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Building Harmonica Technique Volume 3 & 4
taught by: David Barrett

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

Part Two

by Andy Newton

Exploring Harp-Interval-Based Tunings

There are a number of tunings for which it can be difficult to assign a single "label key" to a harp. The unbent reed notes in some tunings can include all the scale notes of more than one key. Examples are Bebop (C/F) tuning and Franz Kraus tuning. Other tunings do not have enough unbent notes for a complete scale in any key at all! Examples are Spanish, Augmented and Diminished tunings.

As I explored the process of designing new tunings I found these types of tuning to be a fascinating idea. The general design method I used was probably the same that other designers have used in the past. (I certainly "invented" lots of tunings and then discovered they were already known, named, catalogued, and patented.)

These designs can be invented by designing a short pattern of musical intervals and distributing the appropriate notes over the reeds in a few holes of the harp. The pattern can be anything! For instance: some arbitrary root note, then the note two semitones higher, then up one more semitone, and up three semitones, and up two semitones. The short pattern of intervals is repeated over the next group of reeds, and repeated again until you run out of holes.

Some of the tunings generated by this design method turn out to have remarkable musical playing characteristics. For example "Diminished" tuning uses a whole-tone interval from the blow reed up to the draw reed in every hole, and a semitone interval from the draw reed up to the blow reed of the next hole. Repeating that very short pattern over ten holes gives twenty unbent notes, but not one single complete major scale! The payoff comes when you examine how to play scales using bends. Not only can you play in any key, using the unbent notes plus some semitone draw bends, but there are only three repeating sequences of blows, draws, and bends that give you all the major keys. Another three repeating sequences give you all the blues scales. In fact any type of scale can be played, and just three different sequences of blows, draws, and bends will always give all twelve keys.

I was so taken by this idea that I retuned a Richter harp to Diminished tuning and tried to learn to play it. It soon became clear that I was in for a hard time. On average, one in every three notes played will be a bend, and I was not skilled enough to hit those bends cleanly. I sounded like a old vinyl record with jam spread on it, played on a rusty clockwork turntable.

On the other hand, expert players can make amazingly good music on similar types of harp that may require lots of bends or overbends. Try http://www.overblow.com/ and follow the link to Ludo Becker's page of sound samples. My favourite is his performance of Satie's Gnossiene 1 on the Diminishift-test-driving page.

To sort things out in my own mind I have called this family of tunings "harp-interval-based tunings" as the designs are based on intervals that fit the two-reeds-in-a-hole structure of the harp in some convenient way and then the musical effectiveness (or not) follows on as a result of repeating the chosen interval pattern over the length of the harp.

The Big Tuning Design Breakthrough

In February 2007 I was struck by the idea that I could search for a tuning, of the type I am calling "harp-interval-based", based on some personal targets to maximise playability and musicality. It did not take long to come up with a list of targets to narrow the search:

Target 1) Result to be fully chromatic without using any overbends

Target 2) Blow & draw note pattern is to repeat at each octave

Target 3) No difficult unnatural sounding deep bends. I will limit the maximum bend required to be three semitones. (Smaller interval bends would be preferred, but this choice means that the search process should "find" the Augmented, Diminished, and Spanish tunings, and that will be a useful error check.)

Target 4) The note pitches must always increase, blow to draw in one hole, and then up again to blow in the next hole. (No duplicated notes or reversals of direction.) This target is to maximise playability, and it will also have the effect of making all the bends be drawbends, not blowbends.

Target 5) One or more musical scale types to be available, in as many keys as possible, with as few bends as possible.

Do these targets show that I am being gutless and lazy - trying to avoid the work needed to learn difficult playing techniques? Perhaps! But the main objective was to find a tuning on which I can make better music. If I could find a way to reduce the inherent difficulties and limits of the instrument, and improve its flexibility and tone, then more effort could go into the quality of the music itself.

How many tuning options must be searched through and assessed? Remember that there are literally an astronomical number of possible tunings. Would I need to examine a few hundred tunings, or many thousands, or millions? Is life long enough?

Here comes the first of a series of surprises. I was able to prove that there are only seventeen repeating tuning patterns that meet all the targets 1 to 4. There are further options due to the choice of a starting point for hole 1 in each repeating pattern, but only seventeen patterns to be assessed for playability (target 5). If you like logic puzzles you may enjoy trying to prove the same result yourself.

Here are all seventeen note patterns, starting with blow 1 = C. The reed note names are in rectangles that represent the harp holes - stretched sideways to show the size of the note intervals, with blow reed note on the left and draw reed on the right in each hole. The first few patterns repeat over three holes per octave. Other patterns repeat over four, five, or six holes per octave. The diagram shows two octaves of each pattern, and each pattern repeats in other octaves to cover however many holes there are on the harp comb. As expected, the search has identified the Augmented, Diminished and Spanish tunings.

All these seventeen tunings satisfy design targets 1 to 4. (And if my maths is correct these are the only seventeen tunings that can do that.) Each tuning can now be assessed against target 5 by counting the musical scales and keys available with only unbent notes. This gives zero major keys for all tunings until we reach the bottom three rows of the chart. And here is the second big surprise! There are three tunings here that look interesting - and especially the tuning shaded yellow.

I rejected the tuning that gives two major keys because I saw no advantages over the yellow tuning. I also rejected the tuning that gives twelve major keys because the player would need to move over too many holes during normal play. But the yellow tuning looked promising, so I named it "Fourkey tuning."

Searching the tunings catalogued at PatMissin.com I could not find anything like this "Fourkey" pattern. Pat confirmed by email that the tuning is entirely new, to his knowledge.

A whole range of tunings (sometimes known as "Magic Dick" tunings) were patented in 1988 by Richard Salwitz and Pierre Beauregard as US patent number 5166461. Their patent can be viewed via http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html. I feel it would be unfortunate for all harp players if the manufacture and use of a promising new tuning was restricted, or entirely blocked, by patent laws so I studied the Salwitz & Beauregard patent with some concern. The patent attempts to take ownership of an entire class of tunings by describing general characteristics of the patterns of reed-to-reed intervals. Fortunately the first "Claim" of US patent 5166461 says that, " … in at least five of said seven adjacent cavities the predetermined pitch of the draw-reed is at least a whole step higher than that of the associated blow-reed." I read that claim with great relief. Fourkey tuning has only two or three "whole step cavities" in any seven adjacent holes, so it falls outside the scope of the patent and remains freely available for manufacture and use by everyone. The reason for this lucky escape is that although Salwitz & Beauregard and myself were all hunting in the same territory, with similar weapons, we were seeking different game. Salwitz & Beauregard were hunting for harp tunings with a rich supply of chords available, and I was hunting for tunings with good melodic single note playing capabilities. Having bagged one beautiful specimen I have chosen to put a name ring onto its leg and have now released it back into the wild where it can flourish and multiply freely.

Could "Fourkey" be my choice of tuning? Could it transform my experience of learning to play the harmonica? Would I make good music with it? There was only one way to find out.

Playing Fourkey Tuning

I now have two harps in Fourkey tuning. My first prototype harp is a standard twelve-hole Hohner "Marine Band 364 Solo" that I retuned myself to Fourkey tuning. The second harp is a Seydel "Blues Session" ten-hole harp, custom made in Fourkey tuning by Seydel in Germany. These two harps have radically improved the range of music I can play, and have inspired me to press on with improving my skills and exploring the capabilities of Fourkey tuning. The tuning is full of musical surprises, and I am sure there is much still to discover about its capabilities. Listed below are musical aspects of Fourkey tuning discovered so far. (Some of these have been pointed out by Pat Missin and Howard Levy.)

• All the blow notes form a pentatonic scale - major or minor depending on the hole chosen as the root note.
• All the draw notes form another major or minor pentatonic scale, with the draw scales root notes in different holes from the blow scales.
• The tuning is fully chromatic and plays all keys and all scale types using just a few single semitone drawbends.
• In general the tuning promotes fluid and expressive playing of melodies. The occasional use of drawbends is sufficiently rare that when required this does not create a musical problem. For beginners it is possible to find one or more key for almost any piece that does not require bends to be used.
• The tuning plays many keys and scale types without needing any bends at all. This includes, using just unbent notes on one harp: Four major keys, four natural minor keys, two harmonic minor keys, four standard blues scale keys, two gypsy minor keys, and two gypsy major keys.
• In one key the blues scales use all the harp's draw notes, in all holes, plus one blow note per octave. This is great fun to play fast riffs and runs - and of course all the draw notes are bendable. In two other keys the blues scales pack all the notes of the scale into three of the five holes in each octave. This is also very pleasing to play.
• There seem to be few three-note triad chords, and no four-note chords available. But all sorts of two note combinations are possible, with or without tongue blocking. Though this is an area I have not yet explored far, I have found and used partial chords in adjacent holes for the I7 IV7 and V7 chords in music keys F and E on an Eb Fourkey harp. As I am writing this article "Fourkey Diatonic" tuning has just been added to the list of tunings in the "Chord and Scale" Finder at overblow.com. That web page will display all chords and scales interactively on screen.
• On a ten-hole comb Fourkey tuning has a range of barely two octaves. A Richter diatonic has a range of three octaves. This has not been a problem in my playing experience so far. The fact that the note pattern repeats at five hole steps makes octave jumps relatively easy. The fact that there are no gaps in the notes available means that the two-octave range can be fully exploited from end to end. It would be ideal to have the option of a twelve-hole or even a fourteen-hole model.
• Playing scales in all keys requires different blow-draw-bend patterns for each key - this could be difficult. But I found that when playing along with music on CD or radio a knowledge of the patterns seems unnecessary - it takes just a few bars of music to find where some of the notes are by ear. The repeat of the pattern in each five-hole octave makes finding other notes very easy.
• The underlying pattern of wholetone and semitone intervals, repeating in every five holes, is easy to visualise during play but I did find it difficult at first to keep track of which hole I was actually playing. This was easily remedied by applying some raised blobs of nail varnish on the lower cover plate. Now that I can feel where I am with my lower lip I don't get lost - in the same way that the F and J keys on a computer keyboard have raised pips on the front edge to aid touch-typing.
• Harmonica tablature ( 3> 3> 4 5> etc.) is easily written for this tuning. The fact that all notes are available means that with little programming skill an automatic transposing tablature program can be constructed. A Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that performs this function is available from the author. Tunes can be tabbed out once by ear in their original key and then the ease of playing in any of the eleven alternative keys can be explored using the spreadsheet.
• This new tuning may find a place alongside the few alternative tunings that are commercially manufactured on a ten-hole or twelve-hole diatonic comb. There are lots of reasons why this could happen, and a few barriers also. Fourkey tuning is also a strong option compared with a SLIDE-chromatic harp. Easy to play - fully chromatic - no slide needed - compact - reliable - cheap to make - good timbre - no leaks - no valves.
• For a beginner who can't yet play semitone draw bends the Fourkey harp is a very playable instrument to start on because of the rich supply of unbent notes, the lack of any "gaps" and the regular pattern in each octave.
• For intermediate and advanced players the draw-bend notes can be used, and these all sound clean and natural because they are only semitone bends.
• Though Fourkey tuning was designed with the intention of avoiding the need for overbends there is of course the possibility of using overblows in every hole. This opens up even more options for advanced players.

The notes on a Fourkey tuned harp can be shown on diagrams in various ways. Some diagrams work better as a playing aid than others. Examples are given below - you can make your own judgement.

Charts and Playing Aids

The "dot hole" labels in these diagrams show where I place the blobs of nail varnish. This gives a consistent reference point across all Fourkey harps - even if the dots are imaginary. The first dot on a harp can be at any of holes 1 2 3 4 or 5, depending on where hole-1 enters the repeating five hole interval sequence. Using the "dots" as reference points, rather than the hole numbers, means that some of these diagrams work for all Fourkey harps.

The diagram below is an example of research into where the I, IV and V chords lie in all keys, for blues-style play. Interesting results were found in various keys, but just two keys are shown here to save space.

The diagram covers all ten holes of my Seydel harp to make the chords easier to identify, but for other purposes a diagram just five or six holes wide gives all the information a player needs for playing on a Fourkey harp of any length.

Patterns of blows, draws and bends to play scales do not need to be shown over the entire harp length. Samples of some scale types are shown below. The same patterns repeat between each pair of "dot holes" on the harp. If the dot hole is hole 1 then the D blues scale (shown below) is hole 2 blow & draw, hole 3 blow & draw, hole 5 blow & draw, and between the next two dot holes the same pattern will repeat as hole 7 blow & draw, hole 8 blow & draw, hole 10 blow & draw, etc. But I don't think in terms of hole numbers now - the D blues scale is easier to visualise and learn as "blow & draw in the hole below each dot hole and the two holes above - and the draw below a dot hole is the root note." The final example shown below is the C major scale - "draw in all holes, plus blow in the holes above and below each dot hole."

Ignoring hole "numbers" will make playing other Fourkey harps easier. Consider the result if I make or buy another twelve-hole Fourkey harp. A useful choice of pitch and key might be to copy the notes of the ten-hole Eb harp in holes 3 to 12 and have Bb / B and C / D holes BELOW those notes. The diagram above will still work perfectly and the tunes and playing patterns I have learnt will work unchanged on that new harp if I ignore hole numbers and concentrate on the "dots." The new harp will have the dots at holes 3 and 8. Its full technical specification should be, "a 12-hole Fourkey harp in Eb, dot-hole-3", but a player would not bother about all that!

A pianist can use a keyboard of any length without needing to count from the bottom note. The short repeating pattern of white keys and raised black keys is all that is needed. In just the same way, on a Fourkey harp, the short repeating pattern of five holes works for all harps of any length. The first "dot" identifying where the pattern starts can be at any of holes 1 to 5. The Fourkey harp shown in the table of seventeen note patterns, in section 7, is actually a "G dot hole 4" harp.

Using the same dot-hole pitch in all Fourkey harps would give an advantage for players who use conventional notation.

In May 2007 I am starting to learn to sight-read music using a notional B-flat harp as the standard pitch. All other Fourkey harps will then be treated as "transposing instruments" - as already conventionally used for saxophones, trumpets, etc.

The diagram on the right shows extra dots added to the top cover plate to aid navigation. The fact that I will be learning using a ten hole harp will not stop me learning the full stave with ledger lines as shown. If a seventeen-hole Fourkey harp is ever available the playing patterns I have learnt will still work unchanged.

Making a Fourkey Tuned Harp

In the harmonicaclub.com forum, "Vortex" suggested that players who are interested in using alternative tunings do not mind doing their own retuning of stock diatonic harps. That comment certainly applies to me. I would like to buy various makes of ten-hole and twelve-hole harps and retune them all to Fourkey tuning. But this involves some unexpected problems.

Retuning reeds up or down a few semitones is not a problem - with a little practice, and lots of help from harp web sites. But Fourkey tuning requires some larger changes than are generally used. The tuning has a pitch range of barely two octaves on a ten-hole harp. Retuning a stock ten hole diatonic (that starts with a pitch range of three octaves) involves some very large pitch changes. Expert opinion is that large pitch change cannot give a responsive result if you file or add metal to the reeds. The changes require reed replacement at one or both ends of the harp. In theory the best method would be to make the reeds and reed slots longer at the high end of the harp - but that is infeasible.

I thought that buying a "Solo" or "Soloist" tuned harp as a starting point could solve this problem. (Solo tuning has a smaller pitch range per hole than Richter tuning). So to make my prototype Fourkey harp I bought a Hohner 12 hole Marine Band 364 in Solo tuning in C and set to work to make an "F" Fourkey tuning. Retuning holes 1 to 8 went smoothly, but then the task became more and more difficult in holes 9 to 12. The reeds in hole 12 ended up looking like crumpled tinfoil. Examining the lengths of the reed slots the cause of this becomes clear. The short reed slots appear considerably shorter than needed for solo tuning. My guess is that the Solo tuned Hohner is built using a reed plate originally designed for an extended version of Richter tuning. This is an acceptable manufacturing strategy, but it means that the higher reeds in the solo tuned harp are already near to the limit of thinness for a stable reliable reed. Removing even more metal to make Fourkey tuning pushes over that limit.

The good news was that playing my retuned Hohner worked well, using just holes 1 to 10 and simply ignoring the top two holes. But the deep cover plates, exposed brass reed plate edges, wide hole spacing, and unsealed wooden comb were not to my liking. So the next step was to find a slimmer more ergonomic harp.

The Seydel company in Germany offer to manufacture any ten-hole tuning to special order. See http://www.seydel1847.de/ for contact details. After exchanging emails describing the tuning I placed an order on 5 April and received a ten hole "Blues Session" in my specified Eb Fourkey tuning by post a couple of weeks later. This harp played OK out-of-the-box. Increasing the reed gaps has made it play more freely. Comparing it with my Lee Oskar diatonics I find that the Lee Oskars are noticeably more responsive and resonant with more bite in their tone. The Seydel sounds quieter and muted in comparison. Through a microphone it has a mellow smooth tone. The plastic body and chromed mild-steel rounded covers are very comfortable in the mouth.

Measuring the lengths of the draw and blow reed slots at holes 1 and 10 gives an interesting result. My custom-made Seydel Fourkey harp is built on draw and blow reed plates with the same slot lengths as a Lee Oskar Richter major diatonic. This confirms the earlier suggestion that Fourkey tuning is achievable on Richter reedplates if reed replacement is used.

But enough of this struggle with do-it-yourself specials and ten-hole special orders. The ideal Fourkey harp, with the best tone and responsiveness would be designed and manufactured as a Fourkey harp from the outset. It would come in a choice of ten or twelve or fourteen holes to give a wide pitch range, with the holes at standard blues-harp hole spacing. It would use reed plates with slots cut to the optimum lengths for this tuning (that is, longer at the top end than the slots in standard reed plates). And it would be available with a choice of metal or plastic or sealed wood combs to suit individual player preferences. That objective would require an investment in new tooling by an enterprising harp manufacturer. This cannot come about if the demand from customers is small or unknown, but will certainly happen somewhere if there is a demand from many customers. One small contribution that I can make to encourage that result is to write this account of my recent adventure inventing and playing the new tuning. I hope you have enjoyed following the journey so far. Would you like to try Fourkey tuning yourself? Then do send an email to your favourite harp maker. They need to know!

Links:

Pat Missin	http://www.patmissin.com
Brendan Power	http://www.brendan-power.com/ (Click on "Diatonic Tunings" in the left hand menu)
Overblow	http://www.overblow.com
Scale & Chord Finder	http://www.overblow.com/?menuid=26 ("Fourkey Diatonic" is at the bottom of the list on right of page)
Mike Will	http://www.angelfire.com/tx/myquill/
Seydel	http://www.seydel1847.de
Hohner 12-hole	http://www.hohner.eu/index.php?405
Adam Gussow	http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDKbqacmPyw

Here is a selection of tunes for the Four Key Tuning: FourkeyTenHole-TabTunes.xls (right-click and "save target as...")

Andy Newton

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