Thank you Brendan! I've been doing some more experimenting with my set lately, so new reeds could definitely be useful.
I woke up early this morning and, half awake, I came to the realisation: If someone would like to know what a tremolo blues harmonica sounds like, the Modular Reed system is is probably the easiest (and cheapest!) way to find out!
After waking up some more I decided it's not for me (I never owned a tremolo and I don't play the blues, especially not with Richter tuning...), but it illustrates some of the strengths of the Modular Reed system so I thought I'd share it anyway.
You could tune it as follows: (using the same note labelling as in my previous post)
Code: Select all
Blow: D¹ E E G G c c e e g
Draw: D G G B B d d f f g²
Notes:
¹) Both notes in hole 1 are draw notes.
²) Both notes in hole 10 are blow notes. Note that both g's must be front-mounted, as there are no rear mounted g's that low that fit hole 10. Advanced options for the configurator are needed! 10 bottom could also be replaced with a draw a-note to extend the scale.
I've sacrificed the notes normally found in 1 blow and 6 draw on Richter, to get the full first octave of the blues scale and the 1 draw needed for a good fat draw chord. All notes but the first and last bend and overblow just as they would on a standard blues harp.
Of course this project would require some fine tuning to sound good, but I don't see any other way of building it other than cutting the plates yourself. If you own the basic harp, even if you special order 20 reeds it's still not more expensive than ordering the cheapest custom Seydel plates. IF you then decide that tremolo blues isn't your thing, the left over modular reeds can super easily be used in another harp, as opposed to an old-fashioned experimental reed plate.