[Harp-L] Interesting new tuning
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Roger Myerson
Jun 27, 2014, 5:36:30 PM6/27/14
to har...@harp-l.org
I have recently tried an interesting new diatonic tuning and I wonder if
anyone has seen it before. The 12-hole version that Seydel made for me
has the following note arrangement (in the key of C but with D as its
low note):
BLOW D F G A C D F G A C D F
DRAW E G A B D E G A B D E G
What is so special about this? It is the only tuning that has the
following three properties:
(1) Regularity: Each octave should regularly repeat the same pattern,
with draw higher than blow in each hole, and with notes going in the
same direction (lower to higher) as you move from left to right.
(2) Cover a major scale without bends: The blow and draw notes should
include all the notes of a major scale but no other notes, so that you
don't have to worry about accidentally playing something out of the key.
(3) Cover the chromatic scale with bends: With draw bends (but no
overblowing), you should be able to get all twelve notes of the
chromatic scale in each octave.
These desirable properties can be achieved only by having five holes per
octave. Here, in a C harp, each hole contains two notes separated by a
whole-tone interval with one of the five black notes of the piano
available as a draw bend in between them.
Since the black notes form a pentatonic scale, the blow notes and the
draw notes each also form a pentatonic scale. Here the blow notes form
an F-major (or D-minor) pentatonic scale, and the draw notes form a
G-major (or E-minor) pentatonic scale. Essentially we have decomposed
the seven-note major scale into two overlapping pentatonic scales, whose
paired notes enclose the other five chromatic notes I believe that
these are the pentatonic pairs that Willie Thomas talks about in
jazzeveryone.com.
Gary Lehman suggested that this could be called "pentabender" tuning. I
have been playing my new pentabender harp for couple of days, and I find
it very natural and intuitive.
In Pat Missin's catalog of tunings, the closest cousins to this
pentabender seem to be 11.18 "chromatic pentatonic" tuning and 11.24
"fourkey" tuning. Both also have five-hole octaves, but 11.18 contains
only the notes of one pentatonic scale, and fourkey tuning includes the
notes of four different major scales. Each octave in pentabender tuning
contains three notes that repeat enharmonically in blow and draw, and if
you flatten the draw enharmonic notes by a semitone then you get fourkey
tuning.
If this natural tuning has been overlooked, it may be interesting to ask
why. I think that there are two main reasons. First, it needs five
holes per octave, which means that you can only get two octaves in a
10-hole harp. But I have enjoyed playing fourkey harmonicas with such a
range for several years. Second, most people who think about altered
tunings tend to look for ways to get nice chords in three-hole triads of
contiguous blow or draw notes. However, this tuning (like fourkey
tuning) was motivated by melodic properties, and so instead of nice
triad chords we get pentatonic scales, which are basic melodic structure
in many musical traditions.
This has also been discussed at Slidemeister.com at
http://www.slidemeister.com/forums/index.php?topic=1205.390
--
Roger B. Myerson, Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor
Department of Economics, University of Chicago
1126 East 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637
Phone: 773-834-9071, Fax: 773-702-8490
http://home.uchicago.edu/~rmyerson/
anyone has seen it before. The 12-hole version that Seydel made for me
has the following note arrangement (in the key of C but with D as its
low note):
BLOW D F G A C D F G A C D F
DRAW E G A B D E G A B D E G
What is so special about this? It is the only tuning that has the
following three properties:
(1) Regularity: Each octave should regularly repeat the same pattern,
with draw higher than blow in each hole, and with notes going in the
same direction (lower to higher) as you move from left to right.
(2) Cover a major scale without bends: The blow and draw notes should
include all the notes of a major scale but no other notes, so that you
don't have to worry about accidentally playing something out of the key.
(3) Cover the chromatic scale with bends: With draw bends (but no
overblowing), you should be able to get all twelve notes of the
chromatic scale in each octave.
These desirable properties can be achieved only by having five holes per
octave. Here, in a C harp, each hole contains two notes separated by a
whole-tone interval with one of the five black notes of the piano
available as a draw bend in between them.
Since the black notes form a pentatonic scale, the blow notes and the
draw notes each also form a pentatonic scale. Here the blow notes form
an F-major (or D-minor) pentatonic scale, and the draw notes form a
G-major (or E-minor) pentatonic scale. Essentially we have decomposed
the seven-note major scale into two overlapping pentatonic scales, whose
paired notes enclose the other five chromatic notes I believe that
these are the pentatonic pairs that Willie Thomas talks about in
jazzeveryone.com.
Gary Lehman suggested that this could be called "pentabender" tuning. I
have been playing my new pentabender harp for couple of days, and I find
it very natural and intuitive.
In Pat Missin's catalog of tunings, the closest cousins to this
pentabender seem to be 11.18 "chromatic pentatonic" tuning and 11.24
"fourkey" tuning. Both also have five-hole octaves, but 11.18 contains
only the notes of one pentatonic scale, and fourkey tuning includes the
notes of four different major scales. Each octave in pentabender tuning
contains three notes that repeat enharmonically in blow and draw, and if
you flatten the draw enharmonic notes by a semitone then you get fourkey
tuning.
If this natural tuning has been overlooked, it may be interesting to ask
why. I think that there are two main reasons. First, it needs five
holes per octave, which means that you can only get two octaves in a
10-hole harp. But I have enjoyed playing fourkey harmonicas with such a
range for several years. Second, most people who think about altered
tunings tend to look for ways to get nice chords in three-hole triads of
contiguous blow or draw notes. However, this tuning (like fourkey
tuning) was motivated by melodic properties, and so instead of nice
triad chords we get pentatonic scales, which are basic melodic structure
in many musical traditions.
This has also been discussed at Slidemeister.com at
http://www.slidemeister.com/forums/index.php?topic=1205.390
--
Roger B. Myerson, Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor
Department of Economics, University of Chicago
1126 East 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637
Phone: 773-834-9071, Fax: 773-702-8490
http://home.uchicago.edu/~rmyerson/
Winslow Yerxa
Jun 27, 2014, 6:41:19 PM6/27/14
to har...@harp-l.org
Whenever I encounter a new tuning, the first thing I try to "break" is the chords.
In the blow notes I see F-G-A in neighboring holes, and also C-D .That's a lot of major seconds that are likely to sound dissonant when neighboring holes are played.
Same goes for the draw notes: G-A-B and then D-E.
Isolating a single hole is one of the first difficulties people run when they first try to play a harmonica. Early on, someone finessed this problem by making most of the neighboring-hole combinations into harmonious-sounding thirds. This brought up the obvious corollary of chords, resulting in an instrument with three of the triads of the key available (C, G, and D minor on a C harmonica).
This is not a harp for beginners - it presupposes very good single-note technique, the ability to forswear most chords (or use sophisticated and accurately targeted tongue skills to tease out the thirds and fifths), and the ability to bend.
Winslow
Winslow Yerxa
President, SPAH, the Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica
Producer, the Harmonica Collective
Author, Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5
Harmonica Basics For Dummies, ASIN B005KIYPFS
Blues Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-1-1182-5269-7
Resident Expert, bluesharmonica.com
Instructor, Jazzschool Community Music School
________________________________
From: Roger Myerson <rmye...@uchicago.edu>
To: har...@harp-l.org
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2014 2:34 PM
Subject: [Harp-L] Interesting new tuning
In the blow notes I see F-G-A in neighboring holes, and also C-D .That's a lot of major seconds that are likely to sound dissonant when neighboring holes are played.
Same goes for the draw notes: G-A-B and then D-E.
Isolating a single hole is one of the first difficulties people run when they first try to play a harmonica. Early on, someone finessed this problem by making most of the neighboring-hole combinations into harmonious-sounding thirds. This brought up the obvious corollary of chords, resulting in an instrument with three of the triads of the key available (C, G, and D minor on a C harmonica).
This is not a harp for beginners - it presupposes very good single-note technique, the ability to forswear most chords (or use sophisticated and accurately targeted tongue skills to tease out the thirds and fifths), and the ability to bend.
Winslow
Winslow Yerxa
President, SPAH, the Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica
Producer, the Harmonica Collective
Author, Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5
Harmonica Basics For Dummies, ASIN B005KIYPFS
Blues Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-1-1182-5269-7
Resident Expert, bluesharmonica.com
Instructor, Jazzschool Community Music School
________________________________
From: Roger Myerson <rmye...@uchicago.edu>
To: har...@harp-l.org
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2014 2:34 PM
Subject: [Harp-L] Interesting new tuning
rex
Jun 27, 2014, 7:34:37 PM6/27/14
to har...@googlegroups.com, har...@harp-l.org, rmye...@uchicago.edu
The first thing I noticed is no key note until hole 5. I like the key note (and a leading seventh) to occur earlier. Is it your goal to play this one harp in all keys? Then perhaps it wouldn't matter where it starts.
phil...@aol.com
Jun 27, 2014, 10:43:01 PM6/27/14
to winslo...@yahoo.com, har...@harp-l.org
And in truth, learning this tuning and putting it to use is probably not any harder than a sax player learning the trumpet. They're all notes aren't they?
Every time somebody comes up with a new tuning-- or what they think is a new tuning -- it turns out it's like learning a new instrument unless you're the inventor.
That's because the inventor knows what he had in mind when he made the invention and what problems he wanted to solve.
For the rest of us, it's a puzzlement.
It's also the reason the standard richter and solo tuned harps keep on harping. They work, they're accessible and affordable.
But we can always use a new tuning.
Every time somebody comes up with a new tuning-- or what they think is a new tuning -- it turns out it's like learning a new instrument unless you're the inventor.
That's because the inventor knows what he had in mind when he made the invention and what problems he wanted to solve.
For the rest of us, it's a puzzlement.
It's also the reason the standard richter and solo tuned harps keep on harping. They work, they're accessible and affordable.
But we can always use a new tuning.
Roger Myerson
Jun 28, 2014, 1:13:40 PM6/28/14
to rex, har...@googlegroups.com, har...@harp-l.org
Thanks, Rex. I appreciate your asking this. Many people think that the
root of the key must be the lowest note of the instrument, but of course
this repeating pattern could be started at any point in the cycle.
In this tuning, however, we can fit an extra note in a 12-hole harmonica
if we start with either the second or the sixth (D or A in the key of C)
as the low note in hole 1. With a range less than 2.5 octaves here,
every additional note is much valued! My experience is that it is good
to have a fifth note (G here) below the low root note, and so that is
why I chose this layout. But you might prefer to start on A, in which
case it would become
BLOW A C D F G A C D F G A C
DRAW B D E G A B D E G A B D
root of the key must be the lowest note of the instrument, but of course
this repeating pattern could be started at any point in the cycle.
In this tuning, however, we can fit an extra note in a 12-hole harmonica
if we start with either the second or the sixth (D or A in the key of C)
as the low note in hole 1. With a range less than 2.5 octaves here,
every additional note is much valued! My experience is that it is good
to have a fifth note (G here) below the low root note, and so that is
why I chose this layout. But you might prefer to start on A, in which
case it would become
BLOW A C D F G A C D F G A C
DRAW B D E G A B D E G A B D
Roger Myerson
Jun 28, 2014, 1:43:02 PM6/28/14
to har...@harp-l.org
Thanks, Winslow. It is good to be reminded by an expert teacher that we
all start as beginners with difficulty isolating a single note, which
indeed helps to explain why so few tunings have whole-tone intervals
between adjacent notes. But for an intermediate player, being unable to
play some chromatic notes without overblowing is also frustrating. That
is the problem that leads us to consider pentatonic tunings such as this.
Of course, Phil, I know that it is hard work to learn a new tuning! And
everybody on this list is already very good at playing in at least one
tuning, and nobody here needs to learn another. Furthermore, every
tuning has its unique advantages and disadvantages. The five-hole
octaves and the hole-tone intervals between adjacent notes are two
obvious disadvantages of this new tuning.
But I tried to make clear what the advantages this new tuning are: If
you want (1) that the blow and draw notes should together cover a major
scale exactly, (2) that simple draw bends should add the other five
notes of the chromatic scale, and (3) that notes should change only in
one direction (lower to higher) as you go from left to right, then this
tuning is actually the only way to do it.
properties, it would be remarkable if nobody had ever considered this
tuning before in the history of the harmonica before now. That is why I
posted this to harp-l, to find out if anybody had ever seen this before.
Of course, if you want to try it, you can get one from Seydel on their
configurator!
-Roger
all start as beginners with difficulty isolating a single note, which
indeed helps to explain why so few tunings have whole-tone intervals
between adjacent notes. But for an intermediate player, being unable to
play some chromatic notes without overblowing is also frustrating. That
is the problem that leads us to consider pentatonic tunings such as this.
Of course, Phil, I know that it is hard work to learn a new tuning! And
everybody on this list is already very good at playing in at least one
tuning, and nobody here needs to learn another. Furthermore, every
tuning has its unique advantages and disadvantages. The five-hole
octaves and the hole-tone intervals between adjacent notes are two
obvious disadvantages of this new tuning.
But I tried to make clear what the advantages this new tuning are: If
you want (1) that the blow and draw notes should together cover a major
scale exactly, (2) that simple draw bends should add the other five
notes of the chromatic scale, and (3) that notes should change only in
one direction (lower to higher) as you go from left to right, then this
tuning is actually the only way to do it.
BLOW D F G A C D F G A C D F
DRAW E G A B D E G A B D E G
With such a simple characterization by a few obviously desirable
DRAW E G A B D E G A B D E G
properties, it would be remarkable if nobody had ever considered this
tuning before in the history of the harmonica before now. That is why I
posted this to harp-l, to find out if anybody had ever seen this before.
Of course, if you want to try it, you can get one from Seydel on their
configurator!
-Roger
Winslow Yerxa
Jun 28, 2014, 8:50:53 PM6/28/14
to har...@harp-l.org
Having pointed out all the major seconds in the tuning, I should also note that with application of some tonguing technique, you can produce several conventional chords.
-- Notes in parentheses are the ones blocked.
-- Available inversions are shown.
Draw note combinations drawn from D F G A C D F G A C D F:
D minor: D F (G) A
D minor7: D F (G) A C | F (G) A C D | A C D F
D sus4: D (F) G A | G A (C) D
F major: F (G) A C | A C (D) F
F major6: F (G) A C D | A C D F | C D F (G) A
C sus4: C (D) F G | F G (A) C
Blow note combinations drawn from E G A B D E G A B D E G
E minor: E G (A) B
E minor7: E G (A) B D | G (A) B D E | B D E G
E sus4: E (G) A B | A B (D) E
G major: G (A) B D | B D (E) G
G major6: G (A) B D E | B D E G | D E G (A) B
D sus4: D (E) G A | G A (C) D
-- Notes in parentheses are the ones blocked.
-- Available inversions are shown.
Draw note combinations drawn from D F G A C D F G A C D F:
D minor: D F (G) A
D minor7: D F (G) A C | F (G) A C D | A C D F
D sus4: D (F) G A | G A (C) D
F major: F (G) A C | A C (D) F
F major6: F (G) A C D | A C D F | C D F (G) A
C sus4: C (D) F G | F G (A) C
Blow note combinations drawn from E G A B D E G A B D E G
E minor: E G (A) B
E minor7: E G (A) B D | G (A) B D E | B D E G
E sus4: E (G) A B | A B (D) E
G major: G (A) B D | B D (E) G
G major6: G (A) B D E | B D E G | D E G (A) B
D sus4: D (E) G A | G A (C) D
Steve Baker
Jun 29, 2014, 8:24:10 AM6/29/14
to Roger Myerson, Harp-L
Interesting indeed Roger, thanks! The absolute pitch isn't clear to me from your chart - what note (e.g. D3) is 1-blow?
Steve Baker
www.stevebaker.de
www.european-music-workshops.com
www.harmonica-masters.de
Steve Baker
www.stevebaker.de
www.european-music-workshops.com
www.harmonica-masters.de
Roger Myerson
Jun 29, 2014, 11:18:54 AM6/29/14
to Steve Baker, Harp-L
The pentabender-tuned harmoninca that Seydel made for me is a custom
Soloist Pro 12 Steel with the layout:
BLOW D4 F4 G4 A4 C5 D5 F5 G5 A5 C6 D6 F6
DRAW E4 G4 A4 B4 D5 E5 G5 A5 B5 D6 E6 G6
This layout for playing in the key of C major could be transposed up 5
semitones or down 4 semitones and still remain feasible in Seydel's
configurator. So Seydel today can offer such a 12-hole pentabender
harmonica in keys from a low Ab to a high F (missing only F# and G). If
we started the octave pattern with a different low note in hole 1 then
we could get a different range of feasible keys, of course.
When Michael Timler offered custom-tuned harmonicas at Harponline with
Hohner parts, I recall that the feasible range for similar pentatonic
harmonicas went somewhat lower, which would be very nice to have
available. As you know, the basic engineering challenge here is that
the commercially-available reed plates for diatonic harmonicas are all
designed for a tuning with three-hole octaves, but this pentabender
tuning has five holes per octave. It is remarkable that current
manufacturing technology can accommodate such an alternative tuning as
well as it does.
-Roger
On 6/29/2014 7:17 AM, Steve Baker wrote:
> Interesting indeed Roger, thanks! The absolute pitch isn't clear to me
> from your chart - what note (e.g. D3) is 1-blow?
>
> Steve Baker
> www.stevebaker.de <http://www.stevebaker.de>
> www.european-music-workshops.com <http://www.european-music-workshops.com>
> www.harmonica-masters.de <http://www.harmonica-masters.de>
>
>
Soloist Pro 12 Steel with the layout:
BLOW D4 F4 G4 A4 C5 D5 F5 G5 A5 C6 D6 F6
DRAW E4 G4 A4 B4 D5 E5 G5 A5 B5 D6 E6 G6
This layout for playing in the key of C major could be transposed up 5
semitones or down 4 semitones and still remain feasible in Seydel's
configurator. So Seydel today can offer such a 12-hole pentabender
harmonica in keys from a low Ab to a high F (missing only F# and G). If
we started the octave pattern with a different low note in hole 1 then
we could get a different range of feasible keys, of course.
When Michael Timler offered custom-tuned harmonicas at Harponline with
Hohner parts, I recall that the feasible range for similar pentatonic
harmonicas went somewhat lower, which would be very nice to have
available. As you know, the basic engineering challenge here is that
the commercially-available reed plates for diatonic harmonicas are all
designed for a tuning with three-hole octaves, but this pentabender
tuning has five holes per octave. It is remarkable that current
manufacturing technology can accommodate such an alternative tuning as
well as it does.
-Roger
On 6/29/2014 7:17 AM, Steve Baker wrote:
> Interesting indeed Roger, thanks! The absolute pitch isn't clear to me
> from your chart - what note (e.g. D3) is 1-blow?
>
> Steve Baker
> www.european-music-workshops.com <http://www.european-music-workshops.com>
> www.harmonica-masters.de <http://www.harmonica-masters.de>
>
>
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