$59.00
The Lee Oskar Natural Minor is built for music that lives in a minor key. Five altered notes give you a full natural minor scale in 2nd Position (Cross Harp), so minor melodies and solos lay out under your hands the way major ones do on a standard diatonic — no fighting the layout, no bending your way to notes that aren’t there.
A standard Major Diatonic is tuned around a major scale. Play it over a minor groove and you spend the whole time avoiding notes, bending to reach the flatted third and seventh, and hoping your phrasing covers it. The Natural Minor retunes five notes so the minor scale is simply there, in the position most players already favour.
The practical difference is that you can play a minor tune at speed. Fast reggae skanks, funk lines, and minor blues heads stop being technical exercises and become something you can perform.
The Natural Minor sits naturally in Minor Blues, Reggae, Ska, Latin, Funk, R&B, and Hip Hop.
If your band plays anything built on a minor vamp — and a great deal of reggae, funk, and hip hop is — this is the harp that stops you working around the key.
Dm, Ebm, Em, Fm, F#m, Gm, Abm, Am, Bbm, Bm, Cm, Dbm
Every key is labelled as a minor key, so matching a harp to a song is direct: the label names the tonality you’ll be playing in. The Key Chart below covers it in full.
Every Lee Oskar Natural Minor is designed around replaceable reed plates. When the reeds wear out, you fit a new set of Natural Minor Reed Plates and keep the comb and cover plates you already own — restoring the harp at about half the cost of a new one.
Because every reed plate in the Lee Oskar Harmonica System shares the same combs and covers, you can also fit Major Diatonic, Melody Maker, or Harmonic Minor plates to this body and change its tuning entirely.
Product Details: Lee Oskar Natural Minor Harmonica · Green Label · Model #1910N · Sold by key
| Weight | 3.36 oz |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 4.375 × 1.5 × 1.125 in |
| Select Key: | Key of Dm, Key of Ebm, Key of Em, Key of Fm, Key of F#m, Key of Gm, Key of Abm, Key of Am, Key of Bbm, Key of Bm, Key of Cm, Key of Dbm |
The Lee Oskar Natural Minor is a diatonic harmonica with five altered notes, giving a complete natural minor scale in 2nd Position (Cross Harp). It lets you play minor-key music without the bends and workarounds a standard diatonic requires.
Although it’s possible to play in many keys of music on any one harmonica by using various positions, most players use only the first two. 1st Position, also known as Straight Harp, starts from Blow. 2nd Position, also known as Cross Harp, starts from Draw — and 2nd Position is where the Natural Minor is designed to be played. For more information see Understanding 1st / 2nd Position.
The Major Diatonic is the standard Blues tuning, built around a major scale and the expressive bends of 2nd Position Blues. The Natural Minor retunes five notes for minor-key playing — Minor Blues, Reggae, Ska, Latin, Funk, R&B, and Hip Hop.
You can, in 3rd Position, but it takes practice and careful note selection. The Natural Minor puts the minor scale where most players are already comfortable, which makes minor melodies far easier to play cleanly and at tempo.
Keys are labelled as minor keys, so match the label to the key of the song. A tune in G minor calls for the Gm harp.
They share minor key names but are tuned differently and suit different music. The Natural Minor is played in 2nd Position for Minor Blues, Reggae, Ska, Latin, Funk, R&B, and Hip Hop. The Harmonic Minor is typically played in 1st Position for Eastern European, Gypsy, Yiddish, Asian, Tango, and Reggae styles.