Brendan Power & Alternative Harmonicas Forum

NAME: “Goldschmidt/Sowards Gen. 5 PowerChrom tuning for 14-hole slide harp” BASIC CONCEPT: The Gen. 4 version of “Goldschmidt/Sowards” tuning took a step forward by splitting the Slide In-Draw layer into two sets of notes, such that the right half of the comb’s chords could be in roughly the same r...

NAME: “Goldschmidt/Sowards Gen. 4 PowerChrom tuning for QuadSix” BASIC CONCEPT: In the original “Goldschmidt/Sowards” tuning, I distributed the twelve semitones of an octave among three banks/layers of reeds, and among four channels/holes of the harp. There were no missing semitones and no repeated...

MAIN IDEA:

Sometimes it's nice to have a "cheat-sheet". I've tried to make this easy to read. Suggestions?

Nick-- Thanks for pointing that out. At a glance I see some areas of similarity but also some important structural and functional differences. As soon as I can, I'll study this further and write/diagram a critical comparison. Much of my undergraduate training was in evolutionary ecology. I'm finding...

I just noticed this ....

With this tuning, one can play octave splits from A3/A4 to G4/G5 (that's eight consecutive diatonic scale tones) and the splits are all of equal width (i.e. three holes tongue-blocked each time)! Neat!

In another (related) topic, Brendan pointed out that the chords to the right side of this harp are too high in pitch to be very useful. I believe I have solved this problem. Part of the solution is his suggestion to use side-by-side Big Sixes, so that the "chord layer" doesn't become too high in pit...

In another (related) topic, Brendan pointed out that the chords to the right side of this harp are too high in pitch to be very useful. I believe I have solved this problem. Part of the solution is his suggestion to use side-by-side Big Sixes, so that the "chord layer" doesn't become too high in pit...

I think I have solved the problem that Brendan has pointed out. Part of the solution is his suggestion to use side-by-side Big Sixes, so that the "chord layer" doesn't become too high in pitch towards the right end of the harp. And so I offer this:

A less-than-half-baked idea:

Instead of a push-button slide mechanism shifting airflow to a different set of reed plates, could the slide instead duplicate particularly difficult tongue-blocks on an otherwise standard (i.e. non-double-reed) harmonica?

Just noticed: I meant C5/D5 for channel 4. Will fix it asap.