Re: Pentatonic harmonica
Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2018 12:58 pm
I kind of like the idea of a pentatonic spiral tuned harmonica!
Many tunes are pentatonic, and why add more notes than you need? It would reduce the distance one has to move to get around the scale. Many stray notes deviating from the pentatonic scale could be bent, and the odd number spiral gives you the choice of putting the tune in the octave that works best.
If you put a TurboSlide on it it I like it even better!
I mean look at this pattern:
I would remove the magnets over the e's and lower the magnets or find stronger ones to bend every g all the way down to an f (see comment on this at the end), and use this to play melodic Am.
It has a number of interesting features:
1. There are Am chords BELOW each tonic, which any Paddy player knows to be nice. Any note in the triad could be extended to a chord.
2. It has the dominant major E on the blow side when the slide is pushed.
3. The major parallel C is available everywhere.
4. You could even find an open subdominant D in each octave.
5. With bending all the notes are there!
I've never tried to make a TurboSlide lower a note a full step before, so I'm not sure how well it works. I hope the f# would be reasonably easy to reach by half pressing the button. One could just use a normally calibrated magnet and overblow the d/e hole. With so many chords I think I would do ok with only having every second f easily available.
Many tunes are pentatonic, and why add more notes than you need? It would reduce the distance one has to move to get around the scale. Many stray notes deviating from the pentatonic scale could be bent, and the odd number spiral gives you the choice of putting the tune in the octave that works best.
If you put a TurboSlide on it it I like it even better!
I mean look at this pattern:
Code: Select all
Slide: b g# c# f b g#
Blow: c e a d g c e a
Draw: d g c e a d g c
It has a number of interesting features:
1. There are Am chords BELOW each tonic, which any Paddy player knows to be nice. Any note in the triad could be extended to a chord.
2. It has the dominant major E on the blow side when the slide is pushed.
3. The major parallel C is available everywhere.
4. You could even find an open subdominant D in each octave.
5. With bending all the notes are there!
I've never tried to make a TurboSlide lower a note a full step before, so I'm not sure how well it works. I hope the f# would be reasonably easy to reach by half pressing the button. One could just use a normally calibrated magnet and overblow the d/e hole. With so many chords I think I would do ok with only having every second f easily available.