Baby Fat chugger

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!
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IaNerd
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Baby Fat chugger

Post by IaNerd » Sun Feb 02, 2020 3:44 pm

I was comparing my Country-tuned Seydel Big Sixes with my Country-tuned Kongsheng Baby Fats. Both are of high quality and a joy to use.

In particular, I was considering the possibilities afforded by the Kongsheng's additional hole. It occurred to me that it could be used -- in the blow and the draw layers -- to provide dominant 7ths for their respective chords.

A Paddy version of this -- with the 3 blow raised by two semitones to an A -- would make a bend-less G major scale possible. This would change the first segment of the blow layer to an A minor ii chord instead of the C major IV chord.

This is a relatively easy modification for both standard Richter and Country-tuned Baby Fats.

Note that, with accurate draw-bending on holes 2, 3 and 7, a G major scale can be played over the entire length of the harp. Draw-bending on holes 3, 4 and 5 can produce a minor hexatonic blues scale. A mixolydian octave is also possible with draw-bends on hole 3 and 5.

ERRORS: The B5 should be B4. The A6 and Bb6 should be A5 and Bb5, respectively.

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IaNerd
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Re: Baby Fat chugger

Post by IaNerd » Sun Feb 02, 2020 7:12 pm

Compare the tuning above with this: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=616&p=2644&hilit=Baby#p2644

EdvinW
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Re: Baby Fat chugger

Post by EdvinW » Sun Feb 02, 2020 11:24 pm

Interesting. It looks a bit like one of those tunings where people try to go chromatic on a diatonic with bends only, but with many retained chords, and you scrap the Eb which is one of the least useful notes anyway :)

What do you think is a good way of naming tunings like these, which are sort of close to a standard tuning?

I find the one you link in your second post the easiest, and would refer to that as a 0-6 Country harp, or possibly a Country 0-6 harp.

The other one is trickier, as there are more non-standard things going on.

One fairly common (well, as far as anything discussed here is common) idea is to start with a Richter harp, but instead of reversing the breath pattern have it continue as a spiral at the top. Inspired by the way Brendan named one of his tunings the Paddy Solo, the tuning I described could thus be called a Richter Spiral.

Flattening the 7D has also been done, which could be referred to as simply "flat tenth tuning" (as is done by for instance Andrew Zajac on his page with common alternate tunings http://harp.andrewzajac.ca/PopularAlteredTunings )

By this logic I suppose what you have come up with is a six hole flat tenth Country Spiral :)

I'm not at all sure what would be a good order to arrange these epithets, but the more I think about it the more I think we should probably think about these things. A common language for combinations of some of the more common alterations of common tunings would probably help us think about these things.
Edvin Wedin

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IaNerd
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Re: Baby Fat chugger

Post by IaNerd » Mon Feb 03, 2020 3:59 am

Alas, the basic concept of the tuning in the opening post can fit in a Seydel Big Six. We only need to delete hole 1 of the tuning shown above. However, the Kongsheng Baby Fat remains the far less expensive option.

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