Re: [Harp-L] Country tuning name change

["bbqbob917@xxxxxxxxxxx" <bbqbob917@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,
Country tuning is a blast on jazz (Gene Ammons' "Red Top" fits in perfectly), ballads, doowop and country. In fact, when I did some gigs with this R&B/early R&R band, they had a doowop medley of The Dell's "Oh What A Night," and the Moonglows' "Sincerely," and country tuning was a blast, as what I could do is play some pretty cool chords and double stops and play more harmonized parts like the the other backing singers and you really can't do those double stops that well with OB's..

Before they started making CT as a regular production line, when it was something you had to do the retuning yourself, this was always known as the Major 7th tuning so now changing the name is kind of ironic.

Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com 
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte 

---------- Original Message ----------
From: Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Country tuning name change
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2010 08:39:31 -0600 (GMT-06:00)

Joe Leone wrote:
<I grew up in the doo-wop era and have played a tuning  
<I came up with in 1959. I tune the 5 & 9 draws UP one sharp.

For those who don't know, if you buy a Lee Oskar standard tuning in C, and a Lee Oskar Melody Maker in G, and combine the draw plate for each with the blow plate for the other, you wind up with one "double country" tuned harp (as described above) and one Paddy Richter-tuned harp.

It's a simple way to acquire two useful tunings without picking up a file.  All you need is a Phillips #1 screwdriver.

The same approach can be used for other keys, of course.  The important thing to remember is that the Melody Makers are named for the key in 2nd position, so the MM harp has to be in the key that's a perfect 4th below the key of the standard harp.

Regards, Richard Hunter

author, "Jazz Harp" 
latest mp3s and harmonica blog at http://myspace.com/richardhunterharp
more mp3s at http://taxi.com/rhunter
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