tricking --

[Vadimonium@xxxxxxx]

hi,
i've been out of town on a gig - yeah, legit and  all! ha. the whole band, 
not just me ....!! - and just now back to my computer. so, this is what the 
trick is all about.

first, if not for rupert oysler's tip about sanding to tune, i'd still be in 
the dark. but, that just opened it up for me. somethng i can do. no mechanical 
aptitude needed - trust me, none available in this little 'bod' either, just 
the patience to see it thru. man, what an open door! 

ran into a guy a while ago playing great stuff on keys. as i have a habit of 
doing, after a set, i wandered - okay, staggered - over and started to bug 
him. anyway, i found out all about tetrachords. man, if that could be done to my 
harp, it'd be smokey...couldnt tune it. then , along comes rupert oysler! 
yeah....

so, i'm experimenting tuning my a harp so i can play g blues on it. now, a 
guy i met on this gig was telling me there aint any difference in the reeds on 
an a harp or a g harp or a c harp. just the method of tuning is different. i 
dont have degrees and stuff so i figured he must know. thing is, i know what i 
hear - that's all. my a harp tuned to this tetrachord deal is smokey and i love 
hte sound. so, i played  some for this guy. he seemd to like it too. now, i 
run thru a pod to a bass amp. "smokey are us"! who knows for sure? i dont claim 
to at all. you guys on the list know all that stuff. i just know what my ears 
tell me.....anyway....an a harp tuned to tetrachords for playing g blues. i 
did it  like this....i'm sure it aint best, but it workd for me this time.....

hole     blow/draw   pitch      hole      blow/draw     pitch
1           blow           a           5          blow             b
1           draw           e           5          draw             f#
2           blow           c           6          blow             d
2           draw           g           6          draw             a
3           blow           d           7           blow            e
3           draw           a           7           draw            b
4           blow           eb          8           blow            f
4           draw           bb          8           draw           c

i dont need the top two holes for this tetrachord thing. so, didnt even 
bother messing with them. oh, i'm sure i'm opening myself up to all sorts of 
'should have done's' and 'why didnt you's'  and 'would have been better to's' and 
stuff. that's ok. probably are better ways to lay this out. i said i'm no expert 
at this. this is a first try at it for me -- i'm having a ball. and to play 
with this set up is great. you can play bluesy as heck; you can play much 
jazzier sounds, too. at least that's what i've found. and just noodling around 
improvising is more fun than stepping in something soft.....whatever...

pat missin's site scares me. i dont know. 9, 263 ways to tune a harp? 
whew...what a great site and wonderfully done. i love it. didnt see tetrachord tuning 
like this on my really lite-weight look thru, tho. with my luck, this aint 
original. been done lots of times....waaaahh! anyway.....[dont waste 
bandwidth...ehehe]

this also lets me play both major blues scales with blue notes and minor 
blues scales as well which is getting a lot more important to me as i go over the 
transcriptions i love to make of the greats playng their stuff. seems they did 
a lot of this kind of thing. i'm just getting started! ha! anyway, my IV 
chord stuff has always been really stiff. then i ran across - no, not over, 
across! - this guy named bill boyd. he goes, 'hey, use the major blues scale with 
flat 3 flat 7 included on I and V and minor blues scale on IV and see what 
that's about."  gives me some real openings, i think and i see that used by the 
greats in places too. love it.....

if you're in g blues: I is g; IV is c; V is d. yeah all 7's..... anyway, 

one chord tetrachord: e g a bb- b d e f - 8 notes because there's two 
sections to it, high and low.

four chord tetrachord: e g a bb- a c d eb - doubles with one chord tetrachord 
on lower four notes. [cool, huh?]

five chord tetrachord: b d e f- f# a b c - doubles with one chord tetrachord 
on the upper four notes. 

because of the overlapping of the four and five tetrachords with the one 
tetrachord, you can get all these notes in eight holes on the harp. really neat, i 
think.

anyway.....that's the trick. sorry it took so long to go over this. hope 
someone finds it fun as i am. 
 

vadie.....

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"hearts of fire, minds of ice!"