Re: Newbie questions

["Vern Smith" <jevern@xxxxxxx>]

- ----- Original Message ----- 

> I don't understand this. I'm talking about replacing the leftmost
> "C" (actually "D") of every octave by "A" or by "Bb", but not
> both. Similar change with the slide in. This would seem to preserve
> octaves, wouldn't it?

Any change that is repeated for each octave would keep them identical.
Whether the changes would be musically useful is another matter.  As long as
you use 4 holes containing 16 notes for an octave that only requires 12
notes for the chromatic scale, you will have redundancies.

There have been harps built that efficiently put the chromatic scale for an
octave in 3 holes. I think that they called this "wholetone" tuning.  These
have the advantage that only four hole-blow-draw-slide patterns are required
to play the diatonic scales in all keys. These patterns coincide with "do"
on blow, blow-slide, draw, and draw-slide. Any hole has the same four
patterns.  The patterns have absolutely no relationship to the patterns on
the diatonic.  The harp doesn't have a characteristic key and about the same
amount slide usage is required in any key.

No mass manufacturer builds such a harp.  It is difficult to retune a
standard reedplate because the farther you go up in pitch, the more the
reeds are too long to be optimum. One needs to cut every fourth hole out of
a harp and splice the remaining pieces together, then retune. I built a tool
for lengthening slots so that Sigfried Nahrun could start at the high end
and lengthen slots to use the standard length reed for every pitch. He said
that it was a good try but didn't work very well.

It might make sense for a beginner to learn on such a harp except for the
fact that they are not generally available. It would depend on the weighting
you place on the advantages and disadvantages.

Vern