SweetBlood
74 posts
Aug 17, 2018
6:30 AM
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I was browsing Craigslist earlier and saw someone selling a bunch of various pieces of music equipment including 16 hole chromatic harmonicas and 12 hole carnatic harmonicas.
Does anyone have any idea what they would be referring to as a carnatic harmonica? Maybe a special tuning for carnatic music?
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Gareth
2 posts
Aug 17, 2018
6:39 AM
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Just had a quick google for this and it turns out there's quite an Indian music harmonica scene:
http://harmonicahyderabad.blogspot.com/2012/09/carnatic-harmonica-saitejas-chandra.html
I don't know if there are specifically tuned harps for it but the site above gives some of the scales for the ragas they play. Cool!
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harpeauxedwards.bandcamp.com
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SweetBlood
75 posts
Aug 17, 2018
6:49 AM
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Yep, I saw that as well Gareth, but couldn't find any specific items being sold as carnatic harmonicas. Very interesting though, as I was completely unaware of this scene.
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Gareth
3 posts
Aug 17, 2018
6:52 AM
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Yes, I couldn't find any reference to special tunings - just seems they play chromatics. I wonder if there are Indian made harps availale with Carnatic tunings, like Lee Oskar did with the Melodic Minor ones, etc. I'd love to try one.
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harpeauxedwards.bandcamp.com
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johnleewfan
19 posts
Aug 17, 2018
10:46 AM
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I'll give ya 20 to 1 it's a typo for "chromatic".
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SweetBlood
76 posts
Aug 17, 2018
10:57 AM
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I think you are right johnleewfan, I asked the guy and he just got mad at me. What threw me off was that he said "16 hole chromatics and 12 hole carnatics." I thought he must have been talking about two different things. Lol
I wasn't trying to be obnoxious but I somehow shot myself in the foot. He was selling them for $25 each. Never could get a pic or model number though.
Last Edited by SweetBlood on Aug 17, 2018 10:58 AM
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2chops
575 posts
Aug 17, 2018
11:35 AM
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Maybe a carnatic harp is one made by or for Carnac the Magnificent.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnac_the_Magnificent
(More stuff to get past the captcha filter)
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I'm workin on it. I'm workin on it.
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Gareth
11 posts
Aug 18, 2018
1:35 AM
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Just read a bit more deeply on that website and one of the players says this:
"Harmonica maestro Brenden Power has customized 3 Songstars for me in different modes. The common element in the tuning of these harmonicas is that the press of the slide bar on any note [both blow and draw] will take me to the next note in that raga[mode]"
So it seems there are Carnatic harmonicas produced as special custom jobs. If it was a simple typo in the ad, I'm glad he made it because I find all this very interesting!
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Harpeaux Edwards
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Diggsblues
2185 posts
Aug 21, 2018
11:28 AM
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Seems this is not a typo there is music called Carnatic. Johnlee you owe us all a lot of money.
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johnleewfan
22 posts
Aug 21, 2018
1:44 PM
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Of course there's such a thing as Carnatic music. I have half a dozen or so CDs of it. Chitravina Ganesh is somewhere in my "play these next" pile in fact.
But don't plan on paying off your mortgage any time soon; the ad was a typo, & what the seller had on offer was 16-hole and 12-hole chromatic harmonicas.
Sorry! :)
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BeePee
121 posts
Aug 24, 2018
12:47 AM
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I don't think it was a typo, Carnatic Harmonica is a thing. Indian Classical Music is split in two main schools, Carnatic in the south and Hindustani in the north. They play the same ragas but give them different names, and the styles are different. Carnatic is more flowery and embellished, Hindustani more restrained.
Most Indian musicians who play their music use the chromatic, and most of them flip the slide so the notes dip down a semitone. It sounds more authentic for the music. They normally use the Hohner 270, because it's easy to flip the slide on that model. So the 12-hole Carnatic Harmonicas in the ad are likely a bunch of 270s with flipped sliders.
I've made a few alternate-tuned harmonicas for Carnatic music for my friend Saitejas Chandrashakar. On his Suzuki Songstars I made a version on my Slide Diatonic: tuning them to a specific Raga and raising the slide notes to the next note of the scale. That works for him; Saitejas does full Indian Classical Music concerts with these instruments.
Last Edited by BeePee on Aug 24, 2018 12:48 AM
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Gareth
16 posts
Aug 24, 2018
1:56 AM
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Great stuff Brendan! Looking back on this site, I see there was a whole thread about playing ragas on harmonica about 10 years ago.
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Harpeaux Edwards
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johnleewfan
23 posts
Aug 26, 2018
2:26 PM
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I don't think it was a typo, Carnatic H
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See the sixth post in this thread.
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