[Harp-L] Re: Playing chromatically on a diatonic instrument

[Roger Myerson <myerson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear sheltraw@xxxxxxxxxxxx:
Two years ago, I also was intrigued by the chromatic-in-diatonic 
potential of diminished tuning.  But when I bought a dimi harp from 
Seydel, I found, as Andy Newton found a couple of years before either of 
us, that having to bend one out of every three notes was simply not 
going to ever sound like music for me.  When Andy Newton reached that 
conclusion in early 2007, he began to think systematically about the 
problem of getting chromatic play in a diatonic harp, and that is what 
led him to discover fourkey tuning.  Fourkey tuning uniquely allows 
chromatic play on a diatonic harmonica with just two draw bends per 
octave, and four major keys can be played without any bends at all.

Jazmaan has given us a remarkable new demonstration of fourkey tuning on 
his new 14-hole harp at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UqML8KFxH8
But I won't pretend that I can play April In Paris like that on my 
fourkey.  He uses chords a lot there.  Even after playing a fourkey harp 
for 2 years, I cannot do any good chords on it.  Most of the great 
alternative tunings have been designed to provide some good chords, but 
fourkey tuning was designed to allow chromatic melodic play, and so of 
course chords are not its strong point.
For a demo that shows the simple strength of the fourkey harmonic, let 
me suggest that you should look at Jazmaan playing Misty, at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5un0JAkWoc
If you want to play like that, you should give this instrument a try!

I have tried to collect links to all the online information about 
fourkey tuning at
http://4keyharps.wordpress.com/
I noticed that the archives of Andy Newton's original articles from 
harmonicasessions.com seem to be unavailable now.  I have pdf copies 
that I cold post if they remain unavailable, but the gist of his 
argument is summarized on this web site.
-Roger

-Roger


On 4/18/2011 3:23 PM, harp-l-request@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 13:28:15 -0700
> From:sheltraw@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Playing chromatically on a diatonic instrument
>
> If I were to go diatonic - I'm playing the chromatic - I would choose the
> diminished tuning. However, the problem that I anticipate with diatonics
> in general (and dimi tuning is no exception) is trouble playing three or
> more bent notes in different holes rapidly and accurately. If anyone feels
> they have mastered this challenge would you please demonstrate your technique
> with an audio file. I'm just curious whether this skill can be mastered.

--
Roger B. Myerson, Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor
Department of Economics, University of Chicago
1126 East 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637
Phone: 773-834-9071, Fax: 773-702-8490
http://home.uchicago.edu/~rmyerson/