[Harp-L] Results of Carlos del Junco tuning

["sam blancato" <samblancato@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hey People, 

I found an old Golden Melody in the key of E to try out the tuning Carlos
Del Junco uses on "B-Thing".  I've never done this type of re-tuning before
so it was learning experience for me and I thought I'd share what I learned.
I also have some questions for the more experienced on this list.

First of all, it wasn't too difficult.  I accomplished this re-tuning in 2
hours, sitting on my sofa and working on the harp on my coffee table while
the TV played some stupid, air-head reality show that I didn't pay much
attention to.  I tried the blue tack for lowering the 1 blow and the 7 draw.
This didn't work very well for me.  I found it hard to control that very,
very little amount of the stuff on the reed.  It smeared to the edges and I
had to fool around with getting it out of the gap between the slot and the
reed itself.  It was too low and removing the material to get to the pitch I
wanted was next to impossible.

On the other hand, soldering the reeds was really easy.  I've never done it
before but it was easy as hell.  I placed a auto gap gage shim under the
reed, touched the iron (a basic Radio Shack model I've had for a few years)
to the reed tip and let a small drop come to rest on the reed tip.  On the 1
draw, this little bit of solder brought the reed down to B so I then had to
file off material until I got a good solid D on my tuner.  I over-shot this
and ended up sharp and had to re-apply solder but I was slower the second
time and got a solid D without too much sharp or flat wavering.  I did this
to the 7 draw and got it right on the first try.  The re-tuning of 1 draw
was easier as it didn't require adding weight.  So that's all it took.  

I used the Lee Oscar tuning 11.21a from the tunings page on overblow.com.  I
checked with Ben Bowman on this because Lee Oscar 11.21 has four variations
and I wanted to use the right one.  

So the harp sounds pretty good.  That deep, deep bend on the 1 draw at the
beginning of the song is there but I had to do some extra fooling around to
get a smooth, continual rise in pitch without any breaks or hiccups.  I got
this by scooping out the corners of the reed slots a little and flattening
the gaps on both reeds on the #1 chamber.  I embossed the slots as well but
had to re-open them to get a free reed swing so I'm wondering if I really
accomplished anything at all on this front.  It's not perfect so I'm
wondering how some of you folks would handle this problem.  The chord on
12345 draw and 12345 blow is so cool!

Another problem I want to solve if possible is that while the reeds sound
good pitch-wise, the tone is a little dull and they seem to have lost some
brightness and I don't mean brightness of pitch.  Maybe I've over-worked the
reeds or something?  I swung the reed out of the way with a reed wrench to
emboss a few times - could I have loosened the rivet some?

So now I want to open up the harp again and get 4, 5, 7, 9 and 10 to
overblow.  On this high a harp I'm wondering how to accomplish this.  The
reeds are so short I feel I can't lower - or raise for that matter - the
gaps too much without completely loosing all reed vibration.  What do I do?
Is this a matter of doing a good, tight embossing or what?  All the upper
register parts of "B-Thing" call for piercing, clean, clear notes and very
responsive action when switching.  I've always hated Ds, Es and Fs because
of how tight they play on 6 through 10.  What would be the strategy for
working on this?  I know a lot of you guys may not want to give away your
secrets but come on - PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE?  

Sam Blancato, Pittsburgh