Frankie
117 posts
Mar 24, 2018
11:59 AM
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Let's say you purchased 5 harmonicas today.
How many of those 5 you might need tuning ?
How likely you tune your new harmonicas?
Sorry for my poor English! :)
Last Edited by Frankie on Mar 24, 2018 12:00 PM
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arzajac
1848 posts
Mar 24, 2018
4:38 PM
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Hi Frankie.
I've been away from the forum for a while and it seems things are as busy as they have ever been! There are a few threads about tuning at the moment and that's one of my favorite topics.
How many harps need to be tuned out of the box? That's a great question.
The answer depends on how many different people are playing those harps.
Some great musicians don't have an ear for tuning (Think Albert King who always thought his guitar was in tune but it never was.) They would not be too picky about the tuning until someone complains to them about it!
Some great musicians only play single notes along melody lines on the harmonica and don't require a lot of precision. Basically if the note is plus or minus a few cents, it will sound good. So if they buy a harp that is not compromised or Just tuned, they will be happy even if the notes aren't perect. That kind of tuning is close enough.
Some great musicians use a lot of chords and splits and better tuning is required for that. When those intervals sound dissonant, they will not be too happy about it and they will want to touch them up.
Other players may use chords and octaves all the time and be very demanding about it. Joe Filiko calls this the BIG sound. You need to master the playing techniques, of course. When harmonica reeds are in perfect tune, the small instrument has a MUCH bigger sound. When an octave or a chord is out of tune it's not only that there is dissonance it's that there is much less power to your sound.
So to answer your question, a lot of people would buy five harps and never consider tuning them. A lot of other people would play them and tune up the worst notes every now and then when they got the chance. Others would have more stringent demands (like folks doing studio work where every detail will be recorded) and tune them often or right off the bat.
I asked Curtis Salgado what harps he prefers a few years ago:
"I'll play anything as long as it's in tune!" was his answer.
About tuning in general: Folks seem to be obsessed about the numbers. Whether the "numbers" are your reference pitch or the offsets of single notes. That doesn't really matter.
Those numbers are a recipe. Just like cooking, sometimes (always) you need to tweak things. You may buy a different brand of canned tomatoes for your sauce and suddenly you need to add a lot less sugar and more salt to your pot. YOU NEED TO TASTE YOUR SAUCE and not rely on how precisely you are following the recipe (numbers).
Tuning a harmonica is the same for a lot of reasons. The biggest reason is that your mouth, your embouchure, your breath, your mood, how thirsty you are... are all things that will change the number you see on a tuner.
Play a note ten times while someone else is looking at the needle of your tuner. You will hit a different number most tries. Not too helpful if you want to tune a harp.
Do it again and look at the needle this time. You will probably (instinctively) adjust the pitch with your ears to be able to get the needle to show the same value a few times in a row. But this is because you adjusted (altered, bent) the pitch yourself. Again, not helpful for tuning a harp.
So what do you need to know about tuning a harp?
Listen. Pay attention to what sounds bad (and fix it - At that point, use numbers as a guideline to tell you how to fix the bad note) but also pay attention to what sounds good. If you become more demanding of the sounds you are making, that's a great way to develop a BIG sound of your own.
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Custom overblow harps. Harmonica Combs and Tools.
Last Edited by arzajac on Mar 24, 2018 4:38 PM
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jbone
2523 posts
Mar 24, 2018
6:14 PM
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I am an ootb guy Out of the box. Adapt if possible and go play. If I HAVE TO I will adjust a gap or two. I always make sure all the reed plate and cover screws are adequately tight right off when I get a new harp.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
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Spderyak
206 posts
Mar 25, 2018
5:42 AM
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If I buy 5 new harps I will want/expect 5 harmonicas in tune.
I see some people assume that all new harmonicas need to be tuned...I am not one of those people.
it would be like buying a pitch pipe and expecting it to be no good till it gets "fixed."
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Thievin' Heathen
979 posts
Mar 25, 2018
10:41 AM
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My theory on this...,
A new harmonica gets tuned at the factory. It then gets put in a box and shipped on it's merry way, on whatever route required to find it's way into your hands. This might be 6 months or 60 years. In that time the molecular disturbances to the reeds in the manufacturing process have had time to relax and that "Factory Tuning" has drifted some. But, it would be pointless to futz with the tuning as soon as you open the box because there will be some drift as you break the harp in. So I revisit harp tuning periodically and when I take them apart and clean them. I do not re-tune OOTB harps. I tune harps I've been playing awhile.
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IaNerd
41 posts
Mar 25, 2018
3:37 PM
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I just happened to have ordered five standard Richter Easttop T008Ks ten minutes ago (G, A, Bb, D and F). I will re-tune all of them as soon as they arrive, as per http://www.brendan-power.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=212&p=1165#p1165
At this point, the only non-custom tuning that I still use is Country, and then only in Big Sixes. All my other harps (that I want to keep) have alternate tunings that either come from Seydel's Configuration Shop, or (increasingly) are altered for basic tuning and intonation by me.
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