Re: [Harp-L] tuning permanent blue thirds

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

Listers - 

Remember, Rick is NOT talking about lowering notes by a full semitone. He's talking about a microtonal adjustment down to a note that's somewhere between major and minor. You don't get that by switching to a position or tuning that has a minor third degree in the scale.

In second position, the real, important blue third - slightly flattened from major but NOT minor - corresponds to Draw 3 and Draw 7. if you're going to flatten any notes, those would be the ones. Of course you can bend Draw 3 down and shade the tuning exactly the way you want, but you don't have that option in Draw 7 unless you valve the blow reed, so it *might* make sense to lower that one. Why not try it? It's not that hard to do, and you can always change it back if you don't like it.

For second position,I wouldn't advise lowering any of the blow notes (Blow 2, 5, 8) to "blue" thirds, for two reasons:

1) They are not part of the second position blues scale.

2) They're likely to sound out of tune with chords played by accompanying instruments (guitar, piano)

For first position playing, it might be worth trying. Again, it's not hard to try out, so you could experiment and see whether you agree with me. 

Winslow

Winslow Yerxa

Author, Harmonica For Dummies ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5

--- On Mon, 9/15/08, hazcon <hazcon@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From: hazcon <hazcon@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Harp-L] tuning permanent blue thirds
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Cc: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Date: Monday, September 15, 2008, 7:26 PM

I am sure that im not the first one to think about this but i'd like some 
opinions on the pros and cons.
 To set up (say) a C harp for purely pentonic blues in 2nd position only, 
why not drop the blow E notes down to give a permanent blue third.(not a 
whole semitone)
                 Or maybe just on blow 8?
I mean the pure E seems to be basically unused right through the 1 1V V 
progressions.
Thoughts?
Rick
inNZ
 


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