Brendan Power & Alternative Harmonicas Forum

I recently studied Jason Ricci ’s Youtube video entitled “How to play harmonica like a Rock Star (The Mixolydian Mode, John Popper & More)” . This made me see that the tuning of Tue Sep 03, 2019 4:05 pm (above) can be adjusted for mixolydian play. Indeed, this variation is equal to a Paddy Richter t...

Let’s take another look at the post Tue Sep 03, 2019 4:05 pm (above) …. I have used that concept to produce the re-tuning shown below. And it works! It is highly versatile, intuitive, and fun to play. The general formula for this re-tuning is this: A Baby Fat in Standard Richter tuning becomes the n...

Congrats to Seydel for their new 1847 All Minor model! A suggestion along those lines ... If they created an otherwise standard Richter harp but with tunable 3 blow , 5 draw and 9 draw reeds, then the player could convert it to Paddy , Country , Double-Country or Melody Maker . Five have harps in on...

In an addendum to the post of Tue Sep 03, 2019 4:05 pm (above) I noticed that I had generated a tuning with six holes identical to Lee Oskar's Melody Maker . In the diagram below, I show the rest of Melody Maker, along with my own small addition at the beginning. To be clear, holes 1 though 10 are e...

Karl: I like how your b/w diagrams can pack a lot of useful information into a tight, elegant format. Compared to a more expanded and colorized representation, it requires a little more theoretical knowledge on the part of the reader. But with the right audiences that knowledge can be expected and ...

Here is a variation on the theme just above. This one has a consistently normal breath pattern throughout. This tuning would be good for 7-hole, 12-hole, 13-hole, 14-hole and 16-hole harps. Not so good for 6-hole and 10-hole harps. Note that the first three chambers contain I and IV chords--just whe...

In the tuning of Thu Sep 05, 2019 10:12 am (above), the first major diatonic octave begins a little bit differently than do the higher octaves. Here is a different approach to getting a IV chord at the front of Inverted Bebop tuning in an economical way. The advantage here is that all the major diat...

Very interesting. Congratulations.

In your first video demonstration, I thought I was starting to hear Del Shannon's "Runaway".

The tuning just above here was designed with diatonic scales in mind. However, with the I (Cmaj) and IV (Fmaj) chords, a first position minor hexatonic blues scale of C - Eb - F - Gb - G - Bb - C looks quite feasible.

Note: On a 12-hole slide chromatic harp, the final tonic C is there with the push of a button. Also, the 2 blow slide-in could raise the C to a D in order to complete the lowest Cmaj octave. CORRECTION: This tuning also has multiple ii chords. ADDENDUM: I now see that, with the slide in, it is possi...