Re: [Harp-L] gold cover plates on Hohner Golden Melody (was Question about harps played by Bobby Darin)

[Eliza Doolittle <eliza.doolittle@xxxxxxxx>]

Eric wrote:
> Its comb is darker than present day GM's, more like plum or maroon. I just
> played around a little bit with the one I have: It does not seem to be in
> Equal Tempered tuning--the chords sound smooth.

Ron wrote:
> then the standard GM tuning of equal temperment, which is also the tuning
> that is used on Lee Oskar harps.  I believe that the GM is the only Hohner
> diatonic harp that is tuned to equal temperament instead of just tuning or
> their more modern comprise tuning.


When I read Ron's post a couple of days ago I looked up in the archives, but I didn't find any post related to equal temperament (it seems hardly possible, so maybe the search engine wasn't working all right (?)). Anyway, if Hohner uses (with the exception of the Golden Melody) just tuning, and so does Lee Oskar (I don't know about other brands), is it considered a better way of tuning the harps? I mean, even if the chords sound better with just tuning, if harps often play along with instruments that use equal temperament (keyboards or guitars), wouldn't they sound better using equal temperament, too? I suppose that many harp players play with other people, so it's strange that there aren't more harps using equal temperament.

Not that I know much about the different ways of tuning, though. I've been playing piano all my life, not worring about having to play in tune or about tuning my instrument to play with other people (it is always they who must tune to play with me), and to me, just tuning only means that the string players boasted that they played a B flat differently from an A sharp, which always bemused me.