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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
Gapping/Tuning
Gapping/Tuning
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FreeWilly
93 posts
Dec 05, 2011
7:46 AM
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Dear Harmonica-friends!
I got a new harp Saturday (the one I reviewed in the MBD thread). It was gapped ridiculously, so I had to gap the sh*t out of it. After that, the 2 and 5 blow were noticably flat. Using the online 7th string tuner and a bit of sanding-paper, I managed to get it back into tune! Wow. Being perfectionist as I am, I now of course want to start tuning all my harps and do a better job of it.
(I'm thinking about what tools to get.. perhaps I'll save up for the R. Sleigh-kit?)
There is a lot of info on tuning online (and in the forum-archives). Searching it, I cannot seem to find anything about the relation between gapping and tuning.
Does gapping influence the in-tune-ness of a harp? I'm asking since I suspect that the milimeter-wide gaps of this new MBD and my gapping them, made is go so awfully flat (at 442 it was 31 cents flat on the 5 blow (and now only 10:) ))...
Now I must to my defense state that I have gapped all my harps, and never had reeds go as flat as this one... So I'd like to also hear about suggestions that do not presume I did something terribly wrong, although I don't want to rule this out altogether and would like to learn if that is the case :D
Thanks for any help!
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arzajac
688 posts
Dec 05, 2011
8:26 AM
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As far as I know, gapping doesn't change the tuning at all.
However, if you play really hard, you will flatten the note. Tuning is difficult because you have to stay relaxed and hit each hole with very light breath to get an accurate reading of the actual pitch, and not flatten it artificially. Possibly this is what happened here?
If you play the notes you re-tuned very softly, are they sharp?
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oldwailer
1786 posts
Dec 05, 2011
8:33 AM
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In my opinion, properly gapping a harp has no measurable effect on the tuning. In the course of developing the Harp Hookah, I checked a lot of harps, and I never checked a harp that I thought was really fully in tune with itself--some of them are outrageously out--some are pretty close--it's just normal to me. Most all of the harps I checked were Hohners--although I did do a couple of Delta Frosts. Maybe other brands are better.
I think that any serious harp player needs to get pretty good at tuning in some way--or buy a lot of customs and pay to have them tweaked into tune now and then. At it's simplest, check out Adam's YT lesson on setting up a harp--a great primer on how to get a harp playable on the fly.
I highly recommend the R. Sleigh kit--that's what I use--and it comes with a lot of great information--I would also recommend his book "Tubocharge Your Harmonica."
You are also welcome to go to my web page and check out the harp hookah ;-)
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Oldwailer's Web Site
Always be yourself--unless you suck. . .
-Joss Whedon
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FreeWilly
94 posts
Dec 05, 2011
9:04 AM
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@ Arzajac.
I just checked it with the coverplates on, and I did a pretty decent job I think. Not perfect, but sanding paper and a screwdriver don't provide a stable enough way to work. Btw, the other holes were not as bad as the 2 and the 5. If that were the case, I would have figured I was doing something wrong. But it's a good tip for the beginning tuner to check the way you breathe. I read somewhere that Steve Baker plays them as soft as possible to measure the highest note a reed will provide, as it's the only stable factor. I will have to work on this..
And that's +1 on the Sleigh kit ;)
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