From: BassHarp~ol.com Subject: L.A. Harp Updates Regarding the Lee Oskar/Tombo harmonicas discussion, an official statement the end of the week. Hugh mentioned that I had not responded to the Ultimo query, but in fact I proper time. Sorry if you missed that note, Hugh. There is a Little Walter Harmonica Jam scheduled for the House of Blues fest that attracts a lot of the bigger names in Harp Blues. Past artists Dyer, etc. The next day, Sat Nov 19, Lee Oskar has scheduled another of his all-day pro, there is always something to learn - playing, maintenance, tuning, to learn about the Lee Oskar Harmonicas. The fee - $75 - includes a Oskar harmonica (any key) or a Lee Oskar Toolkit (with 16-page manual) and a anyone who may be in the area - some have even flown down in the past from 441-6049, or leave a message for me on e-mail. Be sure to include your prepaid. Be sure to register early, they're always a sell-out. Southland Blues, the monthly blues rag out of Long Beach, is sponsoring it's to appear: Rod Piazza, James Harman, William Clarke, Johnny Dyer and John me know. BassHarp
DATE: Mon, 17 Oct 1994 23:04:52 CDT From: Barry Schaede Subject: Re: L.A. Harp Updates
> The next day, Sat Nov 19, Lee Oskar has scheduled another of his all-day > pro, there is always something to learn - playing, maintenance, tuning, > to learn about the Lee Oskar Harmonicas. The fee - $75 - includes a > Oskar harmonica (any key) or a Lee Oskar Toolkit (with 16-page manual) and a > anyone who may be in the area - some have even flown down in the past from > 441-6049, or leave a message for me on e-mail. Be sure to include your > prepaid. Be sure to register early, they're always a sell-out. I reccommend this workshop. I went to one in Phoenix a couple of years tune and adjust your own harmonica is a must for anyone who's serious the harmonicas performance that you need to play at that next level. The Tuning layouts of every diatonic commonly made today. Alternate tunings thing for me was the amount of stuff that I kind of knew that came You can learn to tune and adjust a harmonica on your own (I did) but this instrument doesn't mean you have to go it alone. FJM DATE: Tue, 18 Oct 1994 00:20:43 CDT Subject: Learning Chromatic
Mary Had A little Lamb and such. Then try transposing arpeggios of an exercise. This will help some. The real nitty gritty is learning to understand (and apply to the instance, when expressed in scale degrees, Mary Had a Little Lamb
key, and know where those notes are on the harmonica, you can get to transposing at sight. Try working out 10 or 15 simple little ditties, starting in your scale, or around the cycle of fifths. Then find some more tunes, sophisticated. If your music theory is a little foggy, brush up
note layout. I have something called a tuning diagram for you see the notes in relation to one another, and draw (either to play any particular melody. You can also use it as a diagram. Anyone who wants a tuning diagram page to copy and use at will,
DATE: Tue, 18 Oct 1994 00:20:54 CDT Subject: Hohner manufacturing, Billy Branch
Japan. They are trying to switch over to computer controlled they're taking a second shot at it, hoping to get it right this in Trossingen. Now I was told by Hohner personnel when the Big River came out assembled in China, yet the Big River is supposed to be a modular quality-control ex-diode manufacturing girlfriend toured the pearing at the displays and readouts, and figured out that the so-called automation-produced instruments are finished by hand
true that we're all (North) Americans, and that many black gave birth to them. If you went to Russia and dug into the music, country laid claim to particular parts of its folk heritage. Does mean that if someone else takes them up, the flavor and the widespread adoption will take on a life of its own, which is what a cultural level? I dunno, is a tidal wave evil or unjust? On an Led Zeppelin or anyone else who steals identifiably
it, this is still a racist country, on top of which when big creative types, at least the ones who can't get access to the off, too. Nowadays, artists black and white get their business so. But blacks have always had racism to deal with on top of it. Sure almost invariably female temptresses or male in-yo-face badass least they make some money at it. On the other hand, as Harvey notes, there is a certain amount of it myself. But it happens mostly on the small-club level -
like and negotiate hard for what you can get. What more is there?
DATE: Tue, 18 Oct 1994 00:22:12 CDT Subject: Tuned bodies, just intonation
take a tuning fork vibrating at a frequency to which it is tuned, plate, the plate will pick up and amplify the vibrations. Not just a passive conductor, spreading the vibration over a wider
and covers) for the dinner plate, it's pretty obvious that After all, the comb is nothing but a slab of hard material of a reeds. I'm not even sure if they use differently-cut combs for you tune it anyway? Everything described so far can easily be simply have a better seal between the reedplate and the comb. JUST and EQUAL TEMPERAMENT Rick Barker has asked me both publicly and privately for Dictionary of Music (1969 edition) as my source. This stuff gets at least outline the differences. Let's start with the overtone or harmonic series, the notes played on most acoustic instruments. The harmonic series is
16/1 (4 octaves) C 14/1 (3 octaves + ~b7) ~Bb 12/1 (3 octaves + 5th) G 10/1 (3 octaves + 3rd) 8/1 (3 octaves) C 6/1 (2 octaves + 5th) G 4/1 (2 octaves) C 2/1 (octave) C
temperament are the octaves - nothing else matches up. However, the octave, second, third, fifth and major seventh intonation, while the quasi-minor seventh, quasi-raised fourth form of temperament. The notes in the harmonic series that match up with just naturally in tune. The ratios used to generate these can be
5/4 (major third) Just intonation uses these ratios to construct a scale in which (6th) can be generated to complete the scale. F is 4/3 F). This is obviously desirable for a diatonic instrument that plays we take it much beyond those three chords, we get conflicts. For two different sizes of major second - C-D is 9/8, while G-A is scale can create conflicts when refigured with the simplest
a stab at solving this problem by basing everything on the 3/2 to G to get D, to D to get A, and so on. However, this made major Sharp notes like F# and C# are also out of tune when used in get back around the chromatic cycle to C (B## at that point in called commas, to get everything back in synch - very
just or Pythagorean intonation IN ONE KEY and stick to it, or use Modulation to even a closely related key would sound bad. As for intonation would cause the pitch to sink, while Pythagorean
idea of dividing the octave into 1200 cents, with 100 cents being sturdy structure that would allow for all keys to be treated the need for such a vehicle became truly pressing as music became through many keys. Of course it put every single interval out of (Bb will be very flat, while A# will be very sharp - in mean-tone
equal tempered scales for a C major scale, expressed in cents: C D E F G A B C JUST 0 204 385 498 702 885 1088 1200 PYTH 0 204 408 498 702 906 1110 1200 EQUAL 0 200 400 500 700 900 1100 1200 Remember, this is expressed in cents, not in Hertz. By the way, Rather, It's logarithmic. The pitch of each successive semitone semitone by 1.05946. Thus if A=440, then A# is 440 x 1.05946 = know more? Look it up. What this means for harmonica players is that we can tune to intonation and have our melodies sound bad. Or we can fudge - handbook. By the way, The Harvard Dictionary of Music is an excellent included Acoustics; Intervals, calculation of; Just intonation;
DATE: Tue, 18 Oct 1994 02:39:11 CDT
> Tim raised...doesn't the metal body have only one It may have its fundamental at one frequency, but all wavelengths lambda=1/i or Lambda being the wavelength, and i being all to. This means that all of those frequencies (fundamentals) will vibrate the calculation to tell that the frequencies pointed to in Winslows post or can't believe these harps won't have odd volume shifts. Bonking the comb we would do, now we just have to see what we did does." DATE: Tue, 18 Oct 1994 06:40:26 CDT
publicly in recent years. Only blues band in memory developed an Top 40 dominate here. Singers are gods, instrumentalists rarely
harmonica itself in most Asian countries. There are a number of available from SPAH. In Korea, Japan, Taiwan and People's Republic of instruments a half step apart to get full chromatic capability. I had the good fortune of meeting the top player in Korea during a there are 5 million active harmonica players in Korea (out of a with over 3000 students all together. He's written several instuction one of the best instruction manuals I've ever seen, especially the manufacturers. I guess most people now know that everyone at SPAH and the World 1995 World Championships in Yokohama, the organizers expect an 400-500. There are a number of harmonica CDs released only in Japan Harp-L: I've seen a couple from Toots, several from Lee Oskar. Philippines and received a LOT of airplay for about 4 months -- he was There's one very popular pop star (don't remember the name) in Japan among the young. I gather chromatic is the common instrument in Southeast Asia interesting account of his 5-month journey around Southeast Asia and
but there's a definite opportunity to build interest. These are my personal observations... anyone else have experience in
DATE: Tue, 18 Oct 1994 08:37:04 CDT Subject: Re: Billy Branch steps out Yeah...what He said.... Cathi N. DATE: Tue, 18 Oct 1994 08:54:31 CDT Subject: Re: Tuned bodies, just intonation Winslow.... How can you hold your head upright with all that information in
