"Harmonica levers" - harmonica idea for irish trad players

[FingerSinger]

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?

[Brendan]

Thanks for your message Roman.

There is a historical free reed instrument that uses this principle of shortening the reed to get higher notes: the single-reed pitch pipe. John Cook did an excellent video on it, and actually made one from scratch:

https://youtu.be/V_sPcJkstSo

From time to time people have proposed it in harmonicas, but I don't know of any actually made or in use. I think it would be very difficult to control given the short length and fragility of harmonica reeds.

Here's an easier way to get that optional D blow note on your G Paddy-Richter. You say you play reversed slide Paddy-Richter harps? In that case, tune the slider note in the hole 3 down to D. That way you have the E with slide out and the D with slide in.

Would that solve your problem?

You can apply the same principle elsewhere: selectively tune slider notes to get desirable missing ones.

[FingerSinger]

Thanks for your reply Brendan

Yeah, I was thinking about using slider for that. It's not ideal though cause sometimes I want to play harmonica in a holder with my concertina.
Maybe using magnets is the way to go actually, I need to check with Seydel if they can make these magnets in different places

[triona]

Unfortunately Seydel has discontinued this model. And I do not know whether they have some of the parts over. I missed it too when it had been for sale some years ago.


dear greetings
triona

[FingerSinger]

Just to continue on this topic - here’s one idea which can actually work

https://www.facebook.com/share/kBMTauNJ ... tid=WC7FNe

but i need some reliable mechanism to put the shim under the reed and back. Need to experiment on that.

[Brendan]

I still think a customised chromatic harmonica is the best solution, and available right now. However, you said:

Yeah, I was thinking about using slider for that. It's not ideal though cause sometimes I want to play harmonica in a holder with my concertina.

There's a solution for that: Vern Smith's Hands Free Chromatic. Instead of a slider, the mouthpiece itself moves vertically with mouth pressure on the comb front, selecting between upper and lower reedplates. Effective and, because it eliminates the slider, airtight too! It works great in a rack (the reason Vern invented it), as you can see from this clip:

https://youtu.be/kXMHVjG8FgI?si=83H3ByQHwdWqsWn6

[triona]

And some prefer to use the Seydel Nonslider as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NODxyDbg5ZQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEvQN94VJ1c

Btw: He is using the Seydel Gecko / Farmer holder in these videos.

And here is a more sophisticated tune played on a Nonslider solo without holder:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahL4QRdW0aU&t=3s

Kamyar Bayat and Hein Zegers are showing here the two different approaches to play the Nonslider: Kaymar is tilting the whole harmonica to change between the top and the bottom row of holes (C - C#) in the mouthpiece - as it is adviced by Seydel originally. Hein is tilting his mouth i.e. he is varying his embouchure to adapt the mouth to the fixed harmonica to change between top ans bottom row - due to his playing the harmonica in the holder.

I have tried out both of these approaches. Both of them are working well. And it is possible to play the Nonslider tongueblocking and to play chords as well. With a little bit of training it is even possible to play chords with a crossover embouchure using notes of the top and bottom row at the same time. The latter is working better when playing without holder. Then the harmonica can be tilted around the left-right-axle as well.


dear greetings
triona

[dominico]

I still think a customised chromatic harmonica is the best solution, and available right now. However, you said:

Yeah, I was thinking about using slider for that. It's not ideal though cause sometimes I want to play harmonica in a holder with my concertina.

There's a solution for that: Vern Smith's Hands Free Chromatic. Instead of a slider, the mouthpiece itself moves vertically with mouth pressure on the comb front, selecting between upper and lower reedplates. Effective and, because it eliminates the slider, airtight too! It works great in a rack (the reason Vern invented it), as you can see from this clip:

https://youtu.be/kXMHVjG8FgI?si=83H3ByQHwdWqsWn6

Aaah!! I think this is the answer that's been evading me! I was trying to eliminate the slider by having the mouthpiece itself slide left and right, but this was causing me issues, it was hard to to control to begin with and when my mouth would get a bit dry it would slide on me when I didn't want it to.

Up and down, duh. The answer is staring me in the face, as Triona pointed out the non slider is an up and down movement as well; although I have troubles playing in the "down" position; having the holes at the top of my lips rather than the bottom is very hard to get used to.

But an up down moving mouthpiece "sounds" like it would be very intuitive, and it would elminate virturally all the problems I have with the traditional slider.

As an aside, I find the traditional chromatic sliders require a surprisingly large degree of movement, over 5mm of displacement in order to change notes. Maybe it doesn't seem like much but I found it frustratingly difficult to play as fast as I thought I should be able to. You can only traverse that 5mm quick enough up to a point. It all boils down to economy of motion.
On my universal turboslide the slider movement is only 3mm, and while I know the pitch changing mechanism is different, that 2mm less range of motion allows me to switch notes much faster.
I imagine a vertically shifting mouthpiece would also allow for an improved economy of motion over a traditional slider as well.

[Brendan]

"I imagine a vertically shifting mouthpiece would also allow for an improved economy of motion over a traditional slider as well."

I'm not so sure, Dom. I've tried all three types of hole shifting discussed above, and always returned to the slider.

The non-slider concept is good in the sense that it has no intermediate mating surfaces between your lips and the comb/reedplate unit, so is intrinsically most airtight. The idea has been around for a long time: Hohner made a prototype in the 1920s, and I made a homemade version to try out myself in the 1990s. The new Seydel NonSlider is certainly a nicely made iteration of this idea. I haven't tried it specifically (just my homemade one) but, as you said, I also found the twin-row of mouthholes a bit awkward to play in practice.

Not long after Vern Smith brought out his Hands Free Chromatic mouthpiece for rack playing, I asked him if I could try it out for my half-valved chromatics. Because it has only one mating surface that's pressed together with mouth pressure, it's also very airtight. It works well and Enrico Granafei has proved it can be played very fluently.

However, having used slide chromatics for a lot of years, I missed the speed and convenience of the slide button. Although in theory it might have a longer travel, in practice I find it very fast. You can do all sorts of decorations very easily with a flick of your finger, that require up/down head movement with the other methods. The finger is faster than the head, in my experience!

And in terms of airtightness and response, as long as the slider has really close tolerances, there's no big difference I think.

But that's just my subjective take on all this. It will be interesting to hear what you think after trying Vern's invention of the vertically moving mouthpiece in practice. I hope it works well for your purposes

[FingerSinger]

Let me revive this thread a bit. I just been played more harmonica again and focusing on irish music, and for different tunes i was using three different tuning on set of the tunes - Paddy Richter, Melody Maker and Country tuning.
To do that i really needed 3 different harmonicas while, again, their tuning only differ by a couple of notes.

That made me realize i want to pursue my idea further, and i think i have a (rough) idea on how to implement it, but realistically i need a person with better engineering / tinkering skills and tools that i have.

So my question for now would be - do you have a reference of an engineer / harmonica tech who could be interested in such a project?