Re: [Harp-L] gold cover plates on Hohner Golden Melody (was Question about harps played by Bobby Darin)

[Michael Snowden <mike.snowden@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Eliza - for me, the definitive reference on Harp intonation is Pat Missin's pages, complete with audio examples.

http://www.patmissin.com/tunings/tunings.html


The golden Melody is sometimes known as "Solo tuned", which pretty much sums it up - a soloist in front of an orchestra.  Chord tuning gives you a beefier tone when playing chords (and possibly resonant effects); on a diatonic harp, that extra thickness and bite helps, particularly in blues. You can do it with diatonics, because (unless you are Howard Levy), they are strongly keyed instruments, and that is why it is almost always used.

I'm principally a guitarist, and I know I can't tune a guitar to perfect chord intervals using pure harmonic intervals, so I have always been aware of the difference; I have to back off to get an even fretboard.

Mike




________________________________
 From: Eliza Doolittle <eliza.doolittle@xxxxxxxx>
To: "ericbarnak@xxxxxxxxx" <ericbarnak@xxxxxxxxx> 
Cc: "harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx" <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>; "captron100@xxxxxxx" <captron100@xxxxxxx> 
Sent: Monday, 31 March 2014, 14:37
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.