This weekend, I had to play at the jazz-in-lighttown jazz-festival and was amazed by the fine response to my tuning-system mailings. I am very happy to hear, I am not the only one thinking of an other tuning system and Winslow Yerxas chromatic tunings, Part I&II are very valuable to me, thanks.
Before I react to these mails, I would like to explain more indepth the reason(s) for a new tuning system.
What is my aim as a harmonica player? The music I am interested in is Jazz and Contemporary Classical music. Although jazz as known by most people, is tonal music and has a simple harmonic bases, contemporary jazz is influenced by Avant Garde chamber music more and more and so the sound has changed very much during the last 20 years. Because the music I am talking about is very chromatic and is no longer composed in a certain key, instruments that are quit key dependent are less interesting. The chromatic harmonica as it is now -a-days, is key dependent. As Wynslow already mentioned, to play a melodic line in all twelve keys with exactly the same phrasing and articulation, is a very difficult job to do on the (diatonic) chromatic harmonica!? So, this is why I started thinking of the uniform tuning, to get a system with a minimum key dependency. It is also clear, that the harmonic (double tone) possibilities are no longer of any interest because of the lack of flexibility (my opinion!) and lack of tone quality (my opinion!). I hope, a uniform tuning system makes the very chromatic stuctures in contemporary jazz and classical music sound better. Most of the music played by harmonica players is still very tonal (based on diatonic scales). One can use the instrument specific possibilities in a very possitive way. For harmonica players, it has always been very important to find the right key for a certain piece of music.
How can we find out if it works? Building harmonicas in all types of tuning systems wont work. To build a well sounding harmonica without having to retune a standard reed plate costs a lot of money and is almost impossible to do without the help of a harmonica manufacturer. I am going to try it this way. I would like to build a MIDI harmonica. The same instrument as the CX 12, but with 12 air pressure sensors inside. The sensor signals are translated to MIDI signals by an external interface which can be programmed by a computer. So, by programming the interface, one is able to study different tuning systems on the MIDI harmonica. I think, although it costs a lot of money, its the most practical method to try out our interesting tuning ideas. Did anyone already build such a MIDE instrument with the programming fascility? I am very interested!
