Re: [Harp-L] Re: Why Richter

[David Payne <dmatthew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Steve's right. It was, for the 19th century Teutonic harmonica style, perfection. By the early 20th Century, Blues players embraced it and found their own perfection. 
How many things really can be THAT simple, yet perfect for two things so drastically different as "Ach, Du Lieber Augustin (three cheers for the bus driver)" in one key and Juke in another. They only meant it for one specific key, one specific style you know. Is that not the stuff of magic? 

Now, for more than a half century, just about everybody besides me evidently, has tried to play like Little Walter. That's gonna be hard to do on anything but Richter note placement. So Richter is the standard. It's what's there. It's what the companies make. It's what's available when you go into some podunk store and buy your first harp. Thus, everybody learns on it and when they buy their next harps, they want the same. So the companies make them to satisify demand.  People buy them because that's what the companies make. It's a cycle that's been going on and is now in its third century.

But it is a beautiful thing how everything lines up perfectly for second position bends, etc., and it retains its original magic of chords and octaves in first. The only true first-position drawback is the absence of the F chord (on a C), but heck, if it did, we'd never have had these cool double-sided jobs. Its benefits are embraced by many, its limitations have spawned the harmonica world as we know it today. 

The harmonica most removed from Richter is the solo-tuned chromatic. But it, however, fell from that same tree.
Even the chromatic grew from this, the original mass produced chromatics, were Richter tuned. We as a community, I think, have forgotten how awesomely cool Richter chromatics can be in first position. 
Look at what tunings there are. My favorite is paddy richter, which I use mostly for minors. There's country tuning, God knows what all, but most of these are bascially some variation to make Richter apply better for a specific situation. As a community, RIchter is either who we are, or what we were. Richter is not only Steve's mother lode, but the mother of us all.

Richter gives us a constant. Harmonicas have changed a great deal... you take a Suzuki overdrive, or whatever that harmonica is that looks like an upside-down V-20 engine block with the heads off, or Brad Harrison's B-RAD, which looks like a daggone spaceship,  transport them back in time 180 years, give them to J.C. Seydel or Christian Messer, they'd say "what the hell is this?" UNTIL THEY PLAYED THEM. 
Then, of course, they'd go back to the factory and start copying the damn things...  But the point is, they would have no trouble playing it. They could play them with NO ADJUSTMENT WHATSOEVER. 

Richter tuning is the one remaining umbilical with a past that few bothered to write down, but make us what we are today. There have been many, many times, where I've gotten bored with Richter tuning, a major reason I picked up the chromatic and 48 chord. But I've never failed to appreciate just what it has meant for all of us.

Dave
__________________________
www.elkriverharmonicas.com  



----- Original Message ----
From: Steve Baker <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Harp-L <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wed, November 18, 2009 10:46:33 AM
Subject: [Harp-L] Re: Why Richter

In my opinion Richter's idea was a stroke of genius and no other harmonica tuning comes close in terms of simplicity and elegance. Of course it has a great history and we're all familiar with the tonal layout, but the standard Richter tuning can be used for so many different styles of music and is simply the most flexible note arrangement which the 10-hole can accomodate. The chords and tongue-blocked intervals make it much more fun for me than for example circular or diminished tuning. The way the overblows provide all the missing notes is nothing short of fabulous.

I see all the other tunings I use myself as simply variations on Richter. I don't have a problem using overblows, but sometimes things work better with an altered tuning than with OBs. All the same, Richter is the mother lode for me,

Steve Baker
www.stevebaker.de
www.bluesculture.com




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