TECH TUESDAYS - Sharing Harmonica Inventions

A space for players interested in my specialist harmonicas, alternate tunings, instructional material, recordings etc to ask questions and share information, experiences, videos etc.
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Brendan
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Re: TECH TUESDAYS - Sharing Harmonica Inventions

Post by Brendan » Wed Jan 25, 2023 11:06 pm

Yes, I think we've reached the same point: it's one or the other.

Unless some blinding insight enabling both the C and B to bend appears, it seems this is the limit of the Staggered Reedplate design for Richter Tuning. But that's not a bad limit: 6 new bends, to give 14 total. If you use Paddy-Richter it's 15 bends. Compared to 8 on a standard Richter harp, that's pretty good!

I guess the next step is to make both versions of this 21 reed harp and see what feels the best. I'll tweak the parts, make a couple of prototypes over the next few days, and report back.

WHOLETONE TUNING
So far we've been focussed on Richter Tuning, but if you look for the most suitable scale for the Staggered Reedplate concept, I think it has to be WholeTone tuning:

Code: Select all

BLOW	C	E	G#	C	E	G#	C   	E   	G#   	C
HOLE   	1   	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
DRAW	D	F#	A#	D	F#	A#	D	F#	A#	D
A semitone draw bend on every hole with slide out, and a semitone blow bend on every hole with slide in: 19 bends altogether. Fully chromatic with easy, stable draw and blow bends, with over three octave range in 10 holes. Plus only 4 patterns to learn to play in all 12 keys. A pretty nice choice for playing jazz on the diatonic, I'd say!

EdvinW
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Re: TECH TUESDAYS - Sharing Harmonica Inventions

Post by EdvinW » Sat Jan 28, 2023 10:13 pm

I just realised I was wrong in my first post!

My understanding at the time was that, at least for the simpler setups we've discussed, the abilities of the staggered reedplate harps was basically a subset of the abilities of a SlipSlider: you get to bend most of the normally unbendable notes but you don't get the "wrong direction" extra large bends.

What I didn't realize is that these harps have a potentially significant advantage: You can push the slide while playing a draw note, even while bending! If you move the draw plate of a SlipSlider while drawing bending or overblowing you risk the reed hitting the comb, in the worst case damaging the reed. That aspect of playing the SlipSlider takes some getting used to, and even though it brings very nice new capabilities this limits the extra usefulness a tiny bit.

Do you have any comments on this aspect of the system, Brendan?

The wholetone tuning is very interesting, and it would make sense for this system. I think we discussed it in one of the threads about the SlipSlider long ago. I've actually experimented with the tuning a bit in a regular blues harp, and it's surprisingly workable with bends and overblows. If your staggered wholetone harp would retain that functionality while offering additional blow bends, that DOES sound pretty cool!

I've worked a bit more on the problem of getting all the notes of a Richter harp to bend using staggered reedplates. Not only is it a difficult problem, but there turns out you can, in fact, argue why it can't be solved without either adding more reeds or otherwise drastically change the setup. The tracks I pursue now are getting pretty complex, to the point they might be impractical to realise. I'm not that optimistic at this point, but I'll get back to you about it if I do make any progress!
Edvin Wedin

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Brendan
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Re: TECH TUESDAYS - Sharing Harmonica Inventions

Post by Brendan » Sun Jan 29, 2023 5:05 pm

Thanks for your comments, Edvin.

Regarding the advantage you described, of being able to shift the Staggered Reedplate slider whilst playing: it's true when compared to the SlipSlider Mk2 (Special 20 version), but in the MK1 and Mk3 SlipSliders I added Teflon spacer plates, which allow the lower drawplate to shift whilst playing without reeds clashing against the comb.

In terms of useful extra bends the SlipSlider Mk3 is still superior, because it gives you both the hole 7 blow and draw bends. However you need to use two opposite movements: left and right shift. One nice thing about the Staggered Reedplate concept is that just one push of the slider gives ALL the new bends. Add that to the fact nothing moves in your left hand or inside the harp (which seems to disconcert a lot of players), I think it will be quite a bit easier to adapt to.

I've made several new Staggered Reedplate prototypes over the past few days, and improved them significantly in looks and sound. I'm leaning towards the 7 blow bend version as preferable to the 7 draw bend; it seems more intuitive to play.

One downside of this design is that the narrow separate reed chambers inhibit overbends. You don't need them really, as all chromatic notes can be got as bends, but it would be nice to have both. I'm experimenting with different comb designs to try and achieve that, but am not sure if it will be possible. However, adding an Overblow-Booster will solve the problem. It could end up as a two-button harp!

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Brendan
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Re: TECH TUESDAYS - Sharing Harmonica Inventions

Post by Brendan » Tue Jan 31, 2023 6:35 pm

TECH TUESDAY #2: Rocker Arm Reed Mute

With harmonicas, the Devil is in the Detail - small things matter a lot! This is a prime example: a quirky little gizmo I invented to do a critical reed-muting job on my SlipSlider Mk1 harmonica.

https://youtu.be/ojRZ6oXrCF4

EdvinW
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Re: TECH TUESDAYS - Sharing Harmonica Inventions

Post by EdvinW » Tue Jan 31, 2023 10:19 pm

Thanks again for sharing!

Have you used the mute in any other harps but the SlipSliders? Mounting some kind of slide with bumps on it on the back, couldn't you add it to a normal harp? One could imagine building tunings especially taking advantage of one (or several!) mutes, and I might some day soon, but I need to be off to bed soon.

The thing that immediately springs to mind is to put one on 5 draw in a PowerBender. Most of the draw notes are a fat major chord, but that note always stands out if you're not careful. Especially, when playing the second position tonic chord in the second octave, you can't extend it downwards as you can in the first octave. If you could mute 5 draw, you could!

Does it work for blow reeds? Muting 5 blow in a PowerBender could be useful as well. Assuming a C harp, holes 4, 6 and 7 (and 3 in a Paddy PowerBender!) would extend the F major chord, useful as the subdominant in first position. Alternatively, and probably more interesting for you, you could mute 6 blow instead. That would remove the third from the Dm chord, and let you use that to substitute a D major which would be useful in second position.

If you have several mutable notes you could operate them with the same sliding bar, or individually by some other mechanism.

Thanks again for the inspiration! These things are really fun to think about! :D
Edvin Wedin

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Brendan
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Re: TECH TUESDAYS - Sharing Harmonica Inventions

Post by Brendan » Wed Feb 01, 2023 8:47 am

As often Edvin, you take a single idea and run with it, extrapolating to new applications I hadn't considered. Always surprising and interesting 👍

The rocker arm design shown in my video relies on gravity to hang out of the way in the neutral position. So on conventional diatonic harmonicas it will only work on the draw reedplate, which is always on the bottom of the harmonica.

However with a Modular-Reed harp, blow reedplates can be set on the underside of the comb - so it could work for them.

However there are other reed-muting devices available that would probably be easier to apply for the types of multi-reed uses you suggest. A front slider in conjunction with a specially designed comb and mouthpiece would do it. You could also have sliders on top of the reedplates - as with my new Overblow-Booster design.

These would probably be simpler to make than the rocker arm type of reed mute. The main reason I chose it for the SlipSlider Mk1 was to make use of the fact that the lower reedplate was moving left and right anyway.

A good example of a harmonica that used front sliders to selectively mute notes for chords was Chamb-ber Huang's Chordomonica II. He came up with many interesting harmonica designs!

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