Re: [Harp-L] Summertime Video Clip by The Iceman



Paul Messinger wrote:
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Howard Levy has always said that, if you use an alternate-tuning harp,
you've still got the same problem . . . In his mind, you still have to
find a way to play the notes that aren't easily gettable (from whatever
alternate tuning you're using) . . . So, in his mind and teaching, he
decided to stick with the Richter tuning, and deal with it from that
perspective . . . 

Now . . . that being said, using the "Country" tuning to play Irish or
Bluegrass, or minor key harps (we all know that Richard Hunter is a
great proponent of minor tuned harps, and plays them beautifully and
very effectively, are all great approaches that sound great  . . .
Different strokes for different folks; (and so on and so on and Scooby
dooby doo) ... 
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Hi Paul, welcome back.

To my mind, one of the big dividing lines in terms of which of several
approaches you choose is this: do you want to stick to single notes, or
do you want to play chords too?

If it's just single notes you're after and you want all 12 chromatic
tones, my first choice would probably be a CX-12 chromatic.  Big tone,
very bendable, hard to tell from a diatonic when it's coming through an
amp.  But certainly an overblown diatonic would do the job.  Certainly
you wouldn't get all 12 chromatic pitches on any diatonic without
bending or overblowing (or valving, or half-valving, or something).

If it's chords you want, then the chord tones have to be built in to the
instrument you're using -- it's really not feasible to bend or overblow
some notes and not others.  If you want a range of chords in any given
key, alternate tunings are a must, because any diatonic only contains
one seven-note scale, and that's not enough for all the chords out
there.

So again, the question is: what are you trying to play?  

There's obviously more to playing this supposedly simple instrument than
any of us thought when we started, and it's very exciting to me to see
so many different approaches under development now. 

Regards, RH





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