From: Douglas Tate Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 20:56:27 +0100 Subject: bet you can't tune straight! and Why do tunings have to settle?
John Thaden said ... a couple of days ago > >Well I'm not saying the reed has to be GREEN to have an effect on tuning. >Surely, Doug, you see more brightness at a region just abraded for tuning, >don't you? Also, maybe chromatic reeds are of an alloy less prone to >corrosion?
Yes... of course the surface is shiny ... but percentage wise I wonder what the extra weight of an oxidation, or whatever process produces the 'coating, is over the original weight befor oxidation... Some of the base metal is used to make it... so the only other element available is either a salt from the saliva or oxygen or whatever. and i can't honestly say i have ever seen a reed that looked remotely green. i feel that the weight differential must be minute .... it takes a fair old coating of moisture to alter the pitch of a blow note.
Actually... I have another oar to shove in here.. I woulder how many of you can actually tune a reed accurately??? If you can, I wonder if you are a rotten player ??? :)
Good pianists in general make rotten tuners. they listen to the wrong things With a good harmonica player HOW does s/he tune???? At what breath pressure??? with what attack, in what intonation, can that harp be played by anyone else and still be said to be in tune...
When I first started tuning Renaissance reed plates (we found that tuning them off the instrument was nowhere good enough and have had to go to a different method now) I tuned them perfectly ... they played beautifully in tune.... er... for me!!!! But not for Winslow, or Bobbie, or our first couple of customers.... had to do a quick shuffle.... 'cos I was doing what I normally do as a player... and played the durn notes into tune.... I have my old stainless steel instrument. and the octaves really are dreadful when you loosly blow the notes as chords.... but when I play them, they are so in tune that one professional player made comment about how superb the tuning of octaves was!!!! No... i don't know how i do it... my ear/body feedback system does tho.
What is your handle on this one???
Oh... BTW.... no chromatic reeds are not made by a person in a pointy hat with an owl on his shoulder at midnight art the full moon. Same material I think. Didn't used to be tho.
