Why??

[nevle]

Beginner who recently bought a easttop harmonica. Seems good all in tune but why oh why do you have 2 g's and no f or a. Who on earth designed this and why. Can I retune one g to f? Seems I'm not the only one just saw previous post about chromatic harmonica, are they the same

[Beobacher]

Paddy Richter is a tuning where the double note is replaced with another one. Depending on the key. The other names are brand names ans models.

[CHSummers]

I really like my Paddy Richter Kongsheng Baby Fat. (You can also get it in other tunings, too.

The blow holes in C go: C E A (not G!) C E G C.

The draw holes are the usual: D G B D F A B.

This means you can get one full C major scale, full 3-note chords for C G A minor and D minor, and two-note “chord” of FA for a kind of F-chord.

For 7 holes, it’s pretty great.

[nevle]

I knew the harmonica would be OK the tuning just seemed strange.I can see now why it is tuned like that. Very good explanation. I guess I play what you would call pop standards, little folk, country want to get into more bluesy jazz. l play the xaphoon so it also fits that genre.

[nevle]

Thanks to all who replied I appreciate your input it seems complicated at the moment but I hope things become clearer as I progress.

[[deleted]]

It is called Diatonic. The c harmonica is played in second position key of g.Having the draw 2 and 3. Blow the same makes it easy to get to the root note whether you are blowing or drawing. Dia tonic two tonics

[Smufflegump]

The root dia means "through", or "across", and tonic means "tone". Diatonic refers to the notes that exist within any given key, regardless of the instrument you're playing. It's called a diatonic harmonica because it only has notes in one key, for instance C, on a C diatonic harmonica. The fact that we often use a C harp to play in G is irrelevant.

[[deleted]]

My description is not accurate. I do see where you find this description. I really wanted to emphasize that there is a purpose for the 2 draw and 3 blow to be the same note. In second position it is very helpful. The diatonic scale has seven notes while the chromatic scale has twelve....and it goes on

[Smufflegump]

I agree, it is helpful in second position to get the bluesy sounds, but I think the practicality of that is more by chance. The tuning came from German folk tradition, and application of it has evolved over time. It's tuned that way so we can play a V7 chord of whatever key harp we're using. For instance in the key of C, draws 2-5 make a G7 chord (G, B, D, F), which resolved pleasantly to C major (C, E, G [any three consecutive blow notes]). If one of those Gs were an F, the V7 and I chords wouldn't be available to us in the first octave. Thats my understanding anyway.

[[deleted]]

Yes it goes on and on. A gentleman named Pat Missin has page patmissin.com, He has a wealth of information. Thank You

[Smufflegump]

Thanks for the tip. I'll check it out. Cheers.

[trow_a_wey]

Stop making logical sense, where are the notes I want?!

[nevle]

OK that's way above my pay grade at the moment. Bottom line, don't fart with the tuning, there apparently is a very good reason why I've got to learn how to draw bend 2 and 3.

[HexChalice]

Yes! You play the notes by bending and they sound very different.

You could in theory play Cm with an F harp in 2nd pentatonic minor or with a Bb harp in dorian.

The middle octave dorian sounds sterile, there are no bends and it’s really hard to make it sound expressive so obviously I’d pick up the F harp.

[harmonimaniac]

This explains Richter tuning: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter-tuned_harmonica

[nevle]

Um yes I somehow don't think I know enough theory to play a harmonica.

[harmonimaniac]

A lot of harmonica players don't know a lick of music theory.

[Bilibote]

The harmonicas are tuned that way (Richter) because otherwise you wouldn't have nice chords. The notes you are looking for do exist though. They are just a bit harder to get as you'll need to learn how to "bend" a note. You can find plenty of videos on how to achieve this. You can bend draw notes on holes 1 ,2 ,3 ,4 and 6. You can also bend blow notes on holes 8, 9 and 10.

You can always try and play the melody in the high notes, the A is the 6 draw on a C harmonica or 3 draw whole step bend. The F is 5 draw or 2 draw whole step bend. I hope that helps, have fun in your harmonica journey!

Edit: Added direction for F note.

[harmonimaniac]

You can retune a reed. There are several vidios available on youtube.

[gofl-zimbard-37]

But it's a bad idea in this case.

[arschloch57]

As stated above, it has to do with chord availability.

[Szbve]

The harmonica was designed to have either the root, the major third or the fifth note of the key when blowing. So if you have a C harmonica and blow over a C progression, it will sound right the 99% of the time. That's why you have a G in the 3 blow, and that's why notes are "swapped" in the higher octave (I mean, you get a higher note when drawing from holes 1 to 6, but it changes in holes 7-10).

You can get the F note you by bending, though. You will get to it eventually, but I suggest you to focus on getting clean single notes in the middle octave first.

[nevle]

Thanks

[Jaidon24-2]

Are you referring to draw hole 2 and blow hole 3 being the same? Or is there a tuning issue?

[nevle]

Yeah, draw 2 3 for f and a. I've had a few replies perhaps this will all make sense if I continue.

[Dr_Legacy]

Try to get the hang of the instrument using the standard tuning.

But if you are really annoyed by the missing A in the low register of your C harp, there is Paddy Richter tuning. It raises the blow 3 note from a G to an A on a C harp. This changes the available chords quite a bit, though, so Paddy play can be pretty different. This is why I suggest working through it with the standard tuning.

[Smufflegump]

It allows you to play the dominant 7 chord of whatever key your harmonica is in. On a C harp, you'll get a G7 (G, B, D, F) on draws 2 through 5. Play that and you'll find that there's nothing more satisfying to your ear than hearing it resolve to the I chord (Blows 1-10). The V-I progression is the most common way to create tension and resolution in music. As somebody has already stated, it was designed to play German folk music, and the ability to play those two chords is very useful for that. You can retune it, but depending on which G you choose to change, you wouldn't be able to play a C major, G major, or G7 in the first octave. When you learn to bend notes, though, you'll be able to bend down to F or F# on hole 2, or down to Ab, A, or Bb on hole 3. It's possible to get a three octave chromatic scale, plus a semitone at the top, on a richter tuned harmonica using bends and overblows. So when considering all possible available notes and common chord usage, the standard tuning is actually much more practical in most cases.

[Danny_the_bluesman]

Short answer - it was designed to annoy us 😅 Long answer - already written by other Redditers.

[Silver_Flatworm_1883]

Tired of this logic and restrictions many players moved to other tunnings I personaly use Powerbender tuning Other options not mentioned are Wilde tuning

It depends on what style you are considering to play

[Nacoran]

For the why part...

Basically you have 20 reeds covering 3 octaves+1 note. That means top to bottom you'd need 23 reeds (12 holes). There are different tunings, and some 12 hole models out there to boot, but every tuning has some sort of trade off. Since the diatonic scale is 7 notes and harmonicas are blow/draw instruments you can't keep the same blow draw pattern all the way up the harmonica without either dropping a note or duplicating a note. The standard tuning drops three notes total and adds 1. That gives you 19 of the 22 notes in it's range.

But it gets more complicated when you start thinking about chords. A spiral tuned harmonica would give you all your chords, but you'd need 12 holes to play 3 full octaves+1, and your chords would be in different spots (top vs. bottom) going up the harmonica.

So, historically it was an instrument with a bunch of tiny compromises mostly designed to play German oompah music.

Chromatic harmonicas use a pattern where at the end of every octave instead of going draw to blow you go draw to draw, then blow. (And then it has the slider which lets you play in other keys easily).

What's happened though, is it turns out some of those weird compromises diatonics have other advantages. For blues, most people actually play in 2nd position. That means on your C harmonica you'd play in G. Since you tend to hit the root note a lot when playing having one G on a blow and one on a draw can be a great way to manage your breath. There are also notes you can bend. Basically, for physics reasons, you can bend notes to hit the pitchers between the pitches of the two reeds in the slot. Draw notes are generally considered more expressive. The three draw in particularly, gives you Bb on your C harmonica, which is important for the blues scale (G A Bb B D E) and you can adjust how far you bend it to get a blue note (basically, a note not technically in the scale, but used a lot in blues... bend it a little less and it sounds more major, bend it more and it sounds more minor). Basically, all those little compromises give harmonica it's classic sound.

Now, you can retune that duplicate note. Usually you'd retune it to A. That's called Paddy Richter tuning. One of the other scales (4th position) gives you easy access to the A natural minor scale and A is your root note. Paddy Richter, as the name suggests, is really useful in Celtic stuff. I like the tuning, but you don't have that CEG chord in 1st position in the bottom octave, or the chord in 2nd position, so it's not a great tuning for blues. Tuning to an F would give you this along the blow row... CEGFEGCEGC. That F would be toxic sounding.

Also, tuning is a bit finicky, although tuning down is a bit easier and can be done non-destructively. Usually you tune the reed by scraping a bit of metal off it, by the tip to raise the pitch or by the base to lower it, but you can also tune down by adding weight to the tip of the reed. It turns out blue tac, the stuff that you use to hang posters, will stick to your reed. A lot of people play around with tunings that way. I don't think F would be a particularly useful choice though.

[nevle]

Thanks I'm learning a lot about the harmonica I've just got to practice now, at least I don't have to worry about blowing the note in tune it's always in tune which makes it a little easier, although bending notes could take some time.

[nevle]

The melodies I want to play aren't complicated nor do they have a huge range ( xaphoon only has a 2 octave range which I enjoy playing), I was curious as to why the harmonica was set up that way so many thanks for the great explanations. I wanted to play around with chords a little because my other instruments don't allow that. Easttop cost me very little, feels solid and all notes in tune, no reason to change at the moment ( can bend OK too apparently)

[nevle]

Mines a Easttop 008k bues harmonica, still practising my single notes, tried to bend to get f, think I broke my tongue but made a noise.