Tunings

[Norman Ives <100552.2636@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

t
e we have been researching 'Altered tuning' listing them and finding out where they came from and sourcing the earliest instances, written about, recording of etc.
 I spent two years  from 1974 to 1976 inventing different tunings and putting them on harmonicas. The seventy's seem to have been a rich time for this sort of thought. The country tuning with the raised seventh on draw 5 was from that time.
 The three monarches produced Blow Blow Boogie, which they played in D Moll and altered the tuning of a harp to fit. They performed this tune at the Royal verierty show at the London pladium  before our Queen and also released it on record in 1973. 
Our research shows a number of patents  for tunings on harmonicas (we can supply details). 
     This will be thought of as nonsense to most Europeans. In Europe we view the use of intervals and interval systems  (scales & Modes)  on any instrument as being Common Cultural Property. 
The researches of Pat Missin show that many of the patents are unsound, some for reasons of duplication and others because they would simply not stand up in any court. Personally, the idea of owing a scale cries out against every fibre of common sense in me. What do you all think ?
 When did you start messing about with tunings? 
     I can understand the ownership of a brand name like Lee Oskar's Melody Maker but not of a system of intervals per say; that tuning was used by Steve Jennings some 3 years before Lee made it available in the shops.
      Also Magic dick has taken it into his head to start patenting a number of different tuning layouts . One of which is the same as the Lee Oskar Melody Maker but patented some two years after the  Melody Maker was commercially available. This is an example of another invalid patent, even by the US patent laws , which like there copyright laws are different from those territories which were a party to the Berne agreement(Western Europe, Malaysia ,Canada, Australia New Zeland Etc).
So that we can better understand the development of altered tunings we need to hear your story, Supportive evidence is always helpful. We are not after establishing ownership but rather to put a light on an interesting area of development in an instrument which we are all involved.
 If this sort of research had been done soon after the appearance of the Note Bending technique we might be able to show where that came from and how it spread but as it is, it is lost in the mists of time.
yours Dr Midnight