Re: XB-40 Retunings?

[Pat Missin <pat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Tim wrote:
>
>When Rick Epping was asked about this issue at SPAH2003, his response
>was that bends should be approached by taking the note down to the
>proper pitch, not taking the note down to the limit enforced by the
>relative pitch of the responder reed. Apparently, his research while
>developing the XB-40 showed that the pitch of a bend wasn't limited
>by the responder to *precisely* a semitone of its pitch, so that the
>practice of just bending a note down until it stops bending doesn't
>give a precisely pitched note.

That's equally true of a standard diatonic as well as the XB-40. I've
heard an awful lot of players playing their bent notes flat because
they are bending as far as they _can_, instead of bending as far as
they _should_. 

The common statement that "if you have two reeds sharing a chamber,
the higher note can be bent to a point a semitone above the lower
reed's pitch" is something of an over-simplification. Notes do not
bend in nice neat semitone steps and even on a standard C harp, it is
easy to bend 4 draw all the way down to more than a quartertone below
C#.

However, based on my own experience of playing around with auxiliary
reeds and altered tunings, I would still say that reducing the degree
to which a note can be bent does make it easier to control the bent
notes.

 -- Pat.