 4 extra holes on the left for lower notes down to low C (C3) - an octave below middle C (C4).
These lower holes are often engraved 1 to 4, followed by the usual numbers 1 to 12. For consistency, I've numbered the holes from the left of a 16-hole instrument 1 to 16.
So middle C will now be found by blowing hole 5, and D by drawing hole 5 .. and so on. The playing patterns are just the same.
This means tablature for the scale beginning at Hole 3 (C3) on a 16-hole instrument is:
5 -5 6 -6 7 -7 -8 9
You press the slide in to obtain
tones a semi-tone higher – ie, Sharps #.
This is indicated in the tabulation by the * character.
So D# on a 16 hole instrument would be shown as *-5 - meaning Slide In (*), Draw hole 5)
One other comment concerning chromatic harmonicas is that several C notes are repeated – as in holes 4/5, 8/9, and 12/13 of a 16-hole instrument. So which one to play? The answer seems to be either – but another reasonable view is to play the upper option. An important skill obtained by practice, is to move cleanly to each required note. This is made easier by sticking to a regularly practiced lateral movement for any given note.
A Diatonic Harmonica has
no slide mechanism, and so no Sharps are built in directly. The standard diatonic instrument has
only 10 holes in a single row, providing a partial range from middle C4
to upper C7.
Only the middle octave has a complete scale of notes, C5 to C6.
The first octave is missing notes F and A, and the highest octave is missing note B.
This is a limitation of a diatonic harmonica, and so although a little more expensive, I prefer a Chromatic instrument, which has all notes available. Nevertheless, many simple tunes can be played on a Diatonic.
Each hole provides a Blow and a Draw note.
If you are skilled enough, it is possible to 'bend' notes down by several semi-tones by adjusting the tongue shape. However, the technique is very difficult, and the notes produced are to my ear not 'pure'. For this reason, I've only included the directly available notes in the tabulation.
If you find you can bend notes, great.
Where a note is not available, the Tablature shown under the note numbers, will show a "_" character. In consequence, a diatonic harmonica has only a limited number of notes available.
Finally, there is the Tremolo Harmonica.
The largest of these has 24 holes on each upper and lower row.
That sounds like a lot of notes, but the characteristic of a Tremolo instrument is to provide a wavering sound for each note. It does this by having two reeds for each note, tuned slightly apart in frequency – this gives the warbling effect. So the lower row of holes is there for the tremolo effect, not to provide extra notes.
The Blow and Draw facility found on the other harmonica types, also requires two holes – one for the Blow note, and one for the Draw note.
Consequently, what appeared to be a lot of notes on a tremolo harmonica reduces to only 12 separate notes – but they do sound nice.
In fact the instrument can be considered as having 12 positions or 'groups of notes'.
So the tablature for a Tremolo harmonica refers to 'playing positions', rather than individual holes.
You will find middle C (C4) as a Blow note at Position 1 – the tablature showing as 1
You play this by positioning your mouth over the first group of 4 holes from the left and Blowing.
The next note D, is obtained by Drawing at the same position.
To play a Tremolo scale of the first octave, the tablature is:
1 -1 2 -2 3 -3 -4 4
Remember the numbers now relate to 'positions' – ie groups of 4 holes.
The 24-hole Tremolo harmonica has a range of 3 full octaves C4 to C6, but of course there are no Sharps.
You might think the note layout a bit strange – but just play it as it comes, and it works out pretty well.
The Baritone version has only 21 notes, so it’s missing 3 notes, and has only 11 hole ‘groups instead of 12. The notes on a Baritone harmonica sound an octave lower than the 24-hole Tremolo harmonica - i.e. C3 to C5.
Although there are no semi-tones, the Tremolo is still a very nice instrument, on which you can play many songs.
Unfortunately, achieving a decent printout from any program is very difficult.
Some folk have tried HTML loaded into a Browser window – but there's a lot of work involved in that method. Others have tried 3rd party software libraries for printing, but they have to be purchased.
In the end, I decided just to export a single, unformatted, text file 'out.txt' containing all the notes, durations, and tablature for a given tune.
You can read this file into any word processor and format and print it to your taste.
The printed output will show the notes, rests and bar line separators for the music as well as the Tab details.
The program is useful for entering any tune from sheet music, and obtaining a printable Tablature output to help find the notes on your harmonica.
A simple duration indicator is also provided.
For this, the following notation is used :
w = ">>" : ' Whole note duration
h = ">" : ' half note duration (minim)
q = "|" : ' quarter note duration (crochet)
e = "<" : ' eighth note duration (quaver)
s = "<<" : ' sixteenth note duration
(Note: dotted notes are just absorbed into playing style ..)
Tunes can be saved and re-loaded to make any required changes.
If you modify a previously saved tune, you can experiment with changing it – but if you want to keep the new version, don't forget to save it again.
Also note that the printable 'out.txt' file created when you save a piece of music, will be overwritten when you save another tune.
If you need to save a printable version of a new tune, copy the existing 'out.txt' file to another file named for the tune that created it.