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How would you retune an Asia Bend?

Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2017 3:22 pm
by Alan
If you were going to change the tuning of an Asia Bend what would you choose?

I'm not a big fan of the duplicate C in solo tuning and though I rarely play chromatic, the two I have are Diminished tuning and Bebop tuning.

What are the pros and cons of beboping (tune the duplicate C to Bb) an Asia bend?

Re: How would you retune an Asia Bend?

Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2017 10:57 am
by Brendan
I'm glad people are thinking of alt tunings for the AsiaBend. I already have a few myself, including Pentatonic and Arabic. It's not hard to retune, and Bebop would be easy.

When retuning the X-Reeds (blow reeds set with no gap), you need to open the gap (raise the tip of the reed) so they sound, and you can hear them. When they are at the correct pitch, push down in the slot again to remove the gap. I normally make the X-Reeds about 30 cents sharp, to give a nice stable bend on the corresponding draw reed with some head-room below the lowest bent pitch to allow for vibrato etc.

Here is the current tuning, an all-draw variation on Solo. I've used all sharp names for the notes (eg. A# instead of Bb):

Code: Select all

SLIDE OUT	C	E	G	C	C	E	G	C	C	E	G	C
X-Reed  	A#	C#	D#	G#	A#	C#	D#	G#	A#	C#	D#	A#
HOLE    	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
SLIDE IN	D	F	A	B	D	F	A	B	D	F	A	B
X-Reed  	B	D#	F#	G#	B	D#	F#	G#	B	D#	F#	G#
For Bebop, assuming you want adjacent reeds to bend down to the Bebop scale, it would be this:

Code: Select all

SLIDE OUT	C	E	G	A#	C	E	G	A#	C	E	G	A#
X-Reed  	A#	C#	D#	G#	A#	C#	D#	G#	A#	C#	D#	G#
HOLE    	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
SLIDE IN	D	F	A	B	D	F	A	B	D	F	A	B
X-Reed  	B	D#	F#	A	B	D#	F#	A	B	D#	F#	A
For Diminished, I assume you'd want the notes to bend down to chromatic notes in between the main ones, or to the Diminished scale? To be honest, I think a normal half-valved chrom in Diminished would be better for chromatic playing than the AsiaBend, as it gives you all the half-step bends already plus the convenience of blow-draw playing.

The AsiaBend is essentially a modal instrument: setup to be played in a mode and it's related modes. So the present tuning is Ionian mode, but also Dorian, Phrygian, Locrian, Lydian, Aeolian, Mixolydian - depending on where you base your home note. It can be played chromatically via overblows and half-step bending, but those are not the main things it's good at.

Re: How would you retune an Asia Bend?

Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2017 12:48 am
by Alan
I appreciate your response. With regards to bebop, maybe I'm using the wrong term, but I just meant tuning the lower numbered duplicate C to Bb.

Re: How would you retune an Asia Bend?

Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2017 6:01 am
by Brendan
I show it there, except the Bb is called an A#.

Re: How would you retune an Asia Bend?

Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2017 12:22 pm
by Alan
Oh, I see. I completely missed the x-reed part so was really confused by all the # and thought there was some bebop scale I hadn't heard of. :)

Re: How would you retune an Asia Bend?

Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2017 7:25 pm
by Sachlaw
I would like to try bebop.
@brendan. I have never tuned an xreed. Do you have any suggestion for a video resource?
Also, when you say 30 cents sharp, is the asiabend tuned like that normally?

Re: How would you retune an Asia Bend?

Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2017 8:25 am
by Brendan
The x-reeds simply need to be bent out a bit for tuning, so they have a normal gap and sound when blown. When you have them at the pitch you want return them to zero gap.

Only the blow x-reeds should be sharp, the draws tuned as you normally would.

Re: How would you retune an Asia Bend?

Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2017 5:46 pm
by winslowyerxa
I'm very tempted to tune the X-reeds lower to widen the bending range.

One change to solo tuning that I used on some of my chromatics is to change the leftmost double C down to an A. That way I have a blow A and Bb, and I also have an A minor chord as well as a C major chord.

Are there any plans to offer the AsiaBend in keys lower than standard C? (I ask partly because I have a student who's fallen in love with Turkish music, where they write things in standard notation but sounding a perfect fourth below written pitch in addition to using microtonal intervals; an AsiaBend in G might be well suited for this.)

Re: How would you retune an Asia Bend?

Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2017 8:22 am
by Brendan
I've made some myself from standard chroms in A, G and D, but presently no plans to offer the commercial model in other keys. I'd recommend the custom-tuning method at present for your student.

Turkish and other Middle Eastern music sounds great on the AsiaBend. I've been playing along to the great Iranian musician Kayhan Kalhor, trying to capture the intensely emotional flavours he gets on his Kamancheh (spiked fuddle). Will upload a clip when I'm on my laptop later.

Re: How would you retune an Asia Bend?

Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2017 8:41 am
by triona
Brendan wrote:
Fri Apr 21, 2017 8:22 am
... (spiked fuddle) ...
What is this?
Or is it only a typo, that should mean "spiked fiddle"?
And anyway, what would be this then?


dear greetings
triona