Re: RE: [Harp-L] Re: was Danny Boy now Paddy

["Steve Shaw" <moorcot@xxxxxxx>]

> Steve Shaw wrote:
> > I posted a message to Harp-L in April of last year about yet
> > another way of retuning a 10-hole harp to avoid the missing-
> > note problems in the low octave.  The idea comes from Jean
> > Sabot, a fabulous harmonica player of traditional music from
> > Brittany in France - he has a website
> > http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jsabot/accueilan.htm
> > with the details of his scheme, which he calls "Major tuning -
> > Ionian mode."
>
> Personally, I'm not a big fan of any tuning that has repeated notes,
> and even moreso when they are adjacent and the same breath direction.
> This is my complaint about solo tuning (though I can certainly
> understand the logic behind having a regular pattern that repeats in
> each octave).  The benefit, of course, is chording, but now we're
> starting to get into stylistic preferences.
>
> -tim

I appreciate what you're saying.  The solo tuning duplicates get in the way 
somewhat in fast Irish tunes when you're used to doing most of your playing 
on diatonics.  But at least these duplicates are only at the ends of the 
harp.  I actually substituted an F sharp for the duplicated hole 10 D in his 
scheme, but didn't bother about the duplicated As at the low end for the 
mundane reason that they were neither here nor there for playing my Irish 
tunes!  I have to say that, probably because of all the work involved in 
retuning, I haven't really bothered to pursue the scheme, though as I say 
there is nothing new to learn in playing the tuning at all for 
melody-playing.  Paddy Richter is slightly too good already, and too easy to 
do, for me to want to go to all that trouble.

Steve

http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/trad_irish_harmonica
HEAR my CD clips: http://www.gjk2.com/steveshaw/cd.htm

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