A harp guy named Arnold Cazemier has sent me a link for a video demo-ing a new harp he's invented. He calls it the Forkord Turnaround. I'm not familiar enough with what currently exists in the world of alternate harp tuning to judge just how original or different it is, but there's no question that it makes some cool stuff possible. Here's what he wrote to me:
"In this video I describe a few of the possibilities of the harmonica. It's a combination of the lower halves of two harps that differ one whole tone. Simply put, I sawed them right through the middle, and glued the lower parts back together. In case of a C and B-flat bluesharp that gives you the chords B-flat, F(7), C and G(7) with which you can play and accompany very many tunes! Its name: The Forkord Turnaround."
Another name for it would be "One Trick Pony".Might be good for Polkas.Mooshka Malooshka Looshka looshka looshka.We're goinna do one more and get the hell outa here.
It's amazing how many ways there are to put a harp together! Pretty neat. I wonder what would happen if you did that to a set of minor tuned harmonicas. I still think someone needs to come up with a harmonica layout program that lets you set what notes go in each hole and then maybe play different songs using tab to get a theoretical simulation of what it would sound like, sort of a Bend-o-Meter interface combined with a player piano feature with a twist of being able to change what notes go where, all with a better than midi harmonica synthesizer. I think it would open up a lot of experimenting.
@Nacoran Yeah, that would be cool. A question regarding that exact point: is it predictable what note combinations will bend and how much? Does anyone understand why notes bend? Example: 4 blow and draw are as far apart as 5 blow and draw, and still 4 will bend further than 5?? What's the logic?
Actually, the 4 and 5 holes aren't the same distance between the notes. The 4 hole on say, a C harp, is C blow, D draw. The five hole is E blow, F draw. It's easier to see on a piano than a harmonica, but C and D are a whole step apart- C C# D and E and F are only a half step- E F.
On a piano you can see there is no E#. It's just an artifact of the crazy way they name notes to make sure each key only has one note with each letter for a name. :)
The general rule for 'regular' bends is you can play any note between the pitch of the two notes, so on the 4 hole on a C harp you can play C#. On the 3 hole you can get Bb A Ab on bends. The same works for blowbends up on the top end of the harmonica, except you get the bends on blows instead of draws. I don't know the physics of it though.
Then things get all weird when you start doing overblows. You are creating a note let dependent on the other reed. I know you can go up one note reliably if you can do it (I can't) and I've heard people bend up further, but I'm not sure anyone does it in actual playing.
So, theoretically, if you assumed you could bend in between the notes and get one 1/2 step worth of overblow in each hole it would just be a matter of getting a good synthesizer and some 'simple' equations mixed with an intuitive interface.
I'm not sure the market for people who want to mess around with digital harmonica tunings would be big enough to support it commercially, but as a labor of love it would be pretty neat. It's beyond my meager programming skills though. I'm still trying to figure out how to make an interactive circle of fifths with radial buttons to add the key signatures, relative minors and harmonica positions. :)
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Last Edited by on Oct 29, 2011 3:07 PM
It would be something of a one trick pony, but still pretty cool. I wonder if putting six holes from each harp would expand the options a bit. A poor man's chord harmonica.
@AW: That's a good idea! Just get two Seydel "Big 6"s, one in C and one Bb (or A and G), and glue them end to end! Viola! Could be cool, and no need for sawing! :) ---------- == I S A A C ==
I've already thought about two sets of six holes, check my considerations at: http://www.forkord-turnaround.com/consider.html
Two Big Sixes glued to each other sounds nice but listen to the final chord (F) of Muss I Denn in the YouTube, that's the draw chord of the Bb-flat half part, but the top note f is the draw 5 of the C half. Comes together quite nicely!
I'm planning to put some musical examples on the site this week, also some Polkas yeah! The harmonica lends itself especially for chord melody playing. (Traditional christmas songs come to mind too)
Probably or certainly MBH is not the right spot for this genre, maybe you could (by email) point me to some more folk related forums/sites?
@arnold c: Just had a look at the site you've made, and wanted to say thanks for putting it all out there free of charge! That's the way we grow as a community! I can definitely see the possibilities of this idea, and hopefully I'll one day make one!
@issach I checked my Seydel solist (12 hole) against the big six and the size spacing of holes is the same. If you retuned a big six (they only come in C) then cut a bit off the end of each, the solist coverplates would fit your new 12 hole Frankenharp.
@AW: Good to know! I didn't realize that the big 6 only came in the key of C. But that's not to bi of a deal, because you can easily tune down with BluTak (WAY easier than filing!).
Actually, the man to try this out first would be Dave Payne from elk River Harmonicas. Not only is he an awesome bluegrass/folk harp player, but he's a seydel dealer and a harp customizer too! I bet he's got enough parts laying about the workshop to mock one up real quick. Not only that, but he's got the skills to know how to use this thing too!
I went to the Seydel website and priced out what it would take to make this happen: Big Six's cost $36.99 (x2 = $73.98), and solist pro 12 coverplates cost $14.95, which brings the total cost to $88.93 plus shipping for a 12 hole, steel reed forkord turnaround. Not too bad! But, unfortunatelty, still too much for this poor student! However, since this is NOT a setup where overblows are important (and not the point), one could make one out of two affordable harps, like a Big River, and spend as little as $36. THAT'S in my price range! :)
Finally, just a side note for construction: As an amateur wood worker who likes to make things difficult on himself by trying to build furniture using only hand tools, I KNOW how hard it is to make a good joint with only hand tools. Good joinery is the key to success in any wood working project, and I see no difference here. The job will likely be made much better, not to mention easier, if one used some sort of precision hobbyists' miter cutoff saw instead of a hacksaw and file. Here's a very affordable one you could buy at harbor freight for $25: http://www.harborfreight.com/bench-top-cut-off-saw-42307.html I imagine that one could easily come up with many other harp related projects to make using this tool! :)
Also, and especially for wood combs, with only a glue joint holding the thing together (with some mild support from the coverplates), I'd say it might be prudent to add some reinforcement to the joint. If you've got a good drill press, you might be able to drill some holes for a small dowel, but probably it's easier/more possible to simply glue on a strip of wood to the back of the comb, across the joint. Also, you could glue some strips across the joint on the outside of the reeplates if there is enough room. ---------- == I S A A C ==
I think for a comb I'd see if one of the custom comb guys could just cut me a solid one with the slot lengths adjusted, and the holes punched backwards on the top half. Then I'd take the original comb off and keep it as a spare, the covers too. All you really need to cut then is the reed plate. Turn that around, maybe use some of that metal weld goop you can get at car stores (it's not really a weld, no heat is involved, I forget the products real name.) Sand the plate for any rough corners and assemble. If you want to be real fancy, etch the new harp 'key' into the cover- Forkord C/Bb, or you could probably get the custom comb provider to put it on the comb. (If you were really fancy then, you could order some blank covers- I suppose since there isn't a key naming convention in place for this harp you could just call it Forkord C, so put Forkord on the comb, and use your C cover. Of course, once you've got these half harps, you've got spare parts. It takes two harps to make 1 of these harps. For the price of one more harp you can make a second one in a different key. What do you get when you put the high ends together, flipped upside down. If that is useful then you don't have any net loss in the number of harps used and the number of harps produced. Looks like you'd have to do some retuning. :(
I really would like to hear a minor version too.
I know it would add $20-$30 bucks maybe to the construction, but for a quality look I think custom combs cut specifically for the Forkord would be the way to go.
That's a good idea Nac. Would solve any potential breakage problems. Actually, now that I've thought about it, the ideal cheap harp to try this out on would be the Suzuki Folkmaster, which retails for $15. So you could build a Forkord for less than one marine band. Not too shabby! ---------- == I S A A C ==
For the past few days I've been batting around the idea of a 12 hole version of this harp. I still think there might be some benefit for playing melodies, but it would be more of an investment than I can do in the near future.
Even so, I got what we call the Ullah-itch. "I just had to try something." So I took my Dremel, an A and a G peidmont blues harp. (I got the set of 7 primarily for the case) and hacked them together. Not sure how much play time it will get, but we'll see. I'm guessing I'd just play the chord harmonica.
As as side note, I put the two halves together in a turbolid which holds them both snug without gluing them together.
I like how everyone always adds that they got the Piedmonts for the case. :) It's like owning a Debbie Gibson album. (Until really recently I actually had a fluke of a good Piedmont in D. I finally blew a reed though. My gig set takes up two Piedmont cases.)
@nacoran: I already wrote a program that generates tablature for the harp, given its key and the key of the song and a textual description of the melody, for my own use. And I wrote a different program that can generate .wav files for various notes and attacks. I could put 'em together with some tweaks to do something like you've suggested near the beginning of this thread. It'l take me a bunch of hours tho'. Can you give me some specific expectations before I do it?
lor, that would be cool! I sort of had a picture in my head of the Seydel note layout chart where you can fill in the notes. They seem to have something that keeps you from filling in impossible combinations that won't fit the reed slots, but the Forkord sort of shows that with some ingenuity you can get around that. If you had a harp layout chart that you could fill in the true reed notes and it would show the notes you could generate and you could press the notes to get them that would be awesome. You'd probably want the notes labeled for octave too. My understanding is you can bend a note between to any pitch between the two notes in the hole, and overblow one pitch up from the higher note (although I guess some people can go farther.) If the chart filled those notes in automatically it would be great. That last question would be how to deal with chords. If you made the buttons sticky (so the tone played until you unclicked it) then you could play multiple notes to test the chords. I suppose you could have some rule to prevent it from playing combinations that won't work, like a simultaneous 3 overblow 4 draw, although if it's laid out logically people could see that for themselves. It's sort of like Bend-o-meter in reverse- instead of figuring out what pitch you are playing and showing it you'd press the spots on the chart and it would play it.
nacoran, all that seems do-able. The chord thing could also be done by clicking the notes and then a final click to hear it play. And possibly have it able to read a text file specifying a tune to play. I think the output of tablature could help folks play whatever. Certainly it would be one click to get any of the standard diatonic harp setups.
As for possible bends, my own overblows tend to produce notes both Higher and Lower than the normal note. It's not an easy thing to control, I'm learning. The interplay of the two reeds at a hole is quite complex.
Now, dang it, I'm tripping into the territory of modeling the behavior of reeds themselves and in proximity to others, within specifically shaped acoustic cavities. Yikes - God help me . . . maybe someone else has a head start on that, please.
@AW HIP HIP HOORAY!!! You 're the first one, I'm honoured, Happy Harpin' with your Forkord Turnaround!
Indeed the glue is not absolutely neccesary, the coverplates do most of the work holding the harp together, but a bit is useful so the harp doesn't fall apart when opening it.
@lor Of course I 'm interested in your program; the tuning overview of Tinus Koorn totally freaks out displaying the possible notes on the Forkord Turnaround :)
A very interesting idea. I'm probably going to make one of these out of a couple of rusty MB's I have laying around--some great possibilities there.
It seems to me that the glue would definitely be needed just to seal the air leak you'd probably get--maybe just some silicon caulk would work for that--I'll just mount the halves on a new comb.
One comment that might be taken wrong in a world where any odor of criticism however kind can be misconscrewed--the splitting of the text through the whole video was-- IMHO, annoying at best and didn't add anything of value to the presentation. Just an old curmudgeon opinion. . . ----------
@oldwailer What do you mean by "I'll just mount the halves on a new comb'? I don't get it.
About the splitting of the text, I wanted the music/harp speak for itself, some text was neccesary for explaining keys and positions. I got the complaint also from a German forum, and solved it this way.
@Arnold C.--I just said it badly--my idea is to cut the harps in half--then mount the halves of each plate onto a new comb--I just prefer custom combs that I make out of plexiglass, diamondwood, or aluminum. I think it would be possible to just cut the plates in half and mount the halves back onto one of the combs--but you would be more experienced in that than I would.
Thanks for the idea--and the clarification of the text. I'm going to try this soon. . . ----------
DUH!--I just got it--the reason for cutting the combs is to make the length of the slots match up on both ends--I'll have to see if I can devise a Forkord Turnaround comb--shouldn't be too hard to do. . . ----------
A standard comb wouldn't work, the comb has to look like picture 10 on this page with the long slots on both ends. ---------- Every musician is a drummer.
Hey fellows! I was cleaning my office last week and came across my old stash of Johnson Blues King harps. I saw that I had both the key of C and the key of Bb still left intact, and thought to myself, "Self. Why not make you a Forkord Turnaround?".
So, after dinner that night, I snuck out to the shed, pulled out a hacksaw and some two part epoxy, and made me one right up. Cut to a few days later, the epoxy was well set, and I had me a brand new Forkord! Well, today, after my lunch (I'm working at home today), I started to blow on it, and well, it just came naturally! So, I video'ed it up, and here we are! Enjoy!
PS. Thanks to AW for inspiring me to try this tuning out! ---------- == I S A A C ==
oh boy. smoke on the water. so am i missing something here? you use the bottom holes for pretty much everything? do chords or octaves all the time? ---------- http://www.reverbnation.com/jawboneandjolene
@jbone: Yeah, that's pretty much it! At least as far as I've been able to figure out... It's basically a poor man's chord harp, but only for very specific types of music. Still, it's fun for doing the kind of chordal vamp stuff like in my video above, and it lets you sound a little different than using a normal harp! ---------- == I S A A C ==
