[Harp-L] equal temperament - golden melody

[philharpn@xxxxxxx]

Equal temperament is the tuning used by the piano and guitar. It is considered standard tuning for most instruments in the Western world. 


Nobody mentioned this yet, but Bobby Darin might have switched harps to get a equal temperament instead of just intonation -- because it sounded better with the song?



One of my former guitar teachers had a reed go out of tune on his Lee Oskar and replaced the harp with a brand new Special 20. He couldn't understand why the pitch was off -- until I told him the LO was equal temperament and the then Special 20 was closer to just. Solo tuned chromatic harmonicas are mostly equal temperament. Richter chromatics? 



Equal temperament is a compromise tuning that makes it possible to play music/songs in 12 keys. Previous tunings set up tunings that provided optimum tuning in certain keys. Equal temperament makes all keys sound equally bad rather than favoring a few keys.  And one key doesn't sound any better than another, except higher or lower in pitch.


The concept of equal temperament has been around for centuries and has just gone in and out of popularity.  Probably Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier is what cinched the deal. 


The Hohner Golden Melody (the name tells the tale) and the Lee Oskar are equal temperament and therefore ought to sound  good with a piano and guitar. The Seydel harps can be special ordered in equal temperament (I just got one last week). 


And if you are not thoroughly confused by this whole discussion, check out Pat Missin 
<http://www.patmissin.com/tunings/tun6.html> 




hope this helps,
Phil 



-----Original Message-----
From: Eliza Doolittle <eliza.doolittle@xxxxxxxx>
To: ericbarnak <ericbarnak@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: harp-l <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>; captron100 <captron100@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Mon, Mar 31, 2014 9:38 am
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] gold cover plates on Hohner Golden Melody (was Question about harps played by Bobby Darin)



Eric wrote:
> Its comb is darker than present day GM's, more like plum or maroon. I just
> played around a little bit with the one I have: It does not seem to be in
> Equal Tempered tuning--the chords sound smooth.

Ron wrote:
> then the standard GM tuning of equal temperment, which is also the tuning
> that is used on Lee Oskar harps.  I believe that the GM is the only Hohner
> diatonic harp that is tuned to equal temperament instead of just tuning or
> their more modern comprise tuning.


When I read Ron's post a couple of days ago I looked up in the archives, but I 
didn't find any post related to equal temperament (it seems hardly possible, so 
maybe the search engine wasn't working all right (?)). Anyway, if Hohner uses 
(with the exception of the Golden Melody) just tuning, and so does Lee Oskar (I 
don't know about other brands), is it considered a better way of tuning the 
harps? I mean, even if the chords sound better with just tuning, if harps often 
play along with instruments that use equal temperament (keyboards or guitars), 
wouldn't they sound better using equal temperament, too? I suppose that many 
harp players play with other people, so it's strange that there aren't more 
harps using equal temperament.

Not that I know much about the different ways of tuning, though. I've been 
playing piano all my life, not worring about having to play in tune or about 
tuning my instrument to play with other people (it is always they who must tune 
to play with me), and to me, just tuning only means that the string players 
boasted that they played a B flat differently from an A sharp, which always 
bemused me.