[Harp-L] Seydel releases Tony Eyers Major Cross harmonica

[Chris Hofstader]

> 
> Tony: At the end of the day, we choose a tuning which best suits individual needs. For most, this is the standard Richter tuning. I use Richter a lot, and love it, but for tunes I generally use Major Cross…

cdh: As I precede every post I do to this list, I’m somewhere between advanced beginner and early intermediate as a player and I’m confident that almost everyone here knows more about harmonica stuff than do I. But, I think what I quote from Tony’s post above is the most sensible statement I’ve heard in this thread. Almost Everything I own is Richter tuned but I do have a pair of Seydel “Big 6” harps that I picked up to see if they would be easier to play with a microphone and they’re the most different ones in my case. I have one natural minor tuned harp but almost never touch it, I don’t know how to play in any position other than second, my instructor does all of his lessons using Richter tuned harps and, personally, I think that I’d find any tuning other than Richter to be confusing and orthogonal to the things I’m learning now. 

cdh: But, from following this thread, I see value for some people in this new and other alternative tunings. Maybe sometime in the future when my skills are more well honed on the basics, I may want to play something that would be easier on a differently tuned harp and then I may give such a try. For now, a Richter tuned harp from Blue Moon is my gold standard for what I’m trying to do and, as time and budget permit, I’ll be picking them up one at a time until I have such in all of my favorite keys.

cdh: I might enjoy playing around with a Celtic tuned harp because I really love music by people like Mark O’Connor, Bela Fleck and others like them but I’d need to find an instructor who could teach me a bit about Celtic influenced music before I could even pretend I cold play it.

Happy Hacking,
cdh