Re: [Harp-L] Re: half-valved diatonic



No, not fully valved. The fourkey layout is such that only 4 holes have the draw reed a whole step (two semitones) higher than the blow reed. On those holes, you can use a normal draw bend to get the in-between step, e.g. C blow and D draw, bend to get C#. So on those 4 holes I only put valves on the blow notes. The other 6 holes are separated by a semitone, e.g. Bb and B, so I put valves on both blow and draw on those holes. Some of this is admittedly redundant, e.g. the B can be valve bent down to Bb (theoretically - as I said, I can't bend it that far) but Bb is already available in the blow reed. But I was going for maximum flexibility. :-)

Jim

On 6/15/2011 2:54 PM, gnarlyheman@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Is the instrument fully valved? 20 windsavers?
------Original Message------
From: Jim Hanks

Something I'm struggling with as well. My valved diatonic is a fourkey
(more than half - 16 out of 20 actually) and I can get a semitone pretty
easily on the valved blow bends but the valved draw bends I can barely
get a quartertone.

On 6/15/2011 9:46 AM, harp-l-request@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
What affects the amount of bend available on a valved hole?




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