Brendan Power & Alternative Harmonicas Forum

Hohner says that the 2, 5 and 8 draws can give "semitone" bends. Does this make sense?

I changed the title of this discussion because, according to Andrew Zajac:

In Pat Missin's Altered States list of altered tunings, this tuning is 11.15, "Blues Scale Tuning" which has been known since the 90s.

To get those lovely I and IV chords back:

3 blow +2; 1 draw +1; 2 draw +1; 3 draw +2

For i and iv chords:

3 blow +1; 2 draw +1; 3 draw +2

Expressed in the second position below.

Consider the following: Case 1: Blow: D F A C Draw: C E G B Case 2: Blow: B D F A Draw: C E G B I think I have been using the term "inverted" for both of these kinds of tunings. Case 1 could be considered "inverted" because each blow is higher than its respective draw . Case 2 could be considered "i...

In this YouTube video https://youtu.be/3OSuXNV5_pM Paul Gillings ably demonstrates the possibilities of a Lee Oskar tuning called " Seventh Son ". In that tuning, the 1 blow is lowered by two semitones while the 1 draw is raised by three semitones. These changes provide dominant sevenths for (in sec...

Update: I have re-tuned a G natural minor Baby Fat as per the post of Fri Sep 17, 2021 9:15 am (above). Note that Kongsheng labels minor harps by first position, whereas some other brands label their minor harps by second position. Buyer beware. The re-tuned 7-holer works as expected and is fun to p...

For your edification (and mine) .... Here are some noteworthy tunings which can be viewed from a STRUCTURAL (not historical) standpoint as transitioning/evolving from one to the next. There are no better-versus-worse implications here. Each has its place in the hands of the right musicians. Or, as m...

Here is a better version of the re-tuning shown above. This one gives us all three of the lovely notes below the tonic -- the ones necessary for "Ain't No Sunshine". A concern here is that making the two lowest notes even lower could lead to rattling reeds. For those notes I suggest using a nondestr...