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 tune can be played back as a Midi file, at any chosen tempo, using any chosen instrument.
Once entered, the music can be saved and reloaded later.
Copy the file 'harmonica.zip' to a suitable working folder, and unzip it. The files include the executable program 'harmonica.exe'. Set up a shortcut to the .exe file to use the program. The source code is the file 'harmonica.iwb', in which you may find some useful bits of code to use in your own programs. Other files are several tunes created by the program, which can be loaded using the File – Load menu, and an example of printed output.
This program is built around an original program 'Midi$ composer' by Jolly Roger Sept 2004.
When the program starts, the type of harmonica defaults to a 16-hole Chromatic, and the selected instrument to 'Harmonica' (although Violin also sounds nice).
A treble stave is shown 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 Crotchet or quarter note. It is highlighted in Red to show it is the selected note. It's duration can be altered using the left or right arrow keys – presses of the right arrow key for example, will select a dotted quarter note, a half note, a dotted half note, a whole note and finally a dotted whole note. 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, the Selected Note Details part of the screen, displays the currently selected note.
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 rectangle.
Clicking one of the 'Play' buttons will play the note using the selected midi instrument.
Clicking the 'Add note after Selected' button will display another note, which can be adjusted as before.
Notes are numbered from 0 upwards across the screen. If more than 16 notes are entered, the music Scrollbar becomes active, to enable scrolling the stave to the right of the screen. Up to 300 notes can be added in this way.
Use the music scrollbar to scroll through the music.
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 on the Internet – the one I've chosen is a composite of several of them.
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 is necessary to recognise the note information as quickly as possible. This enables 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, some 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 C (C4) 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 numbered all holes from the left of a 14-hole instrument 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 C 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 #).
So D# would be shown as *-5 (ie, 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 tunes can be played on a Diatonic.
Each hole provides a Blow and a Draw note.
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.
Where a note is not available, the Tablature shown under the note numbers, remains blank. In consequence, a diatonic harmonica has only a limited number of notes.
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
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 C6.
Although there are no semi-tones, the Tremolo is still a very nice instrument, on which you can play many songs.
You can play the entire tune by clicking the 'Play all Notes' button – or by pressing the Spacebar. Save the tune before playing it, so that the timing information is stored. Otherwise, the scrolling process will not be correct.
When a tune extends to the right past the edge of the screen, the program attempts to move the stave to keep the appropriate section in view – a bit like page turning.
This is tricky, because once a midi file is set running, the program has no way of knowing precisely where the music has got to. So you can't centre the currently playing note, or indicate which note it is.
So I used the rather crude method of estimating the speed of the music to move the display half a screen at a time. (Trying to scroll the screen smoothly one note at a time actually looks horribly jerky).
This works tolerably well – it's better than no scrolling at all.
Unfortunately, achieving a decent printout from a 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 tune notes, durations, and tablature.
You can read this file into any word processor and format and print it to your taste.
The program is useful for entering a tune from sheet music, and then hearing it played by any midi instrument. The violin sounds quite nice.
Tunes can be saved and re-loaded. When loaded, the instrument can be changed for all notes in the tune by selecting a new instrument and clicking the 'Change all notes to Instrument' button.
If you modify a previously saved tune, you can experiment with changing and playing it – but if you want to keep the new version, don't forget to save it again.
The speed at which the tune is played can be adjusted using the Tempo scrollbar – this is useful when practicing.