Pentatonic Harmonica

Anything apart from the two mainstream default harmonicas (Solo-tuned fully-valved chromatic, and un-valved Richter 10-hole diatonic). Alternate tunings, different construction, new functionality, interesting old designs, wishful-thinking... whatever!
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ShamMcCoy
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Joined: Sun Mar 26, 2017 4:42 am

Pentatonic Harmonica

Post by ShamMcCoy » Mon May 01, 2017 11:57 pm

I read or heard somewhere that nothing sounds bad in a pentatonic scale? How true is this?

And if this is true can one have a diatonic set up with a pentatonic scale in first position? And would it still sound bluesy?

Or am I getting the pentatonic scale mix up with the blues scale?

CrawfordEs
Posts: 100
Joined: Mon Apr 03, 2017 11:06 pm

Re: Pentatonic Harmonica

Post by CrawfordEs » Tue May 02, 2017 12:17 am

Google pentabender and Fourkey.
Pentabender uses 5 holes per octave.
The blow holes make one pentatonic scale.
The draw holes another.
And the 5 draw bends another. With those bends all 12 notes are available.
I just got a Lucky Thirteen, and am thinking of retuning it to pentabender.
Fourkey is similar, but there are only 2 bends needed for fully chromatic play.
Gnarley may chip in, he is excellent with these.
Pentabender:
Notes between slashes share a hole, capital letters are blow notes, small are draw.
/Cd/De/Fg/Ga/Ab/Cd/....

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Brendan
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Re: Pentatonic Harmonica

Post by Brendan » Thu May 04, 2017 5:43 am

The Pentatonic scale is a lot of fun. The minor pentatonic uses the same notes as the major but starts on the sixth note of the scale. In 1st position it could look like this::

CD. EG. AB. CD. EG. AB. Repeat up the harp

Essentially my Paddy Richter bottom end repeated in all octaves. It's not strictly pentatonic because it has the Maj 7th (B) but it makes it good for 1st and 2nd position pentatonic playing. I like this tuning and have used it on X-Reed harps.

Strict 1st Position Pentatonic would be:

CD. EG. AC. CD. EG. AC. etc

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