[Harp-L] Re: new diatonic tuning for chromatic play with chords

[Roger Myerson <myerson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Please let me try again to give a shorter and better answer to the 
question of where the tonics should be placed in a harp.

When we have only two octaves and can only comfortably play in a limited 
number of keys, this question can be important.  When we are want to 
play a tune that has a range of close to two octaves, we hope that its 
high and low notes will match up well with the range of our instrument 
in one of the keys that we can comfortably play the tune.  So when we 
want to play a tune with a broad range of about two octaves, what are 
commonly the highest and lowest notes.  I have never played any tune 
where the range goes two octaves from a low tonic to a high tonic. 
Usually I find that such songs have high and low notes that are the 
dominant or the subdominant, not the tonic root of the key.  But from 
that perspective, your suggestion looks as good as mine, since your low 
note is indeed the subdominant of one of the major keys in which we 
expect to play this instrument.

But obviously this game of trying to analyze what notes of the scale are 
most commonly low and high notes depends on what music we play, and I 
probably should not put much weight on my limited experience.  So let me 
suggest another approach to the question.  Instead of trying to guess 
what notes are likely to be highest and lowest, let's just try to admit, 
given the narrowness of our range, every extra note that we can get will 
be worthwhile.  So I always look at the top and bottom ends of the 
harmonica and ask whether we can possibly raise the top note or lower 
the bottom note a half step without doing too much violence to the other 
good properties of the instrument.  So I put the bottom of my harp in a 
place where the natural bottom note (D#) was not actually used in either 
of my twokey scales, so that I could convert it to a bend and get 
another bit more range by lowering the bottom note a half-step.  So my 
version goes low D to high D (two full octaves including both ends) and 
your version goes low C to high B.

Thanks again for your note.  I hope that you are starting to enjoy your 
fourkey!
-Roger


On 6/2/2011 10:42 AM, Jim Hanks wrote:
> ...Another advantage of fourkey (in my opinion) is that the "C" root is
> typically in either hole 1 or 2 giving more notes in the "C" scale.
> Having the root note in blow 5 would be weird for me. You could slide
> your layout to the right (and without your hole 1 fix) like this:
>
> BLOW C E F# G# A C E F# G# A
> DRAW D D# F G B D D# F G B
>
> but then you lose one of your G chords.
>
> Jim
>
> Roger Myerson wrote:
> > BLOW D F# G# A C E F# G# A C
> > DRAW E F G B D D# F G B D
> >
> > I think that this is new. Have you seen this tuning or anything like
> > it before?