Re: Lee Oskar (MM)

[Mike Curtis <wd6ehr@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> .....   Steve has a good point though (sticking with conventions).

At the Oskar harp seminar I attended a year or two back, far too much time
was spent (trying to) explain this nonconventional key naming scheme.  The
experienced harp players got it immediately, and the newbies never did get
it.  From what I saw, Lee would have been a lot better off calling the G
Melody Maker a "C" and specifying "cross harp G" on the end of the harp
for those who can't figure it out otherwise.  No it's not as "accurate",
but it keeps with conventional nomenclature and is less confusing than
conflicting schemes.

Many things we use today are not "accurate", but they're traditional and
work fine like that.  When electricity was first discovered, it was
(wrongly) assumed that current flowed from positive to negative.  Today,
we know better, but electrical engineering still functions mathematically
on the assumption that "current flow" is from positive to negative.  Doing
otherwise "breaks" the math, where "positive" is not a negative value and
vice versa.  We call this "conventional current flow". 

Hindsight is 20/20, isn't it?



 -- mike