Pentatonic tunings

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!
ivyguitar
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Oct 05, 2022 3:30 pm

Re: Pentatonic tunings

Post by ivyguitar » Thu Oct 06, 2022 5:22 pm

what about Flat Slide?
I'm playing through a gypsy jazz fakebook so the vast majority are in guitar keys G C D F etc.
Only been at this one year and I'm strongly considering switching to fourkey (and legato) based on the logic of pentatonic tunings.

Chromatic approach notes are one of the hallmarks of this style. Would anyone want to suggest a flat slide layout? Also could the same concept be applied to a 10 hole turbo slide setup so that the two necessary draw bends became blow turboslides?

Thank you for this informative ongoing discussion.

ivyguitar
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Oct 05, 2022 3:30 pm

Re: Pentatonic tunings

Post by ivyguitar » Mon Feb 27, 2023 6:11 pm

Fourkey/Legato comments: Visual correspondence with the piano keyboard

OK since my first post above I connected with the inimitable Gary Lehman. Gary generously shared a lot of time, enthusiasm, and encouragement with me on switching to LeGato. I'm not even a good player, I didn't deserve all the help- thanks Gary. It's been great.

With Gary's help we settled on...
LeGato (Button Chromatic) Fourkey starting on C major Pentatonic. (B major pentatonic on the draw)
This is a pretty vanilla Fourkey layout, I've had an unexpected benefit from the special visual correspondence to the piano keyboard.

(Here's the layout)
CC#.Dd#.EF#.GG#.AB


(Here is a representation of the piano keyboard. where ` is a black key) C`D`EF`G`A`BC

On the piano keyboard, there are only 2 white keys that touch not separated by a black key. Namely, EF and BC have no black key in between.
This corresponds to holes 3 and 5. These are the "busy" holes. You must draw to get F# on the 3rd hole and must draw to get B on the 5th hole. The other 10 chromatic tones are available as blow or blow-button. ( I know you guy's are all well aware of this fact by now)

What makes this layout nifty is his how the ear player or sight reader need to just visualize the piano keyboard. Only 2 notes on the keyboard are mandatory draw, and those particular notes are the ones where a pair of white keys happen to touch with no black key in between. This has made it simple to memorize the layout and to anticipate/visualize patterns.

So this layout "looks" a lot like a piano keyboard. An added bonus, is that is also "looks" somewhat like a regular C chromatic harp: with blow C as the root note and a draw B as the leading tone.

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