[Harp-L] New Seydel tremolo built in a chromatic-style body

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

This will be of interest to anyone who uses tremolo harmonicas,
including players of Scots, Irish, and Quebecois traditional music.

Seydel has come out with the Fanfare, a new type of tremolo harp. It
gets rid of several of the problems of the tremolo by buiding the
instrument into the body of a 12-hole chromatic without the slide. It's
still diatonic, just easier to play.

Most tremolos have four holes for every one on a standard diatonic.
Instead of a blow reed and a draw reed in a single hole, blow and draw
are side by side in separate holes. The tremolo blow and draw reeds are
in holes in a row below. This can make it hard to find your desired
note. Adding to the confusion, the relative placement of blow and draw
notes shifts around, especially in the top and bottom octaves. As a
result, finding notes and playing melodies can get very confusing. This
arrangement also tends to use a lot of air.

Using a chromatic body puts all four notes - blow, draw, and their
tremolo counterparts - in a single hole. This makes notes much easier
to find The reeds are valved, so it saves breath.

The blow-draw note arrangement stays the same through all three octaves
by using the solo tuning found on chromatics

The Fanfare is based on the Chromatic Delux, which is valved and held
together with screws. It's priced similarly to high-quality tremolos
from Suzuki and Tombo.

So far it comes in G, A, Bb, and C. I've told them they should make a
low D.

Here's a Seydel page showing the harp and the note layout:

http://www.seydel1847.de/epages/Seydel.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/Seydel/Products/22480/SubProducts/22480C

Here's a sound sample played on a G-harp here:

http://www.seydel1847.de/WebRoot/Seydel/Shops/Seydel/Download/htmnewsletter/3/fanfare.mp3

While the website doesn't specifically mention it, the Seydel
willingness to do special tunings may apply to this model . . .

Winslow

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