Brendan Power & Alternative Harmonicas Forum

Finally it's here! Thanks for your patience, friends Here's the demo video:
https://youtu.be/8kWVD8xmsac

Lucky 13 in Diminished Tuning: Info and Ordering
https://brendan-power.com/lucky13.php#lucky13Dim

Ordered

Thanks Gerhard - hope you like it!

Today I discovered a very good exponent of Diminished Tuning on diatonic: Alfred Hirsch. He has a couple of videos on YouTube, here's one:

TAKE FIVE
https://youtu.be/IAeYandwJqc

I did more searching on Alfred, and found this very interesting and helpful page on the Seydel website:

https://www.seydel1847.de/epages/Seydel ... SubProduct

Alfred uses Phrase Maps to explain some scales, but his are quite quirky! There are various ways to depict them. We've been discussing Phrase Maps in another thread with relation to Diminished diatonics. My preference is for a three line grid with the blow note on the bottom (see attached). Others prefer blow note on top.

Whichever way you do it, Phrase Maps suit Diminished Tuning perfectly, because they can be moved around anywhere on the harp!

Here is Alfred's way to draw Diminished Tuning Phrase Maps (from the link in the previous post). Instead of scale degrees in numbers, he uses note names, and adds hole numbers. He also has the grid in a different order.

These Minor Pentatonic scales are the same as the Blues Pentatonic ones in my earlier post, but you can see how the shapes come out quite differently in Alfred's grid. I'm not so keen on his version, but it's interesting and useful nonetheless:

ALFRED HIRSCH

Edvin Wedin has created a tool that can generate Phrase Maps from code. He prefers a version with blow note on top, but it can be flipped to have blow on bottom (as I prefer) instantly. Nice!

Here are the two versions for Hijaz scale on Diminished:

BLOW NOTE AT BOTTOM BLOW NOTE AT TOP

If you dont want to spend hundreds of dollars to customize a harmonica to overblow/overdraw in the need of playing a chromatic scale, the diminished tuning is the way to go. Dont suits everyone because you need to be a little more conscious in your playing. But if you are used to bending this is a very versatile tuning.

Regarding "phrase map" code (by Edvin) discussed above: Is there a thread or website where we can learn more about this?

IaNerd wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 26, 2020 4:49 pm

Regarding "phrase map" code (by Edvin) discussed above: Is there a thread or website where we can learn more about this?

They are generated from code in a language called TikZ ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TikZ ) which I normally use to make figures for math publications. It is used within another language called LaTeX ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX ), a markup language sort of like HTML but intended for professional looking printed documents instead of websites. Both are free, and LaTeX has long been the de facto standard among academics in several fields including mathematics.

For a first look on LaTeX, I'd recommend https://latexbase.com/d/ced5435f-c0b0-4 ... ac20a59507

PM me if you'd like to discuss it further

Here's a new video of the Lucky 13 in Diminished Tuning, demonstrating chromatic scales, and chromatic runs inside licks:
https://youtu.be/3_4oYUFPtH0

Some of the Phrase Map diagrams from the video are here:
https://www.brendan-power.com/lucky13-diminished.php