I've been expermenting with playing minor key tunes that have strong relative major components by playing them in 3rd position on a natural minor harmonica.  Was led to this by listening to a friend play harmonica, G in 3rd position, on the Am song Coming Into Los Angeles by Arlo Guthrie.  Best I can tell this song only has the minor chord Am but then lots of C, and F (also some D and G) major chords.  The G harmonica in 3rd position did not sound great to me.  I thought about 4th position on a C and 5th position on an F and these are okay but then a little limited.  So I was looking at note layouts on my natural minor harmonicas and it occurred to me that the Dm harmonica (listed in 2nd position) is really just a G harmonica with the F# notes flatted a half step to F and the B notes flatted a half step to B-flat.  So now in 3rd position on a Dm harmonica I've got the same nice Am chord (holes 4,5,6 draw) as with a G in third position, but now I also have F notes available on several draw holes.  Only negative so far I've found with this approach is that you don't want to hit those blow holes (e.g, blow 5) with their B-flats.  But seems easier to avoid blow holes than draw holes to me.  But I figured I can't be the first one to think of this approach.  So was just wondering what others thought.

Brian

Honestly,  I have never liked playing "minor" tuned harps. As primarily a soloist, I have always worked on understanding the keys, some scales, and modes of songs, and playing what fits, all on a standard diatonic harmonica. There are many minor modes, but the Blues scale works well with all of them, and if you play primarily blues, that will be the best foundation from which to build especially if you are already familiar with it. Other positions have major and minor notes, but no positions are built for specific modes unless you do have a minor harp built for a very specific mode and want to use that harp only for that mode and key, which to me, wasn't important enough aside form the fact you CAN get some cool minor chords. I always wanted to understand the scales and know my way around them, and then choose a position that I think fits best....could be 2nd, could be 3rd, could be 4th or 5th....etc ...

I don't necessarily look at it as "avoiding" holes, I look at it like knowing the layout of the scale and then deciding from there what option I like best.

I hope that makes sense to you...