[Harp-L] Pentabender Tuning



Roger Myerson wrote:


"I have recently tried an interesting new diatonic tuning and I wonder if
anyone has seen it before.  The 12-hole version that Seydel made for me
has the following note arrangement (in the key of C but with D as its
low note):
BLOW  D  F  G  A  C  D  F  G  A  C  D  F
DRAW  E  G  A  B  D  E  G  A  B  D  E  G

What is so special about this?  It is the only tuning that has the
following three properties:
(1) Regularity: Each octave should regularly repeat the same pattern,
with draw higher than blow in each hole, and with notes going in the
same direction (lower to higher) as you move from left to right.
(2) Cover a major scale without bends: The blow and draw notes should
include all the notes of a major scale but no other notes, so that you
don't have to worry about accidentally playing something out of the key.
(3) Cover the chromatic scale with bends: With draw bends (but no
overblowing), you should be able to get all twelve notes of the
chromatic scale in each octave.

These desirable properties can be achieved only by having five holes per
octave.  Here, in a C harp, each hole contains two notes separated by a
whole-tone interval with one of the five black notes of the piano
available as a draw bend in between them.

Since the black notes form a pentatonic scale, the blow notes and the
draw notes each also form a pentatonic scale.  Here the blow notes form
an F-major (or D-minor) pentatonic scale, and the draw notes form a
G-major (or E-minor) pentatonic scale.  Essentially we have decomposed
the seven-note major scale into two overlapping pentatonic scales, whose
paired notes enclose the other five chromatic notes   I believe that
these are the pentatonic pairs that Willie Thomas talks about in
jazzeveryone.com.

Gary Lehman suggested that this could be called "pentabender" tuning.  I
have been playing my new pentabender harp for couple of days, and I find
it very natural and intuitive.

In Pat Missin's catalog of tunings, the closest cousins to this
pentabender seem to be 11.18 "chromatic pentatonic" tuning and 11.24
"fourkey" tuning.  Both also have five-hole octaves, but 11.18 contains
only the notes of one pentatonic scale, and fourkey tuning includes the
notes of four different major scales.  Each octave in pentabender tuning
contains three notes that repeat enharmonically in blow and draw, and if
you flatten the draw enharmonic notes by a semitone then you get fourkey
tuning.

If this natural tuning has been overlooked, it may be interesting to ask
why.  I think that there are two main reasons.  First, it needs five
holes per octave, which means that you can only get two octaves in a
10-hole harp.  But I have enjoyed playing fourkey harmonicas with such a
range for several years.  Second, most people who think about altered
tunings tend to look for ways to get nice chords in three-hole triads of
contiguous blow or draw notes.  However, this tuning (like fourkey
tuning) was motivated by melodic properties, and so instead of nice
triad chords we get pentatonic scales, which are basic melodic structure
in many musical traditions.

This has also been discussed at Slidemeister.com at
http://www.slidemeister.com/forums/index.php?topic=1205.390 "


My congrats to Roger for inventing (unless someone else claims prior art) a
very interesting new tuning!   I'm fairly confident this is a novel tuning,
because, as Roger points out,  not many people have given much thought to
tunings that require 5 holes to span an octave.   Having myself been
playing such a tuning, the Fourkey "LeGato" Chromatic for a few years now,
 I can't wait to try the "Pentabender" at SPAH, where I'm sure Roger will
be demonstrating it.   As Roger points out,  the "Pentabender" seems like
it will be very well suited to Willie Thomas' "Jazz Everyone" system of
"Pentatonic Pairs".   If you haven't already checked out the
jazzeveryone.com website, you should!



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