From: Pat Missin Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 18:13:04 +0100 Subject: Various topics
TONE-DEAFNESS Apparently my information is a little out-of-date - my thanks to fjm for helping to me to update. However, as fjm said, this bass player was an exceptional case (it would be fascinating to know *how* exceptional he/she was), so I don't feel that he/she was a good example to use in this context, nor do I feel that the comparison with colour-blindness was a good one. I feel that I should also add, that as well as having had a very negative experience with one particular music teacher, he was also an exception (although perhaps more common than people with clinical amusia?) and that most teachers would never deliberately condemn a student's "poor ear" in such a damning fashion. Let's hope.
For me, the big question fjm raised, was why on earth someone who, due to a condition of the brain, was unable to perceive pitch, would spend what must have ammounted to a lot of money, on musical instruments and equipment? I wish I'd known, I'd could've made a few bucks...
Also, on the same(ish) thread: A piano has all the intervals if you are talking about the western 12 tone equally tempered scale, but the 10-hole harp in just intonation has acoustically pure intervals that can be difficult to play perfectly on most instruments and impossible to play on the piano. For example, on a standard just tuned Richter you can get octave, perfect fifth, perfect fourth, pure major third, pure minor third, pure major sixth, pure minor sixth, pure major ninth, septimal seventh, two different flavours of tritone, subminor third, supermajor third, supermajor sixth, minor wholetone and probably some I've missed. The only one of these playable on a piano is the octave.
DIFFERENT TONE OF HERING HARPS I'm looking at the inside of a Hering Super 20 as I write. Whilst it would appear to be a Marine Band clone, it uses differently sized reeds. even in the lower keys, this harp uses reeds slightly shorter than a Hohner HM short slot plate. The comb seems to be exaclty the same in size/shape as a Hohner HM short slot comb. Also, it has to be said both the Herings I have in front of me (just found another in my desk) have rather wide clearances around the reeds (leaky!), excessively wide gapping on the reeds (leaky!!) and neither comb could be described as perfectly airtight (leaky!!!). (In Hering's defence, these harps are 1/3rd the price of HM Marine Bands and their performance can be significantly improved with a little adjustment.) I've not seen inside their chromatics, so I don't know what the score is with them.
WOODEN COVERS I have an M+M Harmonica Parts comb (ABS?) with wooden covers (does anyone know if they are still in business? I haven't been able to get in touch with them lately.) that gets fitted with a variety of reed plates. There is a definite change in the sound - whether this is due to the material of the covers or the shape of them is hard to tell. Probaly even more significant (IMHO) is the larger comb chambers, with rounded ends to each channel. The reason that I use it a lot, is that it feels great to play (slick plastic surface for the embouchure, nice wooden surface for the hands. I also have to say that it looks really cool, too (not that anyone can see it when I am playing!).
PROVING THE EXISTENCE OF FISH Yeah - I think we're all agreed that the perfect experiment is not going to be practical (possible?) to set up. However, surely in the meantime, even a flawed experiment would be better than nothing - providing we are all aware of what those flaws are. I agree with John that a double blind experiment would be revealing, but on a blues harp (it's different for chroms), it would be difficult for the player not to feel the different materials with his tongue (equally, a chrom player would be able to tell a metal comb by its weight). Knowing what it is that we would like to test, would be a start, too. If we want to find out if there is a perceiveable difference between wood and plastic combs, then there must be as few variables as possible - only the comb materials must be different; everything else must be exactly the same. A less scientific experiment, would be to find out what sorts of harps people actually prefer (without them being influenced by knowing what harps were being played) - a completely subjective choice of better/worse, but none the less interesting.
Pat Missin - pa~lobalnet.co.uk
"...my music's a lot better than it sounds!" (with apologies to Mark Twain) - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
