Re: [Harp-L] Tunings: PR vs MM vs CT

[Ken Hildebrand <airmojoken@xxxxxxxxx>]

I've enjoyed playing the Melody Makers for a number of
years now, and they did seem very strange at first,
until you find some familiar songs to play on them
(comparing to regular major diatonics).

This time of year, I like playing Christmas songs on
the Melody Makers ("Have Yourself a Merry Little
Christmas", "Joy to the World" are a couple of my
favorites to play on the MM).

Now on a song like "O Come O Come, Emmanuel", I was
using a MM (in E) and a major tuned A harp... I needed
the major A harp to get the correct note on 5 draw. 
Well (duh! just figured this out!), what I needed was
a Paddy Ricter tuned A harp!

So I found an extra A harp and tuned the 3 blow up 2
semi-tones (from an E to and F#) like on the MM
tuning.  Wow that's much easier than using 2 harps!

Found another nice Christmas song for the Paddy Ricter
tuning... "Mary Did You Know".

I only have one Country-Tuned harp that I tuned
several years ago, but haven't really played it much,
so I will have to try that tuning again...

Merry Christmas!

Ken Hildebrand

--- Fred & Sylvia <fsstov@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> In another forum I was discussing the relative
> strengths and weaknesses of
> Paddy Richter vs. Melody Maker tunings.  Tim Moyer
> and others on harp-l have
> provided excellent discussions on the advantages of
> the PR over standard
> tuning (PR = much gained and little lost in 2nd
> position, plus advantages in
> other positions).  In trying to make a case for the
> occasional use of Melody
> Maker vs. Paddy Richter tunings, I came up with the
> following examples of
> song-specific tuning choices for 2nd position (or
> starting on the 3 draw, if
> you will.  Personally, I have no problem thinking of
> a standard C retuned to
> MM as still being 2nd pos for playing in G, even
> though intellectually I
> understand the argument that it's not).
> 
> 1) Danny-Boy - Definitely want to use Paddy Richter.
>  The raised 3 blow for
> the 2nd scale degree is there for the last note of
> the first phrase
> (call-all-ING), yet the flatted 7th (standard tuned
> 5 draw) is still there
> for the third note of the next phrase ("from glen TO
> glen"). You would need
> to bend the 5 draw on the MM to hit that note.
> 
> 2) Georgia on My Mind - Here I think a MM is
> preferred.  Like the PR, the
> second scale degree is there unbent on the 3 blow
> for the 4th note, but in
> the third line, the natural 7th is needed on "just
> an old sweet SONG" - not
> available on PR without overblowing.  Plus on the MM
> you can "scoop" into
> that note by starting it bent.
> 
> After thinking this through, I thought it might be
> useful to point out that
> for certain songs a MM is the better choice.  My
> final thought was that
> country tuning is the least useful of the three most
> common alternate major
> tunings (PR/MM/CT) for melodic playing  since it is
> missing the 2nd degree
> unbent on the 3 blow like the PR and MM, and is
> probably most useful for
> chordal playing.  Anyway, after putting together
> this thesis, I thought I'd
> run it by the harp-l experts.  The thesis being: 1)
> PR very generally useful
> and a definite preferred option on many songs, 2) MM
> can be fun to play and
> is also most preferred on specific songs, 3) CT is
> not so useful unless you
> want the I. IV. V chords.
> 
> Are there other songs where MM is really the way to
> go?  Is there something
> wrong with this exposition?  I'm a big fan of
> alternate tunings for specific
> songs, but 98% of the time play standard tuning for
> improvising.
> 
> Fred S
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org
> Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx
> http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l
> 



 
____________________________________________________________________________________
Any questions? Get answers on any topic at www.Answers.yahoo.com.  Try it now.