Idea for slideless chromatic harp
Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2019 6:42 pm
I’ve been pondering how to make a harp which is:
1. primarily Ionian (including all the naturals, and only the naturals, in the blow and draw layers), and
2. fully chromatic (just in case any accidentals are needed), and
3. slideless (to keep costs low and reliability high).
So far, I think we’re describing Pentabender. But what if I add a fourth criterion …
4. Accessing the accidentals involves something easier than draw-bending.
Where would those five “black notes” come from--if not from draw-bending? Well, perhaps from Brendan Power’s Overblow Booster.
At this time, Brendan makes OBs suited for harps with the breath pattern of standard Richter tuning. For my idea to work, he would need to make an OB suited for tunings that have a “regular” breath pattern (i.e. each blow reed pitched lower than its corresponding draw reed) across all ten holes.
The layouts below show “Regular” Pentabender, which creates the accidentals by draw-bending, and “PentaOverBlower”, which would create the accidentals using a full-length “regular-breath” version of Brendan's Overblow Booster.
Would this system play well? Would it sound good? Until there is a prototype in the hands of a capable player, we cannot know. I asked Brendan about this concept, and he said that it is "mechanically viable".
download/file.php?mode=view&id=492
1. primarily Ionian (including all the naturals, and only the naturals, in the blow and draw layers), and
2. fully chromatic (just in case any accidentals are needed), and
3. slideless (to keep costs low and reliability high).
So far, I think we’re describing Pentabender. But what if I add a fourth criterion …
4. Accessing the accidentals involves something easier than draw-bending.
Where would those five “black notes” come from--if not from draw-bending? Well, perhaps from Brendan Power’s Overblow Booster.
At this time, Brendan makes OBs suited for harps with the breath pattern of standard Richter tuning. For my idea to work, he would need to make an OB suited for tunings that have a “regular” breath pattern (i.e. each blow reed pitched lower than its corresponding draw reed) across all ten holes.
The layouts below show “Regular” Pentabender, which creates the accidentals by draw-bending, and “PentaOverBlower”, which would create the accidentals using a full-length “regular-breath” version of Brendan's Overblow Booster.
Would this system play well? Would it sound good? Until there is a prototype in the hands of a capable player, we cannot know. I asked Brendan about this concept, and he said that it is "mechanically viable".
download/file.php?mode=view&id=492