Re: [Harp-L] 9 draw raised



Jonathan Ross wrote:
<Steve Baker writes (in regards to Country tuning):
<
<"interest more players in the many wonderful options the raised 7th  
<in 5-draw offers (though I never raise 9-draw und never really  
<grasped the reason for doing so),"
<
<It depends on whether you want to keep a blow bend in hole 9 or have  
<an octave available in the draw.  It's also a matter of ease--if you  
<swap reedplates from an LO to make a country tuned harp you'd have to  
<retune the 9 draw back down.

In my opinion the main reason NOT to raise the draw 9 reed is that by doing so you lose the original note (the flat 7th in second position, natural 4th degree of the scale in first position).  Once the pitch of the draw 9 reed is raised, there's no way to get the original note in the top octave short of an overdraw on draw 8, which is not a very stable note in most cases. On the other hand, it's easy and stable to get the raised note on an unmodified harp by bending the blow 9 reed down.  

I agree that it's easy to do the reedplate swap on an LO, and it's even more attractive because you get two very usable harps out of it. But it's really not much harder to tune the draw 5 reed up a half step, and in my experience the reed is pretty durable afterwards.  

I can think of one case where using the raised draw 9 reed might be very useful--if you were planning to use the harp in a 3rd position major mode (as opposed to the normal minor mode of 3rd position on a standard Richter harp).  Then you'd have consistent chording all the way to the top of the harp.  

That said, I think the most useful mod on top of country tuning is to drop the tuning on the 10 blow reed 1/2 step to produce the major 3rd in second position.  I am mindful that I should do a recording of Wonder's "For Once in My Life" solo with this tuning.  Next week for that; I'm really not satisfied with the sound of the Delat Frost I set up with that tuning, so have to do another harp first.

Someone on this list said a little while ago that it would be really nice to have a harp where you could instantly adjust the tuning on any reed anytime.  There's a worthy challenge for the designers...

Regards, Richard Hunter

author, "Jazz Harp"
latest mp3s and harmonica blog at http://myspace.com/richardhunterharp
more mp3s at http://taxi.com/rhunter
Vids at http://www.youtube.com/user/lightninrick



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