Brendan Power & Alternative Harmonicas Forum

Diminished! :o A diminished slide-harp will be chromatic for any slide interval that isn't already present as an interval between blow notes! (or draw notes) This seems a very interesting idea! For instance, with the major-third slide in my first post, you get the following. Blow: Slide in e g bb c#...

I don't recall reading about this anywhere When pressing the slider of a slide-endowed harp half way in, one can sound both reedplates. One use for this on a standard chrom could be to emulate blue notes, notes outside the standard chromatic scale. I know some people do this by rapidly shifting betw...

Nice to hear about the progress! This place HAS been a little quiet lately, and looking back i find I haven't posted in almost two months. Mostly this is due to my work, where it's becoming increasingly clear a PhD thesis doesn't write itself. (Who would have thought, huh?) I hope to get some more t...

After having been sold out, it seems to be back for sale again!

Edit: This must have been very temporarily... It's not there now. Or I was mistaken. I was told by Triona that it will likely be back in a few weeks though.

@Crawford: Re. marketing, I think these things will only have niche appeal really. Not sure it would be worthwhile to sell them. At this stage it's just for fun :-) You're probably right... :/ But if these accordion blocks are available for sell, maybe enough people would be interested in buying ju...

This week I'm getting back to messing with harmonicas made with accordion reeds. In the past I made a couple of test instruments, which showed the potential and allayed any concerns over steel reeds rusting. They don't, if you let the harp dry off after playing and it's kept in a dry environment. A...

Just came back to this thread after a week or so. I see it's moved along into the area of practicality, thanks to Edvin. Nice drawings and discussion :-) Not to take anything away from your enthusiasm for a promising concept Dodtsair & Edvin, but just as a factual note: I have already done some wor...

I noted that the All Minor allows one to adjust for quarter steps. It would be great if all reeds could be adjustable. I play piano, too, and in my town we have three public pianos available 24/7. Two are okay to play harps against, the third is tuned to "A 430", or so says the tuner's note. That p...

This is motivated by the discussion by dodtsair. I don't see myself building a full harmonica like the one we discuss anytime soon, and it doesn't sound like dodtsair is either. I would hope that it could become commercially available, but there are some legal questions to consider. I would gladly l...

I thought along similar lines! With standard blow and draw reed plates and an extra sympathetic draw reed plate outside the blow reed, you could use a standard harmonica valve on the lone reed plate to get nice interactive bends for both blow notes and draw notes. I also had the idea of using double...