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From: Didi Neumann <101731.21~ompuserve.com>
Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 12:07:20 -0400
Subject: Re Wim & Jazz Harmonica (alternative chrom tunings)

Sat 7th sept Wim wrote at the end of his post:

<......in relation to the discussion of the
jazz sound and searching for a 'better' tuning system for the chromatic
harmonica.

IMHO this seems to be a little bit

I've been following this highly interesting thread and for me it seems not
to be about
harmonica>
but we are discussing tunings for the chromatic. ( Which up
to now are not available from anywhere, so this thread gets highly
theoretical from time to time.
The chromatic harmonica now exists since nearly one century and there
are only two alternative tuning on the marked as far as I have seen. One is
the Chromatica the same and there is one semitone per hole>. This instrument without a
slide, is a huge monster harmonica and as far as I know, is only used for
special effects or maybe to play music that suits it setup and goes up and
down chromatically very fast. I have one, but never used it. Maybe pieces
like The flight of the Bumblebee" could be played on it very well.
The second tuning on the marked is the Richter harmonica with a slide, like
Hohner Slide Harp and Koch Chromonica.
We have been discussing this before, they are to leaky to be played well
because they are not or only half valved.

These special tunings are used very rarely and nearly all of the chromatic
players use the normal tune chrom. (Of course there is a new sort of
chromatic players that use a diatonic, like Howard Levy)
There have been developed specific styles of playing that all depend on
the normal tuning. In Jazz there is Toots, who seems to have a lot of
followers. Al least he is on the scene for such a long time, that every
chrom player who studies Jazz must be influenced by him. Like every
electric harp player will be influenced y Little Walter, for instance.
And to play Toots style, obviously the normal tuning is the best.

(I don't know if the contemporary classic players are all influence by
Larry Adler, but it may be similar.)

In blues (what I consider as a pre-modern jazz style) there is the Chicago
style of playing the chrom and at least the traditional playing would be
impossible with another tuning because it is based strongly on playing
chords. This style has been developed further (for example by players like
William Clarke and Paul DeLay) and I don't know if these players have been
experimenting with alternative tunings. (I only heard about Brendan Power's
Power Tuning")

For all these kinds of playing, the normal tuning seems to be the best one.
(Very obvious, because these ways of playing came out of the normal
tuning).

But there are other kinds of music and for me it seems to be very possible
that an alternative tuning might work better.

Wim writes
< I am 25 years old. Very interested in contemporary classical music and in
jazz
music from the period starting at the end of the bebop era up till
now-a-days.

Modern short harp players use alternative tunings like Maj7, nat. min.
melody makers etc., to play different sorts of music and this should be
possible for the chromatic too.
Every guitar-players uses alternative tunings to play specific tunes or
styles like open tunings for slide etc.

Unfortunately it takes several hours, or maybe days and weeks to produce
different tuning on a chromatic harmonica. So we have this discussion on
the list about unlaid eggs (ungelegte Eier).

Wim's put the question, if his would be better for his
style of playing, writes

SYSTEM OUT FOR SOME YEARS TO KNOW IT FOR SURE!)

So we could change the discussion to the question how Wim gets his
augmented triad chrom" and in a years time we well see...

There are two way to try it out:
1. Hardware method": Get the augmented triad chrom" by retuning an
existing chrom. Winslow already did it. Maybe someone give some hints.
2. Software method": Get a midi harmonica with a programmable interface.
The advantage of this method would be the possibility to try out some other
tunings. If there is only Wim trying out it may take some more years......
We have been discussing this already, maybe there are some results off
list?

B.B.B. wrote
limited by the instruments used to create it.

I would add:
And by the people who play it

Let's go on with this thread. Keep the jazz history-books apart and go for
new horizons with new limits.

Ciao!
- -idi

- ------------------
Being on the list for half a year seems to improve my non-native
English.... Urgh , schlipfmemsk toek, toek, quasseldoof, magonolly truep
die dock usumeine allzeit furzelmuecke!!!