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"MAGIC HARPS" Specific Layouts?

Posted: Wed Mar 27, 2019 5:58 pm
by ROBERT TEMPLE
I am trying to find the specific layouts and resulting chords within the various known "Magic" harps. I believe I have found one of maybe five known layouts for said harps, it being BLOW = EADGCEADGC ... DRAW = GCEADGCEAD. I found Winslow's beautiful "Soulagement" using said tuning in a recent post. I am hoping that the other three or four known layouts may be found here as well, somewhere. I am very interested in the many "colors" available within the various alt-tunings I have been exploring this year, the "Magic" ones are a welcome addition to my ears.

Thanks to any who may reply. Cheers !!!

Re: "MAGIC HARPS" Specific Layouts?

Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 2:17 pm
by IaNerd
Pat Missin has made it his personal mission (no pun intended) to develop and maintain a catalog of known harmonica tunings. You can download these as a compressed folder of documents here: http://www.patmissin.com/as23.zip

The tunings of Richard "Magic Dick" Salwitz appear in text documents #8 and #11 in these files.

Re: "MAGIC HARPS" Specific Layouts?

Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 7:42 pm
by ROBERT TEMPLE
Thank you, IaNerd.

Do you have any experience playing any of the "Magic" harps' tunings? I saw Winslow's rambling descriptions of the ones he auctioned off. I had a real hard time following him and could only get one of the tunings written down. It would be nice to have the layouts of each of his four or five harps that he demonstrated alongside of the harp[s] being played.

I am glad, though, that Winslow made the effort to play and explain them as well as he did. I heard a lot of exciting potential in those tunings.

Re: "MAGIC HARPS" Specific Layouts?

Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 7:51 pm
by IaNerd
I have not played any of Magic's tunings.

If you examine how I diagram tunings, and then apply some method like that to Magic's tunings, it may help you to see some of the underlying logic. All you need is graph paper and some colored pencils.

Have fun.

Re: "MAGIC HARPS" Specific Layouts?

Posted: Wed Jul 24, 2019 2:51 am
by winslowyerxa
The Magic Harp patent details about 20 different Magic Harp tunings, but you have to learn how to read Dick and Pierre's diagrams (Richard Salwitz and Pierre Beauregard, the two inventors). Dates from about 1993 and can be found with a little digging on the USPTO website.

Sorry if you found my descriptions rambling.