Fwd: [Harp-L] Bebop tuning: Much better than solo tune? Says who?

["Winslow Yerxa" <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

George - 

You don't say why you believe bebop tuning is better. You only voice 
your dissatisfaction with the double C.

The added Bb could be a problem for some players. If they want to 
play an open C major triad without the Bb, they have to go the 
trouble of making sure it doesn't sound. It also introduces a 
chromatic element into the C major scale, which may not be diesirable 
in all circumstances.

Having a blow C right next to the blow G is often useful. Retuning 
that C to another note requires that the player block out the 
intervening note for combinations, either melodic or harmonic, that 
involve G and the C above. Same goes for accessing that note from B 
or A - it is closer than the other C for any note that lies below it, 
both for melodic leaps and for double stops.

Myself I prefer to either leave the C alone or retune it to A instead 
of C, as I find this more useful for much of the music I play.

Hundreds of alternate tunings exist for the chromatic harmonica. 
Arguments can be made for and against all of them and there is no 
clear "best" tuning.

Why don't harmonica manufacturers offer alternate tunings? Not enough 
players demand any particular alternate tuning, so it is not 
economical for them to change their manufacturing practices, let 
alone manage an additional inventory item. Some manufacturers will 
custom tune an instrument if the customer pays the cost or the 
customer is important enough to the manufacturer.

Winslow



--- In harp-l-archives@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "George Leung" <gleung4@xxxx> 
wrote:

While I was adding a section in Wikipedia on the alternate tunings 
for both 
bebop tuning and classical tuning for chrom, I was wondering: is 
there any 
purpose for the redundent C? Here's what I am thinking:

1)It does not serve much for octave, since player have to learn to 
play on 
five holes (blocking the middle 3 holes) in order to play octaves on 
other 
notes.
2)It have no help on chord construction whatsoever.

The only purpose I see the reason the redundent C exist is due to the 
legacy 
from the diatonic, which will make it not redunent in that case. But 
IMHO, 
for chromatics, a bebop tuning or even classical tuning have much 
more sense 
then the current tuning Solo tune we are having right now. So why 
didn't the 
harmonica facotries adopt, at the very least, bebop tuning for chrom?


_______________________________________________
Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org
Harp-L@xxxx
http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l

--- End forwarded message ---