[Harp-L] Re: Special 20 Tuning

[Steve Baker <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jerl wrote:

<Does anyone have a reason why Hohner tunes their Special 20 harps ,  
sharp?>

I've noticed this tendency in recent years, the pitch has tended to  
creep upwards. I'm not sure what the reason is, but it's not  
intentional. In order to correct this, I'm currently engaged in  
tuning master plates for all Hohner diatonic models, so that they  
will play slightly above concert pitch (as Steve Shaw remarks, this  
sounds better) but lower than some models are currently tuned.  I did  
new master plates for the Special 20 CT, the Crossover and am  
currently working on SBSs, but hope to deal with all models within  
the next couple of months. It's rather a lot of work as there are  
three different fine tunings used on standard tuned diatonics, not to  
mention special tunings, and each key needs to be tuned 3 times with  
a week's rest in between,

Steve Baker
www.stevebaker.de
www.bluesculture.com