"Harmonica levers" - harmonica idea for irish trad players

[FingerSinger]

Hi,

I had the idea for a while (probably around 10 years already) and even tried to develop it myself but i have to admit i’m not going to have enough time to finalize so i thought i’d share it here and see if somebody else (maybe even Brendan himself) could help it to see the light.

Aside other instruments, I use harmonicas mostly for irish trad music, paddy richter diatonics or paddy richter reversed slider chromatics. My go to harmonica for irish is G, i’m not a big fan of using D cause i find high D too high and low D too low. I have to use them of course for some tunes, i just like the range of G better for irish. That's said, I only occasionaly play tunes on harmonica, mostly I play other instruments.

Anyway, as i said, i usually play Paddy richter harps, but sometimes i like to have this low D on the blow (instead 3rd blow hole raised D -> E), so i have normal richter G with me as well. And some D tunes work nicely on G country harmonica, with hole 5 draw, C raised to C#.

Hopefully now you see where i’m going. Ideally i’d like to have all these possibilities with me, but that requires carrying 4 harmonicas only for G: Richter, Paddy Richter (3rd hole blow raised a tone), Country (5th hole draw raised a semitone), Melody Maker (3rd hole blow raised a tone, 5th hole draw raised a semitone). The idea is to have one harmonica with “adjustable” selected reeds.

Now, my thought train brought me at some point to similarities between harmonica and irish harp. And, actually, harp players do use levers to get very similar effect - mainly switch couple of notes to get from “G mode” to “D mode” etc.

I’ve tried to think how one could achieve similar effect on harmonica, and one of my ideas actually worked in prototype. Essentially it is possible to raise the tone of the reed by “shortening” the vibrating surface. Very simple test i’ve made is just pressing a piece of felt to the root of the reed. I made a few attempts to make an actual lever which would work like that but it’ on a very early stage still. Also, pressing something on the draw read seems to be much easier compared to pressing something on the blow reed which resides on the inner side of the reedplate.

Nowadays, there's a similar idea developed by Seydel - https://www.seydel1847.de/SEYDEL-INNOVA ... INNOVATION. The difference is that it uses magnets so only works on steel reeds, and you need to tune the note every time. My idea was to ideally create some kind of “fixed positions” lever so you can tune the positions once and then switch between them freely. Something similar to https://www.beaconbanjo.com/product-cat ... jo-tuners/ for banjo, for example.

So, what do you think about the idea?

[Brendan]

Thanks for your message Roman.

There is a historical free reed instrument that uses this principle of shortening the reed to get higher notes: the single-reed pitch pipe. John Cook did an excellent video on it, and actually made one from scratch:

https://youtu.be/V_sPcJkstSo

From time to time people have proposed it in harmonicas, but I don't know of any actually made or in use. I think it would be very difficult to control given the short length and fragility of harmonica reeds.

Here's an easier way to get that optional D blow note on your G Paddy-Richter. You say you play reversed slide Paddy-Richter harps? In that case, tune the slider note in the hole 3 down to D. That way you have the E with slide out and the D with slide in.

Would that solve your problem?

You can apply the same principle elsewhere: selectively tune slider notes to get desirable missing ones.

[FingerSinger]

Thanks for your reply Brendan

Yeah, I was thinking about using slider for that. It's not ideal though cause sometimes I want to play harmonica in a holder with my concertina.
Maybe using magnets is the way to go actually, I need to check with Seydel if they can make these magnets in different places

[triona]

Unfortunately Seydel has discontinued this model. And I do not know whether they have some of the parts over. I missed it too when it had been for sale some years ago.


dear greetings
triona