Notes from the Workshop
Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2020 5:32 am
After a long hiatus the Rn'D bug has returned, and I've recently been spending time happily tinkering away in my workshop again.
The main idea I'm exploring is how to make a chromatic harmonica with a different air shifting mechanism to the conventional front mouthpiece and slider. For inspiration I'm going back to some ideas from the early days of harmonica development, in the 19th century.
The very first chromatic harmonica had a rear baffle which selected between upper and lower reedplates:
https://www.patmissin.com/patents/DE19221.html
It was later 'reinvented' and released as the Machino Tone Chromatic in the 1950s:
https://chromhistory.wordpress.com/2019 ... chromatic/
I've known of this intriguing chromatic for a long time, but recently got to hear it in action, played by the Japanese ex classical world champion Arinori Inagawa. He bought one on eBay and showed it off in a couple of videos:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_ ... =607508388
https://www.facebook.com/arinori.inagaw ... 873143389/
The main advantages of using some kind of reedplate selector at the rear are that you can use a thin comb (diatonic thickness of about 6mm, without a central divider), lose the mouthpiece, get your mouth closer to the reeds, and possibly avoid valves (the Machino Tone has none). So it's worth going back and testing some of these old designs again, I think.
However, as the old saying goes 'There's no such thing as a free lunch', and they all have drawbacks of their own. It's not necessarily about whether a particular design works to shift your breath between reedplates efficiently or not - though even that can be tough to achieve without air leakage.
Ergonomics could be one problem area: the action required to operate the mechanism is perhaps not as fast or convenient as a sprung slider. Noise might be another; as you can hear on the Machino Tone, it's difficult to make something that hits a surface fast and hard work silently! Complexity, durability and expense could be further factors that mitigate against alternative designs.
Normally there is a very good reason that the status quo is as it is! After trying this, that and the next thing, in the end I might be forced to follow the historical pattern and settle with the conventional front slide design.
But it's fun trying to go back to the future and update ideas from the 19th century. If I make significant progress I'll let you know.
The main idea I'm exploring is how to make a chromatic harmonica with a different air shifting mechanism to the conventional front mouthpiece and slider. For inspiration I'm going back to some ideas from the early days of harmonica development, in the 19th century.
The very first chromatic harmonica had a rear baffle which selected between upper and lower reedplates:
https://www.patmissin.com/patents/DE19221.html
It was later 'reinvented' and released as the Machino Tone Chromatic in the 1950s:
https://chromhistory.wordpress.com/2019 ... chromatic/
I've known of this intriguing chromatic for a long time, but recently got to hear it in action, played by the Japanese ex classical world champion Arinori Inagawa. He bought one on eBay and showed it off in a couple of videos:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_ ... =607508388
https://www.facebook.com/arinori.inagaw ... 873143389/
The main advantages of using some kind of reedplate selector at the rear are that you can use a thin comb (diatonic thickness of about 6mm, without a central divider), lose the mouthpiece, get your mouth closer to the reeds, and possibly avoid valves (the Machino Tone has none). So it's worth going back and testing some of these old designs again, I think.
However, as the old saying goes 'There's no such thing as a free lunch', and they all have drawbacks of their own. It's not necessarily about whether a particular design works to shift your breath between reedplates efficiently or not - though even that can be tough to achieve without air leakage.
Ergonomics could be one problem area: the action required to operate the mechanism is perhaps not as fast or convenient as a sprung slider. Noise might be another; as you can hear on the Machino Tone, it's difficult to make something that hits a surface fast and hard work silently! Complexity, durability and expense could be further factors that mitigate against alternative designs.
Normally there is a very good reason that the status quo is as it is! After trying this, that and the next thing, in the end I might be forced to follow the historical pattern and settle with the conventional front slide design.
But it's fun trying to go back to the future and update ideas from the 19th century. If I make significant progress I'll let you know.