[Harp-L] RE: Chromatic Tuner and Harps

[Adam Hamil <fixyoursqueezebox@xxxxxxxxx>]

In my experience, tuner apps on smart phones are awesome!! They're cheap or
free and usually work well. I use one called "PitchLab" and I love it. It
does polyphonic tuning as well. Great for tuning double stops and chords. I
use it more than I use my Peterson 500.

I've had similar problems to the one mentioned. Especially on higher harps.
It's picking up the overtones in the harmonic series. What I do to get
passed this is use my hands around the harp to shape and boost certain
frequencies. I'm not sure how to explain exactly what I do, but if you
experiment with opening and closing certian parts of you hands (right side,
left side, back, front, cover vents, don't cover vents etc), you'll find
that your tuner will catch the right pitch when you can boost that
particular frequency. The only way to figure this out for yourself is good
'ole trial and error.

C. Adam Hamil

Message: 1
Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2013 16:26:17 -0600
From: Javier Dard?n <javier.dardon@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Harp-L] Chromatic tuner and harmonicas
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Message-ID:
<CA+VHKZ9WOobHyrmFiZVLj1qKpHcZixOiF6uZ0fD1CSr1i4efbA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Hi friends, recently I installed a chromatic tuner app on my android phone.
The thing is that it doesn't show the notes I'm playing instead it shows
the fifth. Is that that normal for harmonicas? Because I test it with piano
and guitar and it worked indeed. My harmonica is a C major Golden Melody.