Modified Solo Tuned C Diatonics HarpL Archives

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From: Philharpn
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 13:01:05 EST
Subject: Modified Solo Tuned C Diatonics

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I like Winslow's modification on a solo tuned C diatonic

I think it's important to remember that the C scale layout remains--only the
accidentals (flats & sharps) or the black keys on the piano (to oversimplify)
change.

This maintains the original layout and "overcomes" the main problem with
playing in other than the key of C--the player has to "remember" that in the
key of G that the F is no longer a natural F but an F# (F sharp).

I know it always takes me a few seconds or minutes to readjust to an
unfamilier key--"Let's see--hmmm--I've got to STOP sharping the F and flatten
the B." (from key of G to key of F, just to make the example uncomplicated)

Using the Modified Solo Tuned C Diatonic-- that when you use the right key re-
tuned solo harp, you never have to pay attention to the flats and sharps
again.

So the note pattern would stay mostly the same, except some would move a half-
step up or down, depending on the need for the key:

CEGC CEGC CEGC
DFAB DFAB DFAB

Blow 1 would always be a "C" --a C# or Cb (aka B)

This would "create" new positions in that they would each be
fully diatonic (ie complete 7 note scales) without bends or overblows.

Phil Lloyd
American Harmonica Newsmagazine
Call 616-962-2989 for sample copy in USA

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Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 21:55:48 -0500
From: Winslow Yerxa <76450.32~ompuserve.com>
Subject: Solo Tuned Diatonics
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TO: internet:harp~arply.com

Jonathan Ross sees my tuning suggestions for solo tuned diatonics
and asks:

So, I take it that if I was to order a Chrom in, say, D
it's tuning would be as follows:

Blow: C# E G C# C# E G C# C# E G C#
Draw: D F# A B D F# A B D F# A B

NO IT WOULDN'T.

I wasn't talking about chromatics.

I wasn'T talking about how things are. I was proposing a
non-standard idea which may or may not be new.

I was talking about solo tuned diatonics.

Personally, this is far more strange to me, as the
internal note to note relationship is completely
rearranged.

No, it's not. If you picked up a C chromatic and pressed in the
slide on C and F, you'd get exactly what you diagrammed above.
But you could take a Huang Cadet soloist - a solo-tuned DIATONIC
and re-tune it to get what you diagrammed above. Except that
instead of the double C#'s, I'd tuned 4 and 8 blow to either A
(for an A7 chord) or B (for an E minor). It would be a lot like
playing a chromatic in D, using the slide - but with no slide.

If you're learning to play chromatic in some new major key and
feel weird about it, you might ease into it by using this type of
re-tuning as a sort of training wheels.

Or you might like to use it for its own merits. It offers
chording you can't get on a chromatic (it combines notes that on
a chromatic would be slide-in or slide-out and therefore
impossible to combine) or on a harp in regular diatonic tuning.

Some notes, like the 1draw, 2blow, 3blow, 4draw and 5draw
remain the same as on a C harp, while the 1blow, 2draw,
4&5blow would be different.

Just like the way they'd be different if you played them on a C
chromatic and used the slide. Here they're hard-wired into the
basic tuning.

I'm not saying that this might not be usefull, it's just
that I have never heard this before,

Neither have I. That's why I proposed it.

and had allways assumed that the tuning would just be
transferred to another base key, with all of the internal
note-to-note relationship intact:

Blow: D F# A D D F# A D D F# A D
Draw: E G B C# E G B C# E G B C#

Just wondering which is the case:)

Your second diagram is what you get when you buy a chromatic in D
- - the whole tuning is transposed up (or down in the case of a
chromatic) to D. To get my tunings, you'd have to build them.

If you re-read my post, I'm talking about an alternate way of
dealing with the whole idea of harps in different keys. But I'm
not talking about chromatics. I'm talking about diatonics that
use solo tuning (like the C reedplate of a chromatic, without a
C# reedplate and without a slide, and usually without any valves,
either).

I just built a Bb like this out of a Huang Cathedral Concert for
a recording project (I haven't discovered any octave-tuned
harmonicas in Low Bb, and the harmonies available on this one are
better suited to the particular project than anything offered by
solo, Richter or Knittlinger tuning), and rather like it.

Winslow Yerxa
Harmonica Information Press
Z

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