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Author Topic: Ramblings on the Paddy Richter harp  (Read 6920 times)

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Andy

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Ramblings on the Paddy Richter harp
« on: June 09, 2013, 12:23:06 AM »

Hi

Been playing the 10 hole diatonic harmonica for a while.

Much as I enjoy listening to blues music, what I play is mostly the same sort of folk melodies that I now also play on the B/C button box. For this reason I made a decision early on to go the Paddy Richter route on the harp.

By my understanding logic behind Paddy Richter tuning is that:

1.   The missing 6th note of the scale in the low octave of a conventional 10 hole Richter tuned harp is a major limitation to melody playing – In Paddy Richter the 3 blow is raised a complete tone to regain the missing note, no notes are lost as the 3 blow was a duplicate anyway – the only ‘cost’ is the loss of the blow chord on the low reeds.
2.   The missing 4th note in the low octave is seldom a problem.
3.   The missing 7th note in the high octave is seldom a problem.

I would agree with 1. and 3.



Not so sure about 2 though.

This however is a trickier problem as there are no more duplicates, you can only win another additional note by losing one. It does however occur to me that I very seldom use the 2 blow note (3rd note of scale in lower octave). In fact I think I use it less than I curse the lack of the 4th note of scale.

I am tempted to raise the 2 blow by a whole tone as well; if I did this I would for example be able to play all the notes for ‘The Bonnie Lass o' Fyvie’ but would concede that I would have lost a note needed in ‘Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye’.

I am not keen on bending notes, I can do it up to a point but combining speed with accuracy is hard plus it sounds ‘bluesy’ and wrecks reeds by most accounts.

If this makes sense to anybody out there, what do you think?

Or better still is there anybody who has tried what I am considering and is able to report back on their experience?
Thanks.
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Sage Herb

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Re: Ramblings on the Paddy Richter harp
« Reply #1 on: June 09, 2013, 08:09:36 AM »

Andy
Surely it would be a semitone that you'd raise 2 blow by, ie if it was a G harp you'd raise the B to a C?

I haven't tried but it's worth noting that (still talking G harp) it would give you a nice low C chord in holes 1-4 blow (and of course Paddification already gives you a nice Em chord in 3-5 blow). Why not buy a £5 harp just to try your mod out without risking your Sp20?

But as you say, there are no 'spare' holes to play with, so only you can decide how serious in terms of your repertoire it would be to lose the the low B from 2 blow. (My repertoire has several tunes that use the B and which I wouldn't wish to lose.) Assuming that you're committed to Paddy, the options that I can see are (a) carry 2 harps in the same key, one with 2 blow retuned and one not, picking the best one for each tune. (b) retune 2 blow to C (as you are suggesting) but then put a valve on 2 *draw* which will allow you to bend 2 blow down from C to B on the odd occasion that you need it. Sure, response and tone aren't the same as an unbent reed, but you're not likely to do any damage.
Hope this makes sense
Steve
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sine labore

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Re: Ramblings on the Paddy Richter harp
« Reply #2 on: June 09, 2013, 09:23:38 AM »

Working on the basis that there is no such thing as a stupid question, would this have any lessons for a B/C box player who wants to practice the same tunes/useful fingerings for the box but using a tin whistle or harmonica in his pocket, or is there no connection here? Obviously with the tin whistle there would be blow but no suck. I am thinking from the perspective of the ordinary man in the street who doesn't have his box with him and might want to use a pocket instrument to practise with.
« Last Edit: June 09, 2013, 09:38:32 AM by sine labore »
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Andy

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Re: Ramblings on the Paddy Richter harp
« Reply #3 on: June 09, 2013, 11:13:45 AM »

Andy
Surely it would be a semitone that you'd raise 2 blow by, ie if it was a G harp you'd raise the B to a C?

I haven't tried but it's worth noting that (still talking G harp) it would give you a nice low C chord in holes 1-4 blow (and of course Paddification already gives you a nice Em chord in 3-5 blow). Why not buy a £5 harp just to try your mod out without risking your Sp20?

But as you say, there are no 'spare' holes to play with, so only you can decide how serious in terms of your repertoire it would be to lose the the low B from 2 blow. (My repertoire has several tunes that use the B and which I wouldn't wish to lose.) Assuming that you're committed to Paddy, the options that I can see are (a) carry 2 harps in the same key, one with 2 blow retuned and one not, picking the best one for each tune. (b) retune 2 blow to C (as you are suggesting) but then put a valve on 2 *draw* which will allow you to bend 2 blow down from C to B on the odd occasion that you need it. Sure, response and tone aren't the same as an unbent reed, but you're not likely to do any damage.
Hope this makes sense
Steve

Yes Steve, right enough, raising 2 blow from B to C  (G harmonica) would of course only represent a semitone raise.

As you say I will probably just give it a try on one harmonica and may even just alternate between the two tunings as appropriate, Will probably only do this for G, so for me this will only be 4 harmonicas instead of 3 (G x2, D & A).

I am aware of circular/spiral tuning (no missing notes and available off the shelf from Seydel) but am comfortable with Paddy Richter and am not keen to change to a significantly different system.

Thanks
Andy
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Sage Herb

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Re: Ramblings on the Paddy Richter harp
« Reply #4 on: June 09, 2013, 12:49:45 PM »

Working on the basis that there is no such thing as a stupid question, would this have any lessons for a B/C box player who wants to practice the same tunes/useful fingerings for the box but using a tin whistle or harmonica in his pocket, or is there no connection here? Obviously with the tin whistle there would be blow but no suck. I am thinking from the perspective of the ordinary man in the street who doesn't have his box with him and might want to use a pocket instrument to practise with.

Good question - I never go anywhere without a gob-harp in my pocket. The short answer is that if you take any two 10-hole mouthorgans that are are semitone apart in pitch (so B/C, C/C# or whatever) and stick them together with a couple of lumps of Blu-tack, you have something that *roughly* resembles the right hand of a semitone box. (And for quint box players like me, D/G, C/F or whatever.) I don't play semitone boxes, so maybe someone else will advise on just how closely the note layout of what I've suggested matches a real box. To make this trick work with a D/G box, you really need a low D harp. If you only want to use one harp, it will roughly correspond to playing up and down the melodeon row. Obviously, none of this is likely to help with fingering technique.
Hope this helps
Steve
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KLR

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Re: Ramblings on the Paddy Richter harp
« Reply #5 on: June 09, 2013, 06:03:18 PM »

Chromatic harmonicas kinda approximate semitone boxes - push the slide and you go from C to C#.  But the layout is the same from octave to octave, unlike on the accordion - they duplicate the first note of the octave.  You can obtain harmonicas that correspond to any sort of semitone box, and people like Breandan Power have come up with other types of harp too, like his model with the slide that raises notes a tone in spots.  Don Meade's document on The Harmonica and Irish Traditional Music exhaustively examines what's out there - truly a great bit of writing and research.
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Harmonicatunes

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Re: Ramblings on the Paddy Richter harp
« Reply #6 on: June 10, 2013, 06:58:16 AM »

The Paddy Richter tuning is definitely the way to go if you want to play tunes. The alternative is to get the missing note by bending the 3 hole draw. Hard to get the bent note in tune, harder still to have it sound like the others.

Another alternative is the Lee Oskar "Melody Maker" Here you play in 2nd or cross position (details are at www.harmonicatunes.com/whichharmonicakey.php if you're not sure what 2nd position is). The Melody Maker tuning gives two full octaves without bends

Another alternative is "Major Cross", a tuning I developed around 15 years ago, based on the Melody Maker tuning. Details at www.harmonicatunes.com/retuned.shtml

Major Cross works well for fast tunes. An example is at www.harmonicaacademy.com/categories/20080808

Major Cross harmonicas are not available off the shelf. You can either tune them yourself (a big job), or use the Seydel Harp Configurator (Google it)
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eric

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Re: Ramblings on the Paddy Richter harp
« Reply #7 on: June 17, 2013, 04:37:53 PM »

Dear Andy, if you aren't into blues and prefer folk melodies, why not ditch the Richter harmonica and play a 24-hole tremolo harmonica (Swan, Stagg or Tombo etc.) which give you 3 diatonic octaves with no bending. If you buy a B and C major you can clag them together and play anything you play on A B/C melodeon.
Eric
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Harmonicatunes

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Re: Ramblings on the Paddy Richter harp
« Reply #8 on: June 19, 2013, 01:04:17 PM »

The tremolo is a great instrument for tunes. See www.tremoloharmonica.com for more details.

However, it is not easy to switch from 10 hole to tremolo. The notes are not where you would expect them to be, the embrochure is different. Worth the effort though, I think.

For those interested, I have a set of tremolo lessons at www.harmonicaacademy.com
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Corinto

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Re: Ramblings on the Paddy Richter harp
« Reply #9 on: June 20, 2013, 10:29:51 AM »

The tremolo is a great instrument for tunes. For those interested, I have a set of tremolo lessons at www.harmonicaacademy.com

These lessons seem interesting, but are they adaptable for learning with Solo-tuned Tremolos, like the Suzuki Humming or the Seydel Sailor or the Seydel Fanfare ? Thanks.
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Harmonicatunes

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Re: Ramblings on the Paddy Richter harp
« Reply #10 on: June 25, 2013, 01:57:31 AM »

The lessons are designed for the "Asian style" tremolo, which has a tuning system well suited to tune playing, and quite similar to the melodeon. The Suzuki Humming tremolo, a great instrument in my my view, fits the lessons very well.
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Andy

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Re: Ramblings on the Paddy Richter harp
« Reply #11 on: October 11, 2013, 10:46:43 PM »

Right

Finally taken the plunge and went a stage beyond Paddy Richter.

1 = first note in scale, I have used this rather than actual notes to keep it more general

1 3 5 1 3 5 1 3 5 1
2 5 7 2 4 6 7 2 4 6     Original Richter Tuning

1 3 6 1 3 5 1 3 5 1
2 5 7 2 4 6 7 2 4 6     Paddy Richter Tuning

2 4 6 1 3 5 1 3 5 1
3 5 7 2 4 6 7 2 4 6     TRA Tuning

I'll call it TRA tuning for the time being but fully expect that amongst harmonica customisers someone has already been and done it.

With this you are down to only missing the first note of the low octave and the seventh note of the high octave, the middle octave is of course complete in all variations.

Only did it (to an A tuned harmonica) a couple of hours ago so I am hanging fire on doing it to all my harmonicas.

Seems to do what I'm after though.

Enjoying playing the following on the first and second octave:

Bonnie Lass o' Fyvie
Johnny Lad
Braes o' Killiecrankie

Even with Paddy Richter these have to be played on second and third which sounds too high to me.

I realise that once you go this far you may be as well to go the full hog - solo or circular tuned but choices here are very limited plus this system still plays a lot more like the Paddy Richter I am used to.
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Sage Herb

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Re: Ramblings on the Paddy Richter harp
« Reply #12 on: October 12, 2013, 10:13:54 PM »

I haven't seen this tuning before (and I've seen a lot) so it's probably justified to give it the name of your choice! The brute fact is that if you want to retune holes 1 to 3 whilst leaving hole 4 and above unchanged and avoiding bends or valves, you have to sacrifice at least one note of the major scale. Richter sacrifices two notes (4 & 6 of scale), Paddy reduces this to one (4 of scale), whilst TRA gains 4 at the expense of 1. So if it works for the tunes that you want to play, that's great.

Interestingly though, the TRA tuning also produces a better selection of chords than eithe Richter or Paddy. On a G harp, on the blow you get low Am, full C, Em & the usual G. On the draw you get Bm in addition to the usual D, Am & F#dim. Could be very useful indeed.
Cheers
Steve
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Harmonicatunes

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Re: Ramblings on the Paddy Richter harp
« Reply #13 on: October 14, 2013, 02:25:54 AM »

Interesting tuning, and the logical extension to Paddy Richter.

My feeling is the over time, you would really miss the bottom tonic note. The proof is in the playing. My advice would be to stick with the one instrument for now. If you like it, and actually use the new  notes, then make more.

Also, check out my Major Cross tuning, at http://www.harmonicatunes.com/retuned.shtml

It is basically the same idea, but for second position rather than 1st. It does have a more useful note set, to my mind anyway. Namely, two full octave, plus an additional 3rd at the top, plus going down to the fifth at the bottom. I've been using it for 15 years

As I understand it, the modified Paddy Richter tuning you have there has only one fuly octave
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Andy

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Re: Ramblings on the Paddy Richter harp
« Reply #14 on: October 17, 2013, 07:34:55 PM »



Also, check out my Major Cross tuning, at http://www.harmonicatunes.com/retuned.shtml


Thanks

Yes I can see the logic behind Major Cross tuning, for me the attraction of going the way I have gone is that it is less of a change from the Paddy Richter I have become used to.

I suppose my biggest source of frustration is regular Richter tuning. I do get the point of it but Richter tuned harmonicas should come with some sort of warning that they are not ideal as a melody instrument. Even most instructional books for beginers avoid this issue by conveniently guiding you through tunes that can be played on a Richter harmonica, leaving the learner to work out for themselves why the first few tunes you try to play by ear won't quite work.

Andy
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Andy

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Re: Ramblings on the Paddy Richter harp
« Reply #15 on: October 17, 2013, 10:00:01 PM »

I haven't seen this tuning before (and I've seen a lot) so it's probably justified to give it the name of your choice! The brute fact is that if you want to retune holes 1 to 3 whilst leaving hole 4 and above unchanged and avoiding bends or valves, you have to sacrifice at least one note of the major scale. Richter sacrifices two notes (4 & 6 of scale), Paddy reduces this to one (4 of scale), whilst TRA gains 4 at the expense of 1. So if it works for the tunes that you want to play, that's great.

Interestingly though, the TRA tuning also produces a better selection of chords than eithe Richter or Paddy. On a G harp, on the blow you get low Am, full C, Em & the usual G. On the draw you get Bm in addition to the usual D, Am & F#dim. Could be very useful indeed.
Cheers
Steve

Thanks

Would have to say that this layout was all about melody playing for me but you have got me thinking about trying to make a bit more use of the opportunities for chords.

Andy
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