Chords for How to Play a Chromatic Harmonica | Harmonica 101

_ _ _ Hi, my name is Marcus Milius.
I play harmonica.
I got [G] a degree at the University of Southern
California, a Bachelor's of Music in Jazz Studies, Chromatic Harmonica.
I play and teach
harmonica here in New York City, and I'm happy to show you what I do.
[Em] _ _ [Am] _ _ _
[Em] All right, so playing the chromatic [C] harmonica, you'll first need a chromatic harmonica [B] rather
than a diatonic harmonica.
[C] _ The technique is pretty basic.
Once you get a single note
on a diatonic, the same technique [F] applies to the chromatic.
The only [C] difference is that
you have a [Am] slide on the chromatic harmonica to get you the notes that you ordinarily [G] bend
or overblow to on [F] the diatonic.
That makes it a [C] lot easier to hit notes that aren't in
[F] the key.
You simply just press the [Am] button, and it sharps [Em] any note up a half-step.
So
if you have a C, [C] _ _
[C#] it [Am] sharps up to a C sharp.
A D, up to a D sharp.
[D#] _ _ _ _ _ [C#] _ _
_ [Am] _ _ [E] So all notes will sharp
[Am] up a half-step when you press the [Em] slide.
_ The thing that does [Am] make that [C] difficult is playing
in C is very [F] easy, but playing in other keys [B] means you have to locate the correct notes
and know [F] when not to press in [Am] the slide and when to press in the [G] slide.
So each scale,
[F] each key is [B] very different.
So here would be a major scale in [F] several keys.
_ [D] _ _ _ _ _
_ [C#] _ _ _ So [Em] each key is a
different pattern [Am] that you have to learn.
_ _ [Em] _ _
You can do some [C] bending on the chromatic.
It doesn't sound quite as [B] bluesy as when you do it on the diatonic.
_ [G] _ _ _ [B] _ _ [C] _ _ _ [D] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [C] _ _