Mel Bay's Harmonica Sessions | One Harp - Four Keys - No Bends - and More!: Part 1 - Andy Newton

My name is Andy Newton, and I live in the county of Hertfordshire near London, England.

I recently discovered a remarkable new layout or arrangement of notes for the "diatonic" or ten-hole harmonica. The new tuning is fully chromatic and performs well in single note playing in all styles of music. It would be easy for beginners to use, and it also opens up new musical possibilities for advanced players. It is a real alternative to the standard diatonic harp, and it can compete head-to-head with the slide chromatic harmonica. This document is the story of its discovery.

Nearly everything is explained below. One unexplained mystery is how this simple but highly flexible and playable tuning could have been missed by harmonica inventors for the past hundred years or so.

The new tuning is named "Fourkey Tuning."

The Search Begins

A few months ago I dug out the Lee Oskar harp that had been resting in a dusty corner for many years. "Now that I have some free time I can try to learn to play this properly" I thought.

Back in the early 70's as an ignorant youth with no information available I bought a Hohner "blues harmonica" in the key of E. It was many years before I discovered that an "E" harp is one of the highest pitched harps made and is a difficult first harp to learn on. Now, in 2007, things are very different. A few mouse clicks on the YouTube web site will show me videos of Adam Gussow in Mississippi explaining and demonstrating every detail that could be imagined about blues harmonica playing - and not an "E" harp in sight until lesson 26.

This time around I have more time, information, and experience. The extra time comes from recently taking early retirement. The information comes from the Internet. The experience comes from designing, building, and playing other string and wind instruments, and some years working as a design engineer in the electronics and engineering industry.

By using many sources of help and information on the Internet my attempt to learn to play the standard Richter diatonic progressed much better than back in the 70's. But as I read, and played, and listened, and watched, a temptation to try alternative harp tunings began to grow. It started with the slip of paper from inside the box of a Lee Oskar harp that shows details of "Melody Maker," "Natural Minor" and "Harmonic Minor" harp tunings. Where it all ended up is the subject of this article.

Is there something magical about the standard "Richter tuned" diatonic harp? This is the first musical instrument where the notes feel "in the right place" to me. But there is also something odd and quirky about that layout of notes. There are gaps! And there are many tunes the instrument will not play without using advanced techniques. I was having plenty of trouble with normal note bending - and overbends seemed to be years of practice away. So I went hunting, armed with a spreadsheet for juggling the notes and numbers, and with a desire to discover the best harmonica tuning for me to use.

How Far Can You Go?

What if you could make any harp tuning that you could imagine - in just ten holes with twenty reeds? First it may be wise to do a rough count of how many alternative tunings might exist.

Let's say that we start with a C note in blow hole 1, and then choose a note for the hole 1 draw within plus or minus four semitones of C. (An arbitrary limit - just for the purpose of this experiment.) That gives nine design options for the reeds in hole 1. Moving up to the blow reed in hole 2 we can apply the same process again giving nine times nine = eighty-one options for the first three reeds.

By the time we choose a pitch for the twentieth reed, in hole 10, we will have created just one tuning out of a total of nine-raised-to-the-power-of-nineteen different tuning options. That is about 1,350,851,718,000,000,000 different tunings. If we made every one of these, and laid all the harps end to end, they would stretch fifteen light-years into space, reaching to the star "Gliese 876" in the constellation Aquarius.

Most of these outer-space-harp tunings will be unplayable nonsense arrangements of notes. But somewhere in that astronomically long line of harps is one single harp with "C Richter diatonic" stamped on the cover plate. Just a few of these outer-space harps have other curious names written on them such as "Spanish Spiral", and some are engraved as "patent applied for" or "registered design." A few hundred of the harps have an extra label that may read "This harp is listed as tuning 18.5 at PatMissin.com." In that vast number of harps there are clearly plenty of other "unknown" tunings that could be explored, and perhaps somewhere in that long line stretching far out into space is a great harp tuning waiting to be discovered.

Recreating the Richter Design Process

Early on in my search for a "best" harp tuning I realised that some sort of design strategy was needed to find the good musical harps amongst so many possible options. So I went back to some known designs for inspiration.

Let's start with the standard major diatonic or "Richter" design and explore what the original designer might have been trying to achieve. What design process can lead to the layout of notes we use today on a standard major diatonic harp? This little excursion will give a foundation for exploring other designs, and might also give dedicated and experienced Richter players a new perspective on their chosen instrument. Though 99.9% of all the diatonic harp information already published is talking about the Richter note layout, I have not yet read an explanation of WHY the harp has that particular layout in all of its ten holes.

The Richter "major diatonic" is clearly based on the notes of a major scale, so we first take all the notes of the C major scale, C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C D Еetc. If we can put all these notes on a harp we can play any music written in the C major key (CDEFGABC), and also the A natural minor key (ABCDEFGA). We will try to wrap these notes into a ten-hole harp in the most compact form possible, using Richter's innovation of a blow reed and a draw reed in each hole.

An early design decision is to keep the same notes in the blow reeds in each octave for simplicity. There are seven notes per octave ( C D E F G A B ) so we will have to use an unequal division with three notes repeating on the blow reed and four notes repeating on the draw reeds. And with the hope of achieving some useful chords we will select the three notes to use as the blow notes to be the C major chord C E G.

Our blow notes will be C E G C E G C E G C E Е.. etc and our draw notes will be the other four notes D F A B D F A B D F ЕЕ etc. We can lay out the notes in pitch sequence like this. Blow notes on the top and draw notes below.

Now which notes to pair-up in each hole? A little experimentation shows that it makes no difference where you start - you always end up with the same group of six holes that fit together neatly in only one way, plus some problem holes above and below. Here is the neat six-hole group.

You can see that this group of six holes has C and D in the same hole, and also a C and a D split between neighbouring holes. The same applies to D&E, E&F, F&G, and G&A with the split G&A touching the A&B problem notes. Whatever pair of notes you start with in one hole the same six-hole design will always develop as you add holes on either side. Players with any familiarity with a standard diatonic harp will already recognise the switch-over point between the G&A hole and the B&C hole where the higher pitch reed in each hole switches from draw reed to blow reed. That is an inevitable result of the design method used.

We have four more holes still to design. I will follow Herr Richter's choice by adding just one hole to the right of the group of six, and three holes to the left. (That design decision limits the gaps at the top end to just the single missing B note.) Continuing to pair up the notes as they fall gives this result. Hole 2 has become a bit squashed - shown in blue below.

This could be called a "pure" diatonic tuning. So why did Richter modify the F and A draw notes in holes 1 and 2? Those notes have slipped out of sequence because we are stepping through three notes per octave on the blow reeds and four notes on the draw reeds. We are missing a low D note in the draw reeds, so there is some room for movement.

At this point Richter may have developed the idea of playing melody in holes 3 to 10 and optimising the lower holes for chords. The low F could be dropped down to C, D or E, and the low A could be dropped down to E, F, or G. That gives nine ways of adjusting the bottom two draw notes. Trying the nine different combinations possible, with low draw chords in mind, reveals the excellent solution in which we drop the F to cover the missing low D, and drop the low A to G. And that gives us the standard Richter diatonic note layout:

The last move, duplicating the low G, looks a bit strange until you consider the chords available.

If a traditional major melody in C is played in holes 3 to 10 it would be good to have the chords Cmaj, Fmaj, Gmaj and G7. How well do the adjusted notes in draw 1 and draw 2 perform?

Any and all of the blow notes make Cmaj chords ( notes C E G ) Draw 1 2 3 4 makes a Gmaj chord ( notes G B D ) Draw 1 2 3 4 5 makes a G7 chord ( notes G B D F) - so that is all looking very good.

But Richter was not able to adjust the low draw notes to make an Fmaj chord. The notes in an Fmaj chord are F A C. The C notes are firmly stuck as blow notes in this design whilst F and A are draw notes. The nearest we can get to an Fmaj chord when playing a Richter "C" diatonic is to alternate draw 5 & 6 with blow 7 - but that sounds quite pleasing, so it looks like it's time for Herr Richter to sit back with a large Schnapps and contemplate a job well done.

For completeness let's square-up the hole edges to show the finished tuning design as it is normally printed - the Richter major diatonic harp in C:

The design exercise I have just described is entirely hypothetical. Nobody can know what was going on in Herr Richter's mind. We cannot even be sure that it was a Herr Richter who invented the tuning. (Until an old design notebook turns up in an attic one day.) The purpose of the exercise was to understand how the design works musically, why it has to have the switchover point at hole 7 where the blow notes become the higher pitched note, why it has some gaps in the low octave and in hole 10, why the G is duplicated in holes 2 and 3, and why it is such fun to play simple tunes with chords in its natural "harp label" key. I feel that objective has been met.

Blues Style and "Positions"

There remains the puzzle of the use of "positions" and playing blues style on a Richter harp. Whatever doubts there are about the origins of the tuning we know there was no "Chicago Blues" cross-harp music in the early to mid nineteenth century in Europe when the Richter tuning was developed.

I am indebted to the creators of many excellent harp web sites, harp videos, and contributors to harp forums for explaining the musical meaning of "positions", "blues scale(s)", and blues playing techniques. In this section I will take up all that information and use it to explore blues and position playing from the point of view of an instrument designer. It would be nice to understand WHY second-position cross-harp is so effective. (Remember at this point I am still on a journey trying to understand alternative tunings, and if I can crack this last Richter puzzle the scene will be set for some more wide ranging inventions.)

My "Herr Richter" design demonstration worked on the assumption that the harp tuning was being designed with some musical aim in mind. Many twentieth century Richter harp players have gone further than Herr Richter foresaw - just by developing playing technique, not by changing the notes of the reeds in their Richter harps. So this is all about understanding the extent to which a tuning designed for one purpose can be utilised in a different and new way.

Here is a simple starting point. By using drawbends, blowbends, and overbends it is possible to play any note of the CHROMATIC scale on a Richter diatonic harp, and here is the full chart for a "C" harp.

So all the "black" and "white" notes of a piano can be played on a Richter harp if you can develop the necessary bending skills. The key you chose to play in and the intervals of the scale of whatever music you choose to play will require you to use some skills more than others, depending upon how the notes of your music fall into the chart above.

Here is the result if we lay out the notes of the standard blues scale twelve times, starting with the scale root note at each of the twelve possible pitches, on a C harp. You can see the blues scale pattern moving one semitone up to the right at each change in music key.

The root note of each scale is "Rt." The other degrees of the blues scale are numbered 2 to 6. Unbent notes are shaded light blue, normal bends are darker blue and overbends are violet.

It is apparent from the chart above that playing the blues scale requires some skill in bending, whatever note is chosen as the root note of the scale. Assuming that overbends are more difficult than normal bends it is interesting to compare how many notes can be played in an unbroken sequence without using overbends. The blues scale in the "third position" (key of D on a C harp) has the longest unbroken sequence of notes in the blues scale, using just normal bends - with a sixteen note scale available from blow hole 1 through to blow hole 9.

The columns on the left of the chart list some other features affecting playability in each key. Comparing playability of all twelve blues scales shows that the popular "second position" or "cross-harp" (key of G on a C harp) is simply one of the more playable keys amongst the choice of twelve keys. So why is that choice of key so popular?

The answer seems to be in the chords. (Sometimes played as full chords, sometimes as runs or arpeggios, and sometimes as "leaky notes" against the main melody note being played - see Gussow.005 to Gussow.008 on youtube.com.)

Whatever techniques are used to play single notes on the Richter harp, in any melody key, the natural chords on a "C" harp remain Cmaj, Gmaj, G7, and Dm. The C G G7 chords are suited to use with music in the keys of C (as the I and V and V7 chords) and key of G (as the IV and I and I7 chords). So melody in C or G can be supported by the natural chords. Let's consider what else we need in each of those keys:

1) The Key of C: The chart above shows that melody notes in the C blues scale demand four overblows in holes 1 to 6. That is a serious minus. We also need to simulate the missing IV and IV7 chords (F and F7 chords) - we can alternate draw 5 & 6 with blow 7 to simulate the F chord and maybe also blow-bend hole 8 to simulate an F7 chord.

2) The Key of G: The chart above shows that melody notes in the G blues scale do not require overbends for the first eleven notes in holes 1 to 6. That is a plus. We need to simulate the missing V7 chord (D7 chord) - and we can perhaps alternate blow and draw in hole 1, or in hole 4 for that.

So blues played in "second position", or key of G on a C harp, comes out as a good all-rounder. The G blues scale is playable without any overbends in holes 1 to 6 and most of the chords used in playing blues in G are available as natural or simulated chords.

Another position that scores well in this analysis is "third position" (key of D on a C harp). In addition to having the longest run of single notes without overbends it also uses many unbent notes in holes 4 to 9. Also the chord Gmaj can be of use in that key (as the IV chord).

All this idea of "playability" will depend on the skills of the player of course. Those players who have mastered overbends would assess playability differently. Also I have not examined the usefulness of notes outside the blues scale, or minor blues, in this exercise.

From the point of view of tuning design it is clear that the "playability" of blues style music is really an accidental result. The instrument was not designed with that style of music in mind. By experimenting with using each of the twelve possible notes of the chromatic scale as alternative root notes, and by applying special playing techniques, players have found ways of playing blues music on the Richter harp. Similar outcomes are possible if playing a Richter major diatonic in other music scale types and in major and minor keys, and a similar analysis of "positions" could be performed, but I am keen to press on and explore some other approaches to harp tuning.

Other Key-Based or Scale-Based Tunings

Having dug deep under the skin of the Richter harp design I feel reasonably confident about how a few other related tunings must work.

Some differences would arise if a tuning is designed in a similar way to the Richter tuning, but based on the notes of a scale other than the western major scale. Also, there were a few design decisions where a different choice could have been made in the process of "re-inventing" the Richter diatonic. But whatever the differences, for tunings designed in a similar manner to Richter tuning we can expect these similarities: A special suitability or facility for playing in the style of music from which the starting scale was taken - Some appropriate chords may be available - By using bends or overbends it will be possible to use the harp in other styles of music - And there will be a strong bias towards a specific key pitch for any one harp.

A few examples of tunings that seem to fit this description, including tunings that modify the Richer design in just a few notes, are the Lee Oskar Harmonic Minor, Natural Minor, and Melody Maker. Also the "Paddy Richter" and "Country" tunings. Complete details of all these tunings and hundreds of others can be found on the web at PatMissin.com so I will move on now.

This quote from Mike Will sums things up neatly. (see www.angelfire.com/tx/myquill/ and click on "special tunings" in the list of contents). "Amazingly enough, since the Richter layout was not designed with bends and overblows in mind, none of these exotic tunings or even the normal special tunings, has superior general applicability to the Richter major tuning to displace it as the tuning of choice for the vast majority of players. As overblows become more accessible to a wider range of players, the biggest advantages of special tunings is in their chordal capabilities for certain songs and styles of music."

Next time we will explore a completely different approach to harp tuning design.

One Harp - Four Keys - No Bends - and More!

Part One

The Search Begins

How Far Can You Go?

Recreating the Richter Design Process

Blues Style and "Positions"

Other Key-Based or Scale-Based Tunings