Bending very far, and quarter notes
Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2019 2:36 pm
Some musical traditions use quarter notes that fall between the steps of the western chromatic scale. One way to handle this would be to use something like Brendan's QuarterTone, but a more accessible way is to simply use bends.
On most of my harmonicas most of the holes with a half step between blow and draw allow me to bend to the quarter note in between. This is somewhat unpredictable though, and the precise distance between the blow note and the lowest draw bend seems to vary between holes. (the same for blow bends)
The general rule seems to be that, for holes with a half note difference, in the high register I can get almost all the way down to the other note, while this is somewhat harder in the low register. For holes with more space I don't feel I get as close, but I'm not at all sure this is objectively true.
Since most of us only use chromatic notes, the precise limits of the bending range does not play a large is not that important. It might matter for microtonal music though, and
Do you know if there is any truth behind my suspicions, or if there is some other principle that governs how far a two-reed-per-chamber harmonica can be bent?
Do you know of any tunings that are known to accommodate usable quarter notes?
I'm aware of Brendan's QuarterTone, and also about the microtones he uses with the AsiaBend. Are there any players known to regularly play with quarter notes, and in that case, what kind of harmonica do they use? Or are Brendan's inventions the closest thing to "conventional" microtonality there is? I think I've heard Swedish player Erland Westerström use quarter tones playing fairly normal harps, but it I can't find any in his youtube channel.
On most of my harmonicas most of the holes with a half step between blow and draw allow me to bend to the quarter note in between. This is somewhat unpredictable though, and the precise distance between the blow note and the lowest draw bend seems to vary between holes. (the same for blow bends)
The general rule seems to be that, for holes with a half note difference, in the high register I can get almost all the way down to the other note, while this is somewhat harder in the low register. For holes with more space I don't feel I get as close, but I'm not at all sure this is objectively true.
Since most of us only use chromatic notes, the precise limits of the bending range does not play a large is not that important. It might matter for microtonal music though, and
Do you know if there is any truth behind my suspicions, or if there is some other principle that governs how far a two-reed-per-chamber harmonica can be bent?
Do you know of any tunings that are known to accommodate usable quarter notes?
I'm aware of Brendan's QuarterTone, and also about the microtones he uses with the AsiaBend. Are there any players known to regularly play with quarter notes, and in that case, what kind of harmonica do they use? Or are Brendan's inventions the closest thing to "conventional" microtonality there is? I think I've heard Swedish player Erland Westerström use quarter tones playing fairly normal harps, but it I can't find any in his youtube channel.