"Harmonica levers" - harmonica idea for irish trad players
Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2023 8:21 am
Hi,
I had the idea for a while (probably around 10 years already) and even tried to develop it myself but i have to admit i’m not going to have enough time to finalize so i thought i’d share it here and see if somebody else (maybe even Brendan himself) could help it to see the light.
Aside other instruments, I use harmonicas mostly for irish trad music, paddy richter diatonics or paddy richter reversed slider chromatics. My go to harmonica for irish is G, i’m not a big fan of using D cause i find high D too high and low D too low. I have to use them of course for some tunes, i just like the range of G better for irish. That's said, I only occasionaly play tunes on harmonica, mostly I play other instruments.
Anyway, as i said, i usually play Paddy richter harps, but sometimes i like to have this low D on the blow (instead 3rd blow hole raised D -> E), so i have normal richter G with me as well. And some D tunes work nicely on G country harmonica, with hole 5 draw, C raised to C#.
Hopefully now you see where i’m going. Ideally i’d like to have all these possibilities with me, but that requires carrying 4 harmonicas only for G: Richter, Paddy Richter (3rd hole blow raised a tone), Country (5th hole draw raised a semitone), Melody Maker (3rd hole blow raised a tone, 5th hole draw raised a semitone). The idea is to have one harmonica with “adjustable” selected reeds.
Now, my thought train brought me at some point to similarities between harmonica and irish harp. And, actually, harp players do use levers to get very similar effect - mainly switch couple of notes to get from “G mode” to “D mode” etc.
I’ve tried to think how one could achieve similar effect on harmonica, and one of my ideas actually worked in prototype. Essentially it is possible to raise the tone of the reed by “shortening” the vibrating surface. Very simple test i’ve made is just pressing a piece of felt to the root of the reed. I made a few attempts to make an actual lever which would work like that but it’ on a very early stage still. Also, pressing something on the draw read seems to be much easier compared to pressing something on the blow reed which resides on the inner side of the reedplate.
Nowadays, there's a similar idea developed by Seydel - https://www.seydel1847.de/SEYDEL-INNOVA ... INNOVATION. The difference is that it uses magnets so only works on steel reeds, and you need to tune the note every time. My idea was to ideally create some kind of “fixed positions” lever so you can tune the positions once and then switch between them freely. Something similar to https://www.beaconbanjo.com/product-cat ... jo-tuners/ for banjo, for example.
So, what do you think about the idea?
I had the idea for a while (probably around 10 years already) and even tried to develop it myself but i have to admit i’m not going to have enough time to finalize so i thought i’d share it here and see if somebody else (maybe even Brendan himself) could help it to see the light.
Aside other instruments, I use harmonicas mostly for irish trad music, paddy richter diatonics or paddy richter reversed slider chromatics. My go to harmonica for irish is G, i’m not a big fan of using D cause i find high D too high and low D too low. I have to use them of course for some tunes, i just like the range of G better for irish. That's said, I only occasionaly play tunes on harmonica, mostly I play other instruments.
Anyway, as i said, i usually play Paddy richter harps, but sometimes i like to have this low D on the blow (instead 3rd blow hole raised D -> E), so i have normal richter G with me as well. And some D tunes work nicely on G country harmonica, with hole 5 draw, C raised to C#.
Hopefully now you see where i’m going. Ideally i’d like to have all these possibilities with me, but that requires carrying 4 harmonicas only for G: Richter, Paddy Richter (3rd hole blow raised a tone), Country (5th hole draw raised a semitone), Melody Maker (3rd hole blow raised a tone, 5th hole draw raised a semitone). The idea is to have one harmonica with “adjustable” selected reeds.
Now, my thought train brought me at some point to similarities between harmonica and irish harp. And, actually, harp players do use levers to get very similar effect - mainly switch couple of notes to get from “G mode” to “D mode” etc.
I’ve tried to think how one could achieve similar effect on harmonica, and one of my ideas actually worked in prototype. Essentially it is possible to raise the tone of the reed by “shortening” the vibrating surface. Very simple test i’ve made is just pressing a piece of felt to the root of the reed. I made a few attempts to make an actual lever which would work like that but it’ on a very early stage still. Also, pressing something on the draw read seems to be much easier compared to pressing something on the blow reed which resides on the inner side of the reedplate.
Nowadays, there's a similar idea developed by Seydel - https://www.seydel1847.de/SEYDEL-INNOVA ... INNOVATION. The difference is that it uses magnets so only works on steel reeds, and you need to tune the note every time. My idea was to ideally create some kind of “fixed positions” lever so you can tune the positions once and then switch between them freely. Something similar to https://www.beaconbanjo.com/product-cat ... jo-tuners/ for banjo, for example.
So, what do you think about the idea?