[Harp-L] solo, bebop and other tunings

["Jonathan R. Ross" <jross38@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

George Leung (great to see you took my suggestion and brought the topic
here, some excellent discussion so far--I never knew Georgey-boy played
chromatic, I want to hear him soon) asked about chromatic tunings:

>is there any purpose for the redundent C? 

I believe Winslow has pointed out the main reasons for it: it allows for
shorter intervals when tongue-switching; allows the G-C interval to be
played with ease; and perhaps most importantly, doesn't introduce any
discordant elements into the blow chord.  Any note (other than, say,
another E or G) you would add to the blow chord would immediately
compromise the basic major nature of that chord, or at least make it
much more difficult to play the major chord.  Further, it allows for an
easily repeated diatonic pattern with a minimum of duplicated
notes--indeed, if looked at from a perspective of breaking the harmonica
down to four hole sections starting on C each section contains a
complete diatonic scale, which was probably the reason for the doubled
Cs, at least it seems the best one to me.

>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.

True, but it does work well in tongue-switching as well as being a very
useful tool for ascending and descending runs--being able to choose
which hole can often make phrasings lay more naturally.

2)It have no help on chord construction whatsoever.

But it doesn't hurt them, either, which may be as important.

>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.

Perhaps, but then most instruments retain redundant diatonic elements as
they evolved into chromatic ones.  The piano's keyboard is perhaps the
best example of this: the layout is essentially diatonic, with the
diatonic scale in white keys and the accidentals in raised black keys.
In an instrument tuned to 12-tone equal temperament especially this
layout makes no sense--the tuning doesn't weight any note more than any
other, so why should the keyboard be lain out in such a way?  Ideally
you would use a uniform system of sorts.  Indeed, this is what most
chromatic accordionists use, a three-row repeating system which repeats
the outer two rows and thus achieves uniformity.

So, why does the piano use the 7-white/5-black keyboard layout?  I'll
answer that in the response to this:

>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?

In many ways these two tunings, and many others (see Pat Missin's
Altered States, available here:
http://www.patmissin.com/tunings/tunings.html) do make much more sense
than the solo tuning.  I must admit that from a theoretical standpoint,
solo tuning lacks the clarity of a whole-tone or even a diminished
layout.  Even the two tunings you suggest have greater legato
properties, as the two Cs really don't help much with that, IMO.
However, the answer as to why manufacturers haven't switched is another
question: why should they?

It is expensive to change what you have done, even if that change is as
relatively minor as retuning a single reed per octave.  So, unless there
is a demand that such a change be made, manufacturers aren't going to do
it.  And that is the point: there is no demand to change from solo
tuning.  The overwhelming majority of chromatic players (professionals
and amateurs alike) play solo tuned chromatics.  They have a lot of time
invested in learning that instrument, and so do not want to change to
another tuning (even if you and I may think that changing tunings is not
particularly difficult).  Moreover, they would be very upset if they
could no longer buy solo tuned harmonicas.  So not only is there no
demand for manufacturers to change to another tuning, there is probably
the opposite: a demand to stick with solo tuning.  

Now, here's the rub, the part which makes the argument circular, and
self-promoting.  The reason why most people play solo tuned chromatics
has nothing to do with the strengths of this tuning over others, nor
with any informed thought to the alternative tunings (which are myriad).
Rather, people play solo tuning and would be upset if it was no longer
made because that is what is available.  Simply put, because solo tuning
is the only tuning readily available to most people (especially
beginners), it also becomes the tuning which most people want,
overwhelmingly.  Hence the circular argument: because solo tuning is the
standard people are introduced to it, learn it, and thus want
instruments in solo tuning and not other tunings.  Thus, the
manufacturers build solo-tuned chromatics because it is the standard and
what the overwhelming majority of players want to buy.  

Back to the piano.  In the late 19th century a brilliant mathematician
and musical theorist named Janko invented a uniform keyboard for pianos
and organs.  It made fingering easier, allowed you to play larger
intervals and made learning the keyboard much simpler.  Despite being
produced by several manufacturers and promoted fairly heavily in the
press, it failed miserably.  How did it fail when it had such obvious
advantages (well, mostly--the actual design produced had a significant
though not fatal flaw, but still)?  Simple, people already knew how to
play the 7-white/5-black keyboard layout and didn't want to change.
Teachers didn't want to learn a new system themselves before they could
teach it.  Instructional book writers didn't want to just loose their
entire inventory on how to play the piano.  People who owned pianos and
organs didn't want to either throw out what they had or pay the expense
to convert them.  So, despite every advantage, the Janko keyboard
failed.

The situation is the same as with alternative chromatic tunings, with
one difference: it's a lot easier to retune a harmonica.  So, we
actually are in a much better position, and even manufacturers are
willing to build special tunings.  But, they aren't going to switch,
because there is no market demand to do so.

BTW, I've been thinking about using a modified bebop tuning myself, with
A replacing the first of the doubled Cs.  I have a specific instrument
in mind for this, though, which may not need to be fully valved, thus I
could have more double-reed bends available if I had a layout like this:

Blow: C E G A C E G A C
Hole: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Draw: D F A B D F A B D

The similarities to bebop are obvious, but the benefit is that you don't
have a minor seventh in the blow chord (not my favorite when played with
the tonic above it) but rather a minor sixth and if you half-valve the
instrument you get three double-reed draw bends.  Of course, I could do
something in the second hole of the pattern, either raising the F# or
lowering the Eb to have double-reed bends throughout, but that would
raise other issues.

Still, I'm pretty much used to solo tuning in terms of tongue-switching
and the patterns I use for ascending and descending runs of various
sorts, so I may not change a thing.  The problem is, with any change
there is a loss, so I have to consider whether I want to try it first.
And, I have to experiment more and see if this particular chromatic (a
CB-Tenor built by Siegfried Naruhn, whom I can only highly recommend)
really does suite being half-valved rather than fully valved.  So far
I've only just begun experimenting with it in that way, and haven't
fully come to any conclusions about whether I like it or not.

Hope this helps.




 oo    JR "Bulldogge" Ross
()()   & Snuffy, too:)
`--'