SBS/Koch/Millioniser

[Winslow Yerxa <76450.3230@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Rob Frantz asked about the Millioniser. You could try Walt
Mueller, the inventor, in Switzerland, or Norman Ives in England,
who is doing something with it there. I don't have Mueller's
address on computer, but you can reach Norman at:

1 Links Close
Caister-on-Sea
Great Yarmouth
Norfolk NR30 5DD
England
Phone 011-44-493-728-654

Rob also asked about slide and Koch 980 harps. There was a
fairly intensive multi-sided discussion of this on the list a
couple of months ago. Download the archives and check it out. AS
far as bending goes, the Koch that I owned 20 years ago bent just
fine. The sound wasn't as immediate as on a regular diatonic,
because the reeds were further away (duwe to the
slide/mouthpiece). I never tried overblowing on it - this was
1971 and I didn't learn to overblow until 1974.

He also asked about the Steve Baker Special. I reviewed this in
HIP No. 3, with Steve on the cover.

Basically, it's a great harp. It sounds good and plays well. It's
built into the same body as a 14-hole Marine Band 365.

It's tuned like a normal Marine Band from Hole 5 on up - Hole 5
is the same as regular Hole 1.

Hole 1, 2 and 3 are tuned like a normal 1, 2, and 3, but an
octave lower. This gives you 2 octaves worth of the chordal
"launching pad" of the harp:


     |-BASEMENT--|---- Regular tuning starts here
     |           |
     | 1   2   3 | 4   5   6   7   8   9   10  11  12  13  14
     ---------------------------------------------------------
DRAW | D | G | B | D | G | B | D | F | A | B | D | F | A | X |
==============================================================
BLOW | C | E | G | C | E | G | C | E | G | C | E | G | C | X |
     ---------------------------------------------------------
     |                           |                         |
     |                           |                         |
     --2 octaves tuned the same--                    COPOUT - THEY
                                                     Could HAVE used
                                                     this hole.

This also gives you lots of juicy draw bends, and two full
octaves of a pure G major triad - no sevenths or ninths. This
makes the harp a little more useful for playing pure major key
stuff in cross harp position, where the lowered seventh is often
inconvenient.

The obvious thing to do is start playing as if 2 Draw were the
launching pad, like on a normal diatonic. The problem with this
is that when you get to Draw 6, you're suddenly surprised when
you get B instead of A - that part of the tuning is another
octave above.

To get around this, I'd recommend starting with Hole 5 draw as
the launching pad (or whatever hole you're used to centering
around - just move it up an octave). Treat the top 11 holes as
the "main harp," and Hole 1-3 as an added "basement."

SBS (Steve Baker Specials) come standard in:

KEY Hole 1           "Main Harp"

C   Octave Lower      Regular

D   Octave Lower      Regular

F   Octave Lower      Regular

G   Regular           Octave Higher

A   Regular           Octave Higher


Octave Lower or Higher is relative to pitch on the regular
10-hole version.

There are also some low G and A instruments out there, but
they're hard to get (try Norman Ives). I have a low G and it's
VERY cool.

Winslow