[Harp-L] Re. Choice of Harps for Scottish and Irish Tunes

["Brendan Power" <bren@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Interesting thread.



I made up the Paddy Richter tuning for Irish music and used it on both 10
hole diatonics and chromatics on my ‘New Irish Harmonica’ album 1994. The
chromatics I tuned to my Slide Diatonic format, for sweet-sounding slide
decorations:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGkbVG1sBXQ



However in the late 90’s I switched over to what I call Paddy Solo tuning
for all my Irish harps: a Paddy Richter bottom end and Solo Tuning top end.
You can see the scale here:

http://www.brendan-power.com/harmonicas.php#harps4



However Paddy Richter will suit 10 hole harp players best. Pure Solo tuning
is excellent for Irish and Scottish music too, if you’re a chrom player.
I’ve written a few instructional methods for Solo Tuning and Paddy Richter
tuning:

http://www.brendan-power.com/instruction.php



As Steve and Aongas say, D and G harps are the best  for Irish music, but
it’s good to have your favoured tuning in other keys too: F, Eb & Ab (for
when the fiddlers tune up a semitone), A.



A lot of Scottish tunes are in the Myxolydian mode in key of A. That’s the
same as Cross Harp, so a D harp (in Paddy Richter/Paddy Solo/Solo) is good.



I prefer standard D Paddy Richter/Paddy Solo to the Low D, though both work
well.



Brendan Power

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