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kudzurunner
5142 posts
Nov 14, 2014
5:24 AM
Thanks to BBQ Bob, I've just added a new page to this website and posted a tuning chart.

Tunings for Diatonic Harmonicas
FreeWilly
417 posts
Nov 14, 2014
6:09 AM
That's excellent!

Only possible improvement of this chart could be the Tuner-setting used by each maker. I read somewhere that Seydel uses 444Hz? I never measured the one Manji I ever had, but it seemed like 445 perhaps even?! Hohner uses 442Hz I believe.

Anyhuw, thanks!
chromaticblues
1625 posts
Nov 14, 2014
6:50 AM
@freewilly
In the real world most of those tunings and a good portion of what is on the internet regarding tunings is useless unless you know what it means!
I have tested 100's of harmonicas and compared them to their "claimed" tuning.
I have never found ONE SINGLE HARMONICA that was tuned exactly as described! It doesn't happen.
So what you can do is use these formulas to re tune your harps. Then you'll notice my God some are tuned so much different than others. That's when you have figure out what you like and NONE of those tunings are etched in stone! I don't like a single one on that page. I have also found a number of contradictory Hohner tunings from the same era's. I have tested harps that backed up these formulas.
For instance The old Hohner tuning has been claimed to have the 5 and 9 draw at 24 or 26 and also at 32 cents negative. I have found NOS marine Bands with those reeds all the way from 24 to 32-.
So the point being is Don't think of these the miracle formulas for blues harp!
I've been studying this subject in depth for over 20 years and the "ideal" Blues tuning is close to 7LJI.
I think that is the starting point for BLUES harmonica players. Oh and at 442. 442 is the magic number when the reeds are set correctly!

Last Edited by chromaticblues on Nov 14, 2014 6:52 AM
FreeWilly
418 posts
Nov 14, 2014
7:15 AM
Ehm. I wasn't doing that anyway, but thanks.

I do not agree that 7LJI is the best starting point, nor that there is such a thing as BLUES players full stop. Blues is music, and being able to practice scales in a way that will let your ear know you're hitting those scales might be very helpful.

Nor does the fact that all harmonicas are 'out' when you buy them, defeat the purpose of knowing what the builder was aiming for, including knowing his/her settings.
arzajac
1506 posts
Nov 14, 2014
8:05 AM
I hate to be the one to bring this up - I know I'm probably going to be tarred and feathered but the Crossover tuning chart is not correct.

DRAW  +1  +4  0  +1  +2  +1  0  +1  +2  +1 

Should be

DRAW  +7  +4  0  +5  +2  +6  0  +5  +2  +6 

Steve Baker elaborates that the 4, 6, 8 and 10 are all tuned relative to the 2 draw which is +4(ish). That makes sense as the fifths (1,4 and 8 draw) are now a little higher than the tonic. 6 and 10 draw are fifths relative to the 4 and 8 draw, again a little higher.

Steve Baker said: "2­draw + 4-­6 cents depending on the key, at normal air pressure it should sound at the same pitch as 3 ­blow 
3­ & 7­draw tuned to 0 
4­ & 8­draw 1 cent higher than 2­draw (i.e. + 5­-7 cents) 
5&9draw + 2 cents (this will mean the 7th chord sounds rough, but sounds better as a single note. You can even tune it a little higher if you prefer that sound) 
6­ & 10­draw 1 cent higher than 4­draw (i.e. + 6­8 cents) "

The most value in his comments are the method he uses. He says that the offset can vary according to the key. 1 draw may have to be tuned higher to be in tune with 4 draw in lower keys.
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Custom overblow harps. Harmonica service and repair.

Last Edited by arzajac on Nov 14, 2014 8:10 AM
arzajac
1507 posts
Nov 14, 2014
8:05 AM
arg! Double post!

Last Edited by arzajac on Nov 14, 2014 8:07 AM
barbequebob
2755 posts
Nov 14, 2014
8:59 AM
5 & 9 Draw in 7LJI has largely been more of a wild card for harmonicas because the one thing you HAVE to do is NEVER fully rely on the tuner alone and use your ears, checking not just the individual note, bur the other two notes in the chord (so, in this case, 3-4-5 and 4-5-6 draw together as well as 7-8-9 and 8-9-10 draw together and then listen VERY CAREFULLY to where the chord stops beating/wavering entirely.

Seydel's pitch standard is actually an older German standard pitch for centuries and for a very long time, A440 was standard pitch in the US and then it was often very different in other countries. Now when setting up for a pitch standard, do it on a tuning table because the air stream is going to be far steadier and more consistent than 80% of the harp players on the planet and obviously, the harder you play, the more the pitch drops, and to make sure no harp gets below A440 when played even the slightest bit too hard, tuning it to A442 makes more sense, even more so when tuning to 7LJI.

My listing for the Crossover was based on Steve Baker's post on Harp-L and so any sort of better info is always appreciated.

Which tuning to use depends on what your playing needs are based on what genres you're playing so am I saying which one is the best?? NEVER, but if you were to try to play along with the older harp styles of many blues, country, old timey stuff prior to 1974-1982 (1974 was when the GM was introduced using ET tuning and 1982 was when Huang first introduced 19LJI on their diatonics), 7LJI matches perfectly with what was being played, especially if you use chording and double stops.

So again, on 7LJI, the listing is a guide, and that's when using your ears and listening VERY CAREFULLY to the chord becomes very important. I've used this tuning and retuned harps with this tuning for so long that I've haven't needed to use a tuner for the last 20 years and just my ears alone.
----------
Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
kudzurunner
5143 posts
Nov 14, 2014
8:59 AM
I know essentially nothing about harmonica tunings; I'm strictly a conduit here. I posted the chart as a favor to BBQ Bob, and because it also seems like such charts should be made available to players who are interested in such things.

I'm totally open to the idea of posting other people's versions of the same sort of chart. Email 'em to me. asgussow at aol dot com.

If Bob wants to revise his chart in line with what arzajac has written, I'll be happy to swap in a revised chart.

On this particular subject, I'm ignorant--and easy.
chromaticblues
1627 posts
Nov 14, 2014
9:56 AM
I agree with everything in your last post Bob.
I want to clarify. I wasn't trying to discredit your post of the tunings. I know your not the one that invented them.
I have read numerous articles on the subject and have found three different tunings for draw 5 and 9.
I also found one that formula that stated the 1 4 and 8 draw were 6 cents sharp and the draw 3 and 7 were 14-.
Like Bob said use your ears!
Minor edit: I was to do what Bob describes tuning with my ears until I went the wrong way tuning a few times. Now when I hear something that doesn't sound right I check it with my tuner and then check it again. Then tune!
Measure twice tune once!
This how I tune for Blues music only.
0 -14 0 0 -14 0 -14 0 0 0
+4 +2 -14 +4 -14 +6 -14 +4 -14 +6

Last Edited by chromaticblues on Nov 14, 2014 10:06 AM
The Iceman
2246 posts
Nov 14, 2014
12:08 PM
No reason not to develop one's own tuning based on what they like.

I set tuner to A-442 and tune all notes dead on except (on inhale and exhale chords) the 3rd's and 7th's.

These I tune down 5 - 10 cents, depending on my mood.

The result suits my ear and my style of playing.
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The Iceman
GMaj7
546 posts
Nov 14, 2014
2:58 PM
Kudz
Very useful idea.
Thanks for doing this
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Greg Jones
16:23 Custom Harmonicas
greg@1623customharmonicas.com
1623customharmonicas.com
A440
246 posts
Nov 15, 2014
7:06 AM
thanks for posting - very informative/useful

interesting to see that seydel's "compromise" tuning is actually very close to 19L JI
Gnarly
1156 posts
Nov 15, 2014
9:49 PM
Nice to have this available, thanks.

Not to quibble, but it's really intonations we are talking about here. I agree with the contention that chords on harmonica sound better if you use a tempered tuning--but I was hoping that a thread entitled, "new page: harmonica tunings" would have something different than Richter . . .
Which reminds me: has anyone tried the Natural Minor Manjis, and what did you think?
OOPS, I tried to hijack the thread . . .

Last Edited by Gnarly on Nov 15, 2014 9:50 PM
barbequebob
2758 posts
Nov 17, 2014
12:59 PM
@Gnarly -- If you wanted a listing of tunings, or rather, different note layouts other than Richter tuning, what I suggest you to do is go to this link here:

Pat Missin's tuning page

@arzajac -- If you find what you say consistently happening (and BTW, if any customizers on here find something similar or different) in regards to the Crossover, please let me know so that it can be corrected. When I tried to get confirmation about the tuning from Hohner, they just said it was Richter tuning at that was it, and so I'm thinking as they're telling, "Well, duh, I knew that, but you didn't answer my damned question."

@chromaticblues -- No offense taken. OOTB harps, regardless of the manufacturer, have NEVER been 100% consistent about anything and too often they don't allow workers to spend enough time to make sure that everything is on the money because it slows down the production lines and if they did, the labor costs would rise considerably and delivery times would as well and guess who's gonna be paying more money, THE HARMONICA PLAYER, and harp players have a knack about complaining about damned near anything and everything about the instrument.

When Hohner was tuning harps to either 7LJI or 19LJI, much like with Hering (one of the last still tuning to JI), if you had a dozen harps, two or three would have a note or two off by 5 cents either way, but when they began using compromise tunings, until recently, the consistency worsened considerably. Why? For one thing, they never allowed people tuning them to use a tuner of any type, just their ears and a reference plate that for a number of years, weren't always properly recalibrated), plus they only allowed for tuning, 5 minutes PER HARMONICA ad that's it.

With ET tuning, you basically tune to make sure the octaves are equal, but the chords don't matter much enough to tell (most players who prefer ET RARELY ever play chords and double stops, or play rhythmically or perrcussively), but with JI, you not only check the single notes, the octaves, but also the chords as well.

The chart I have was based on a chart that former Hohner product manager Rick Epping had made for a paper he used in a college course that had been for a number of years on the now long defunct Yahoo site called Geo Cities and so I used it as a template and further expanded on it.
----------
Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
arzajac
1508 posts
Nov 17, 2014
1:17 PM
Hi Bob.

I find the Crossovers consistently tuned and they come close to what Steve Baker describes.

All I am trying to say is that when Steve Baker describes draw four (and draw eight), he says it's +1 relative to draw 2 which is at +4. So draw four should be +5 by his description, not +1. The same thing for draw 6 and 10, "one cent higher than 4 draw".

Overall, the Crossover does a good job tuning-wise. The 3 blow and 2 draw are usually the same pitch out-of-the-box which is by design.

----------


Custom overblow harps. Harmonica service and repair.

Last Edited by arzajac on Nov 17, 2014 1:19 PM
hvyj
2586 posts
Nov 17, 2014
2:25 PM
I bought a Crossover in F. It was tuned to a A445-446. Extremely bright gapped ridiculously tight and so out of tune it was unplayable. I replaced it with an MBD and swapped combs. The other COs I have are ok but too bright IMHO.
Fishlips
28 posts
Nov 17, 2014
7:28 PM
I've been using BBQ Bob's tuning chart over the past several months to tune my old Special 20s, and a set of MBs I got on sale, to 7-limit JI. It has been very helpful! I've also been switching several of those harps over to Andrew's combs. They sound better to my ear when I'm working out something by the Walters, Sonny Boys, or other traditional blues players, and especially so when chords are involved as so often they are.

I also have a set of Crossovers and a couple of Thunderbirds that I play a lot, and several seldom used Delta Frosts that cover the ET end of the spectrum.
Gnarly
1157 posts
Nov 17, 2014
10:07 PM
@BarbequeBob I like using overblow.com since Tinus has all the Missin Altered States tunings posted in a clear organized way . . .
barbequebob
2760 posts
Nov 18, 2014
10:22 AM
@hvyj -- Back in the 80's to mid 90's, (Hohner's crappy quality period), it wasn't uncommon to find harps from key of D and higher to be tuned higher than A443 and I found a few of them up as high as A446 myself, but finding them tuned that way as far as standard pitch goes is actually quite unusual these days. For those reading this, MBD and Crossover combs can be ordered directly from Hohner and can be easily swapped and now that there are people making combs of all sorts of materials from fully sealed maple to all sorts of plastics and metals, you have more choices (and those who are making combs outside of the harp makers themselves are often making a much flatter comb of every sort that's often times better than the ones from the factory themselves).

There are three reasons for the brightness:

a.) the reed slot tolerances are MUCH tighter than they used to be, which makes harps play louder, BUT also increases brightness along the way (learning to cut down even more on breath force becomes more important and this is especially true when dealing with custom harps where the tolerances from the best customizers are even tighter than these new Hohners are));

b.) With the cover plates being more wide open (and with the metal of the cover plate being a bit thinner, much like the way a Suzuki Manji is) is also gonna be a contributing factor;

c.) The open side vents for most people may may a harp seem brighter, but the vents were always there to make all harps play louder and brighter, plus the player is also hearing much more of the instrument's sound as THE AUDIENCE is actually hearing it, which most players are often unaware of.

@Gnarly -- Good to know. Some of those tunings Pat Missin lists I probably would never tune to JI or even a compromise tuning for that matter because the set up really doesn't favor chords at all and 99% single note playing only. Most players won't be able to get a real handle on using 99% of those tunings because many players lack the knowledge of where every single note is on their harmonica and often are too clueless about music theory the make them work to their best advantage.
----------
Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Gnarly
1159 posts
Nov 18, 2014
1:25 PM
@BBQBob I have to disagree about the 99% thing, almost all harmonica tunings (all 100,000 of them LOL) are chord based--that's what makes them harmonic.
I'm looking at the page now and even something like this
tuning: - 2.5b JAZZ MINOR (ASCENDING MELODIC MINOR) CROSS
has chords--blow is still C, draw is Gm on the bottom, D on top, with one note (draw 7) that doesn't fit.
So mostly, harps are tuned to chords.

Last Edited by Gnarly on Nov 18, 2014 1:29 PM
barbequebob
2761 posts
Nov 18, 2014
1:46 PM
@Gnarly -- I understand completely what you'er saying, but with many harmonica players, the reality is that on most of those alternate tunings, chording is gonna be the last thing they're gonna do unless they're truly knowledgeable in music theory and using chord voicings more commonly used in very complex jazz progressions. The one alternate tuning you'll usually see a harp player use chording is when a country tuned harp is involved, and so I do stand by the very last sentence of my above post, and so it's obvious that you have a true understanding of chords, or better yet, music theory but the average player largely hasn't got a clue about that stuff at all and can barely remember the note layout on the standard richter tuned harp that's the standard still being used. Heck, just the transition to country tuned harp can be a major "culture shock" for many harp players, let alone some other alternate tunings like spiral/circular tuning as an example.
----------
Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Gnarly
1160 posts
Nov 18, 2014
2:02 PM
Alternate tunings are a hard sell, for sure, but sometimes give you the right tool for the job.
Mostly not for blues, tho . . . I find Richter is many times the best tuning for blues (big duh).
Thanks for your words (hey, and deeds)!
chromaticblues
1628 posts
Nov 20, 2014
9:18 AM
I love Steve Baker's hand book and I think the Crossover is one of the best quality harmonicas made, BUT IMHO the Crossover temperament (tuning formula) is the worst sounding harmonica I have ever played! It's over priced and sounds like audible razor blades! Yet they sell like hot cakes.
Anyone out there that plays Blues and has a crossover try tuning it to 7JIT at 442 on you tuner.
This is a service I do for $25 if this is something someone would like, but doesn't work on harps themselves.
barbequebob
2762 posts
Nov 20, 2014
10:43 AM
Hohner USA actually now has an artist setup where you can have that done for you for $20 but according to their wep page, they tune it to A440, which for the vast majority of harp players, including pros, that's a HUGE mistake and if you go that way, I'd suggest that you instruct them to tune to A442-A443, the latter if you tend to be a really hard player.

Here's the link:

Hohner Artist Set Ups

What they call 7LJI is Biscuit Tuning and 19LJI, they call Juke JOint Tuning with harps tuned at A441, which is still too low for most players, especially really hard players, and their description of it says uses by Kim Wilson and Little Walter, but since 19LJI wasn't used until 1982 by Huang, then by Hohner in 1985, that's clearly dead wrong and Kim Wilson was using stock harps until about 1993-94, and all of his recordings until 1985 were all used with harps tuned to 7LJI and that's a fact.

Gnarly, I agree with you 100% on alternate tunings for the vast majority of harp players just on the fact that the vast majority of them have no clue where all the notes are on the harps as they're regularly tuned as it is, plus their lack of theory knowledge. Many years ago, Magic Dick and Pierre Beauregard had patents for such harps under the name of King Harmonicas using many of the tunings listed on Pat Missin's site and they were going to hire me to do the tuning for them, but Hohner resisted putting them out and it makes sense why because only really advanced players could truly take advantage of them and the sales would be far too minimal for them to do on a production line basis and I've had to tell Pierre that straight up. Those tunings can be great where using other positions along with overblows can be a royal pain in the butt to work with for other genres besides blues, but they'd be lucky to sell close to 1,000 of them in about 5 years realistically and no manufacturer, wholesaler/distributor, or retailer wants to be stuck with a huge amount of inventory that's not selling in large quantities for years.
----------
Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Gnarly
1162 posts
Nov 20, 2014
12:27 PM
Gotcha Bob.
Glad I do it myself, turning an ET into any kind of compromise is very satifying.
I do repairs for Suzuki, and sometimes it's hard not to retune the ET harps that come across the bench--if they don't complain about it, don't fix what's not wrong LOL
chromaticblues
1629 posts
Nov 21, 2014
9:17 AM
@ BqBob
Yeah I know that Hohner does the artist set up.

I didn't know it was $20, but I would like to say that;
I would like to take ANYONE up on buying a Crossover with the artist set up for $20. Then buy a Crossover and send it to me for $25 and I'll do my artist set up on it. Then post the results!
Gnarly
1163 posts
Nov 21, 2014
10:13 AM
I wish they had me doing the artist setups at Suzuki--
Of course I get to set up our endorsers' harps.
I think customers deserve to have their harmonicas set up for their styles out of the box, for a fee of course.
@Chromaticblues, do you offer new harmonicas with your "artist set up"?
hvyj
2588 posts
Nov 21, 2014
3:45 PM
True story: I was at a jam and the guitar player called "Little Wing" in E minor. The harp player who was on stage at the time pulled out a natural minor tuned Lee Oskar harp and struggled so badly he gave up and left the stage. Having played this tune with the guitar player before (who looked at me and motioned for me to come up), I went up and played E minor on a C harp (fifth position) and everything went fine.

After I got off stage the other harp player asked how I did that. I told him I played E minor on a C harp. His response was to argue with me insistantly asserting that the tune was NOT in E minor. The guy knows no music theory at all and apparantly had convinced himself that if the tune was actually in E minor his minor tuned harp would have worked.

Moral of the story: Hardware alone will only take you so far.

Last Edited by hvyj on Nov 21, 2014 4:14 PM
hvyj
2589 posts
Nov 21, 2014
4:12 PM
Re A440. My harps are tuned to A442(pure ET) which seems to put me in tune with the band. when I play. Then, I began to get complaints from other musicians that I was out of tune when I was playing my F, E or Eb harps. I used a little Korg tuner to check them and all 3 harps were in tune at A442. What to do? I had these 3 harps re-tuned to A441 and everything was fine.

Now, unlike BBQ Bob I am not a soft breath player.BUT for several months I had been working hard at making my attack and breath pressure more even. I think evening out my attack affected my intonation on the high key harps which necessitated the re-tuning. At least that's my speculation. Not sure why it didn't affect intonation on the lower keys.

In another thread someone said that they didn't like playing custom harps because of the out of service delay when you need to send them in for sevice or retuning. FWIW, I've sent harps back to Joe Spiers for tune ups several times and stuffed spare harps into my case. Never had to use the spares because Joe got the retuned harps back to me so fast every time.

Last Edited by hvyj on Nov 21, 2014 4:34 PM
chromaticblues
1633 posts
Nov 24, 2014
10:28 AM
@Gnarly
Yes, but I'm only selling new Hohner's.
Mostly SP20's and crossovers.
barbequebob
2763 posts
Nov 24, 2014
11:03 AM
@hvyj -- What it sounds like is that the harp player who was using a Natural Minor tuned Lee Oskar may have been completely unaware that, unlike the way the vast majority of diatonic harmonicas are marked in terms of the key meaning, for those who are reading this and are unaware, is that most harmonicas are marked in FIRST position (because the harmonica was never originally designed to play anything else but in first position), but with all of the Lee Oskar minor tunings, the harps are marked in SECOND/CROSS position, and it not only says so on the instruction sheet enclosed with the harp (and most guys are often guilty of the complaint their significant others say of them not bothering to read instructions/directions/manuals), but also on their website as well as their leaflets ever since they were first introduced in the mid 80's, and if the player had bothered to read, he would've used one marked in Em rather than in Am and many players aren't aware of this and this is very important to pay attention to and would be an easy answer to his difficulties.

That player is also a PRIME AND OBVIOUS example why players should take the time to learn about where everything is on their harps and learn theory because players who do that rarely have trouble whenever they begin to use alternate tunings whereas those who don't, they either freak out or too often wind up embarrassing themselves BIG TIME.

I actually use a very wide variety of breath levels, going from super super soft and more (I'd say it's probably, at my softest, probably 80% softer than most players) which is something I learned from watching Big Walter at his gigs very frequently and even at his hardest breath force possible, it was often a lot softer than the average player. Getting breath force and attack is extremely important to work on and the average diatonic player often is going to play with a much harder breath on holes 1-6 draw and 7-10 blow because their so used to forcing bends and everything to happen and evening out the breath force makes phrases work out much more smoothly, especially if you're gonna be playing phrases a break neck speed requiring extremely rapid breath shifts and the best example of the need for this is when trying to cop Charlie McCoy's very uptempo version of the Orange Blossom Special, where even with changing harps, he's playing rapid fire fiddle licks and having a very even breath force is extremely vital or everything is gonna be a mess and you'll get winded quite rapidly.

Retuning with a customs is always gonna be much quicker because it's not like an entire instrument is getting completely worked over, which takes tons of time and even replacing a single reed or two is still gonna be faster because you won't have the setup time and huge labor needed to set an entire instrument up and since the customizer already knows how your harps are set up for your own playing, that alone cuts down the time to get things done properly and turnaround time should always be much faster.
----------
Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Philosofy
621 posts
Nov 24, 2014
1:23 PM
If anyone is interested, here is an exchange between Joe Filisko about the tuning of the harp he carries in his pocket:
Joel Andersson Cool! Will that be perfect chords or comprised tuning?
November 14 at 11:49am · Like

Filisko Harmonica Instruction and Store You can't tell by listening???
November 14 at 11:49am · Like · 1

Joel Andersson Well, don't know where you are paying on this harp
November 14 at 11:50am · Like

Filisko Harmonica Instruction and Store I rarely play chords above hole 4. All the chord triads are as smooth and "just" as I can get them
November 14 at 11:53am · Like · 2

Joel Andersson But the chord above hole 4 would then be as smooth as hole 1-4? Or do you have "beating" octaves?
November 14 at 11:55am · Like

Filisko Harmonica Instruction and Store Slightly beating. Do keep in mind that I am able to make pitch adjustments to create tension or release as I need. Love them octaves!
arzajac
1517 posts
Nov 24, 2014
2:24 PM
Phil - Very interesting. The next big question is how does he like the 5-9 draw and 6-10 draw?

----------


Custom overblow harps. Harmonica service and repair.
hvyj
2594 posts
Nov 24, 2014
3:37 PM
@BBQBob: No, the harp player I was talking about knows how his LOs are marked because I've heard him use them (correctly)to play minor material. I think the problem was that LW has an F9 chord and a Bbm chord that you can get the notes needed to play over in 5th position, but those notes are not diatonic to the E natural minor scale and so may not be available on a natural minor harp. But I dunno for sure since I've never owned a minor tuned harp.
FBInsMan
23 posts
Nov 24, 2014
7:16 PM
I just recently retuned an old Old Standby that was horribly out of tune. I took Kinya P recommendation he calls it the HARPSMITH tuning that Rick Epping came up with.
It's a really nice tuning plays cords pretty well and has nice single notes.

"The only way to get better is to play a little outside your comfort zone every time you play!" ----------

Last Edited by FBInsMan on Nov 24, 2014 7:17 PM
barbequebob
2766 posts
Nov 25, 2014
10:04 AM
The present compromise tunings that Hohner uses (except for the Crossover) were designed by Rick Epping.
----------
Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte


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