Other web Sites
Harmonica Blues  Harmonica Amps
Harmonica Links Harmonica Pages
• Archives Home
• Years
 · 1992
 · 1993
 · 1994
 · 1995
 · 1996
 · 1997 		 · 1998
 · 1999
 · 2000
 · 2001
 · 2002
 · 2003
 
Web HarpL
Ebay Searches:
Amps:
Microphones:
Effects:
Harmonicas and Gear:
Harmonica Music and Instruction:

 

 

Harp-L Archives

[Previous Message] [Next Message]
[Next in Thread]
[Start of Thread] [End of Thread]

From: "David Fairweather"
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 11:49:58 -0700
Subject: Altered Chromatic Tunings.

One very nice feature of both the wholetone and diminished chromatic tunings
is that once you learn
a scale, arpeggio, interval or other pattern, transposing that pattern
across all keys is easy and consistent.

With the wholetone tuning each pattern has four possible "positions" and
even those four positions are related, sort of like reflections in a
four-way mirror.

In the diminished tuning you can reduce everything down to only three
positions (with an optional 4th). But the positions aren't such exact
reflections of each other as in the wholetone.

Today I was practicing interval exercises on the diminished. If you start
on a draw slide in, moving up two hole and letting the slide out will
always result in a perfect 4th draw, or moving up five holes and letting the
slide out will always give you a 9th draw.

It still boggles my puny mind as to how standard solo tuned chromatic
players keep track of things when sometimes a particular move gives you one
interval but if you start on a different hole the same move will give you a
different interval!

Any insights from you standard solo players as to how you keep track of
things like that? I know Mike Polesky simply keeps the name of each note in
his mind as he's playing and doesn't even think about the physical/spatial
jump involved on the harp. Do the rest of you work that way too?

Also, I was wondering what other chromatic tunings give you a limited number
of positions. The wholetone has 4 positions, the diminished has 3, are
there any practicable tunings that have only 2 or 1? I would imagine that
the fewer positions you have, the longer the harp is going to become over
the space of one octave. Maybe Pat Missin knows of some interesting
tunings like that.