What does it mean to play the diatonic harmonica fully chromatically?
Diatonic means referring to one key. Chromatic means referring to all keys. When the diatonic harp was invented, it did not include many of the notes on the keyboard. It could be played in only a few keys and even then with limitations. Blues players discovered that you could lower pitches to another note. This is called bending. Bending occurs on the draw notes (inhale notes) from holes 1-6 and on the blow notes from holes 7 –10. This added many notes but still many were missing. Then players discovered you could sharpen pitches to another note. This is called overblowing, which can be done on the blow notes from holes 1- 6 and the draw notes from holes 7-10. Do not be confused, if you are lowering pitches by blowing on holes 7-10 this is not overblowing, it is high note blow bending. With bending and overblowing it is possible to play all the notes a keyboard has, therefore allowing the player to play any style in any key. Here is a sample: In this YouTube clip, I play chromatically
