Brendan Power & Alternative Harmonicas Forum

Holes 4-8 of PowerBender repeated is PowerChromatic Tuning. The easiest Trochilus to retune to that scale is their Solo tuned model: not too much alteration required.

The 'Freebird' Trochilus does have a slide, but with a thumb button attached to it so I can maintain cupping.

Just saw this post - sorry for the delay in replying. It's an interesting point. Something I've done for many years on my CX12 chromatics is add what I call a 'Slide Hook'. It's a long 2.5mm bolt screwed into the base of the plastic button, then bent forward with the end flattened into a comfortable...

It's interesting stuff, alright 🙂 On the Irish Slide-Diatonic tuning in fifths, I'm not going for bluesy bending but more trying to make the traditional fiddle tunes easier to play. There are several advantages: 1. Wide fast intervals jumping up a fifth or more and back to the pedal note can be play...

Sorry, not the Trochilus: it's a 10-hole diatonic

I'm glad you're enjoying exploring PowerBender tuning! As far as raising the 3 blow goes: others have tried it, and I have a couple of harps with that mod. You can say absolutely whether it's better or worse than standard PowerBender, it depends on personal preference. As with any tuning change, you...

As far as the area you polish at the end of the reed: it's not important to be super precise. I'd the reed end thins down a bit, it's no problem.

Don't overthink it. Just practice on some old reedplates and you'll soon get the knack.

Just the A & B areas

I'm a bit confused about your opening sentence. The standard Richter Lucky 13 (as well as several other tunings) does come in A. But AFAIK you're talking about Diminished Tuning here? In that case you will need to do a retune. I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill on this issue. If you ...

It was a conscious and logical decision to half-valve the Diminished Lucky 13. As Jason Rogers said, the valves do give you isolated-reed bends on the blow notes if you want them. However my main reason was that half-valving balances up the expression and volume on draw and blow reeds. With them in ...

Many Irish & American fiddle tunes incorporate rapid repeating wide intervals into their melodies. These "fast jumps" are virtually impossible on regular harmonicas, but this clip of the popular session tune 'Drowsy Maggie' shows how they CAN be played on alternate types. The tune is i...