Yet another Harmonica Thread

Squeezebox & Harmonica
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Well, it’s finally happened. Slowly, I’m starting to feel a bit of arthritis in my hands. Not enough to effect my typing considerably (which is great, considering I’m a software engineer), but enough to really put a damper on my flute/whistle playing (and the complete kibosh on the concertina).

So…I picked up my Harmonica’s again. I gave it a whirl last year, but got distracted by a shiny new flute. After a week or so with annoying my wife with a Paddy Richter tuned G LO (rather than retune, I got a reed plate from a G Richter and one from a Melody Maker (D) to accomplish this) and a Low D, I’m getting to the point where I can manage simple polkas at near speed and jigs at around half speed. Of course, this is without any real ornamentation aside from the occasional fast chording with the tounge (I tongue block) so it’s not vamping, but more like I’d accent a note with a chord on the tina. Managing a cut is just painful still as it’s not near clean enough…though I’m sure that will improve over time.

So, that said, I’ve been looking at a few new shiny toys. One is the Seydel Paddy tuned harps. I like Seydel (I love my Delta Frost), so I think this may be a decent way for me to not have to worry as much about tuning (when I finally take the plunge, I’ll be using Delta Frosts…to each his own I guess).

That makes me all fine and good with the Diatonics (I need to get an A sometime, but I have a great C Delta Frost) for now, and I don’t really play that hard, so the reeds are holding out fine (I heard that when practicing, one should assume that a baby is sleeping in the next room..in my case, she IS sleeping and if I wake her, my wife will castrate me). However, I picked up one new toy…

Seydel is doing Irish Tuned Chromatics. I got one in G/F# with the slide reversed (so it’s in G with the slide out). It’s an incredible harp and really I can manage to pull off a cut or a roll on it from the start nearly perfectly (that said, the real lesson will be to NOT do so). My question here is, does anybody have any experience with this tuning? With the particular brand/model? What should I be looking out for?

Heck, I’m more comfortable on the Diatonic, and Steve has surely proven to me that it’s plenty for nearly all your needs. But that said, I see this Chromatic coming in handy too.

Well, I thought we needed a bit more discussion in this room, so feel free to pass along any/all advice, tips, and whatever.

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Well, at least you’d be OK with those high blow notes… :smiley:

I just have a D chromatic and a G chromatic that I use very occasionally for the odd tune that has an accidental that I can’t get on a diatonic harp. Ashokan Farewell has a C nat as well as C sharps for example, as does Jenny’s Wedding. I need my G chrom for Carolan’s Draught. I use the chroms in just the same way as I would use a diatonic, i.e. playing a lot in first position or related modes. But there is a very honourable place in ITM for chroms. If the slide is flipped over you can play ornaments better than if you leave the harp in its natural state. So to play in the “right” keys you need an F# chrom with its slide reversed so that you’re playing in G with the slide out, and you may need a C# chrom with the slide flipped so that you’re playing in D with the slide out. Of course, you may be one of those rare geniuses who can play in any key with a C/C# harp. Good luck to ye! Eminent ITM harmonica players who use, or used, the flipped slide technique are Eddie Clarke, Mick Kinsella, Don Wessels, Joel Bernstein and Mark Graham. Oddly, the latter two both hail from Seattle! Eddie Clarke is credited with pioneering the style, though apparently he just held the slide in with his thumb most of the time and released it for the ornamentation. Brendan Power, who not only plays harps but also offers a customising service, will make you a chrom in any tuning you like. He has developed a “chrom” which has whole-tone intervals instead of half-tones when the slide is pushed in. This permits even more “authentic” ornamentation. I’m just telling you all this, though I’ve never bothered with chroms that are supposed to fit ITM so well. I’ve heard so much overdone effort at ornamentation on harmonica in ITM, and I’ve come to the view that, for me anyway, aspiring to good tone and a solid sense of rhythm-with-springiness are much more important in the first place to get right than the ornamentation, which can and should come later and which should be used, not necessarily sparingly, but at least with a light touch.

It’s good to see Seydel responding to the need for more adventurous tunings. I wish Hohner would proceed on the same lines too. There was a sympathetic bloke working there 'til recently but he seems to have disappeared. Of course, that nice Mr Epping is a Hohner luminary… :smiley: