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Standard Richter tuning offers a lot of possibilities to make music. You have easy access to some useful chords, splits and octaves, you have a clean major scale in the middle octave and soulful draw bends and blow bends on the lower and upper octaves.

How do draw and blow bends work?

The draw bends on holes 1 to 4 and hole 6 use resonance to make one reed slow down (and eventually stop) and make the other reed move. As you lower the pitch of the 2 draw for example, the draw reed slows down and the *blow* reed starts to move. As you continue to lower the pitch to hit the next semitone bend, the draw reed will stop moving altogether and the blow reed will take over the work. This is a dual reed bend.

Blow bends on holes 8, 9 and 10 are the same but because the pitch of the blow note is higher than the draw note, the breath pattern is inverted and the bend is a blow bend, not a draw bend.

These are "regular" bends. Regular bends sound strong because they are dual reed bends and they are fairly easy to play. With a little practice most players can bend notes effectively on any working harmonica.

With unbend notes and "regular" bends, you can play various scales in different positions.

There's no other instrument that has quite the same connection between the player and the instrument. It's the draw bends on the low-end of the harmonica that give it it's distinctive sound.

You can extend the number of available notes on the diatonic harmonica further. By adding in the missing notes it is possible to play a complete three octave chromatic scale.

Overbends are one way to play these missing notes.

An overblow or and overdraw is a single reed bend. Together they are called overbends and they are different than "regular" bends.

You play an overblow on a hole where the draw reed is higher than the blow reed (holes 1-6); you blow air and in the same way you use resonance to slow down a reed to create a regular bend, you use resonance to stop the blow reed and allow the *draw* reed to make a sound. It will pop out a pitch about a semitone higher.

The same thing goes with an overdraw - you draw bend on a hole where the blow reed is higher than the draw reed.

"Regular bends" bend down - they provide notes that are lower than the unbent note. They play the notes between the blow and draw reeds. Overbends bend up - they provide notes that start a semitone above the pitch of the higher pitched reed.

A good way to learn to play overbends is to take the covers off a harp and mute certain reeds. For example, put your finger on the 4 blow slot and try playing the 4 blow. Nothing will happen unless you "feel around" with your embouchure. Try creating an air pocket in the front of your mouth as you play the note.

Once you get the right size pocket, the resonance will match the pitch you need and the *draw* reed will start to play the 4 OB note.

Reeds don't really like to stand still. Overbends tend to squeal when played on harmonicas that are not set up to play them well. It can happen that overbends can be played on stock harps but it's not a realistic expectation; most instruments will need some setting up to play overbends reliably. You can "cheat" and "roll off" the draw note to hit the overblow much more reliably but this limits the application of the note. Try to play all overbends "straight on" without any momentum to help you get the reeds to cooperate.

An overbend that's hard to play is difficult to incorporate into your playing. It can sound wrong. For this reason, some folks don't like overbends or they find them limiting.

Altered Tunings

Another way to play those missing notes is to alter the tuning. Country Tuning, Melody Maker, Minor tunings, Powerbender all allow you to play extra bends and add extra notes that are not there in Standard Richter.

To alter a tuning, you tune one or more reeds up or down so as to play a different note.

For example in Country tuning (major seventh) the draw five reed is raised one semitone. Instead of playing the flat seventh it plays the major seventh. By raising the pitch of the 5 draw reed, you are adding room between the blow and draw note. You can play the flat seventh note as a draw bend where in Standard Richter there is no available draw bend on hole five.

It's relatively easy to master the technique of raising or lowering the pitch of a reed. You can add weight to the tip of the reed in the form of BluTak or solder to lower the pitch. If you are lowering a pitch by a full semitone or more, I suggest you add weight to the tip to make most of the change and then file some material from the base of the reed to fine-tune the pitch. You can safely drop the pitch of a reed five semitones this way without risking damage to the reed or worrying too much about affecting the response and tone of the reed.

To raise the pitch of a reed, you must file material from the tip of the reed. Although some folks can raise a reed by four semitones this way, I find that more than one or two semitones is enough of a challenge and the reed's response and tone starts to degrade beyond that.

Reed swapping is also an effective way to alter tunings if you have access to extra reeds of the correct dimensions and are adept at reed replacement.

Altered tuning can be simple or you can completely overhaul the note layout. Remember that the soulful connection between the player and the instrument relies on those rich-sounding dual-reed draw bends on the low end of the harmonica. Alterations that turn those bent notes into straight notes take away the fun for me.

Each altered tuning means you will be learning a new breath pattern. At first players are apprehensive because they don't want to "forget" or lose their ability to play Standard Richter licks.

Don't worry! There's enough room in your brain to assimilate all of these breath patterns. Trust your muscle memory. A common mistake is to devote all practice time to the new altered tuning so as to master it quickly. I suspect any degradation in playing Standard Richter at that point is due to having stopped practising those licks rather than the "new" licks kicking out the old licks from your brain.

The net effect of mastering a new altered tuning is that you will become a better musician in all the tunings you have learned.

Half-Valving

Yet another way to play the missing notes is half-valving. A valve will isolate a reed so that you can bend one reed down without the other reed being allowed to participate. It's a single-reed bend like an overblow but you are using a valve to stop one of the reeds from moving rather than using resonance.

Take the covers off a harmonica and mute the six draw reed with your finger. Play the six blow and use your embouchure to bend the pitch down. You will be able to hit the missing note between five draw and six blow using that technique. With a valve over the six draw reed, you are able to play the blow, draw, draw bend and blow bent notes but you will not be able to play the overbend.

Half-valving can also let you intonate the pitch of some notes by shading them as you play them. You can use this to add expression to your playing.

Half-valving refers to only using one valve. If both reed slots were valved (full valving) you would not be able to play any bends.

In Standard Richter, half-valving means that there will be a valve on the inside of the hole on the draw plate on holes 1-6 and on top of the blow plate on holes 7-10.

Valves can be made of various materials. Ultrasuede is a resilient material. The valve is glued to the reed plate starting from the rivet tip on the side of the plate that's opposite from the reed.

Cut a thin strip so that it covers the width of the slot well. Trim it so that it leaves the first few millimeters of the tip of the slot free. You don't need to cover the whole slot for half-valving to work and leaving the tip free can help prevent the tone from being affected too much by the presence of a valve. It can also help prevent sticking of the valve.

All three methods (overbends, altered tunings, half-valving) are valid and used by many players. Pick your favourite!

Or not; you can make lots of good, soulful music with the Standard Richter layout.

Wilde tuning is for playing rock.

With this altered tuning all bends are draw bends; there are no blow bends or overdraws. You can overblow any missing notes to play the chromatic scale. This tuning shares that feature with Brendan Power's Powerbender tuning.

If exclusive draw bending is the reason you are exploring Wilde tuning, I suggest you take a good look at PowerBender because it is a lot more versatile, allowing you to play many positions. And it works with many styles of music.

How to make a PowerBender harp.

Here is the Wilde tuning note layout.

Holes 1-2-3-4-5 are the same as Standard Richter. Six reeds are re-tuned and two pairs are swapped to provide the note layout.

You can order pre-tuned Wilde harps but sometimes the fastest and most economical way to go is to convert a Standard Richter harmonica. The conversion to Wilde is a pretty big job. Notes need to be lowered by up to five semitones and one needs to be raised by two semitones.

Here is a visual aid to the modification:

These note changes can have an impact on how well the reeds respond but this is nothing that can't be fixed with a little reed adjustment.

Since reed adjustment will impact tuning, where do you start? The best strategy is to make the coarse tuning adjustments before you do reed work.

Here is a sensible method for getting this done with the least amount of wasted time and effort:

Alteration checklist:
1- Swap blow/draw reeds 9 and 10.
2- Correct factory defects.
3- Perform coarse tuning adjustment. Lower pitches using BluTak or Solder. (See semitone offsets in the image above)
4- Perform other customizing and improvements including reed work.
5- Perform fine tuning. Identify Major Chords for Just or Compromise tuning. (See scale interval to help you achieve harmonic tuning.)

Tuning the chords for harmony is an area where you can do much better than the factory tuned Wilde harmonicas. Even if you don't tune the five draw to 7-limit, you will still be able to achieve sweet and strong harmonies throughout most of the harp. This will add power to chords, splits and octaves.

Enjoy your new Wilde tuned harmonica!

RoCk On!

Harmonicas in the Hohner Marine Band family - and that includes Marine Band 1896, Marine Band Deluxe, Marine Band Crossover, Marine Band Thunderbird, Special 20, Rocket and Golden Melody - all use the same kind of reeds.

Reeds can be replaced when they "blow out" or go flat. Hohner sells individual reeds but shipping costs may be quite high.

The good news is that you can scavenge a reed from one harmonica and put it into another just as long as they have the same slot dimensions. Players have been doing this for decades.

Unlike other manufacturers, Hohner makes two configurations of their reeds, one for lower keys ('Long slot" up to the key of C) and one for higher keys ("Short slot" starting at the key of Db and going up).

The slot dimensions line up for most of the reeds.

That means when looking for a replacement reed, you often have more options than you think. You might be able to find the reed you need on two, three or even four other reed plates!

Here's a chart of the reeds organised by slot dimension.

It's also a table of all of the notes of Standard Richter tuning in every key with the octaves displayed - I find this handy when I'm tuning a harmonica and a reed is so far out of tune it's playing the wrong note. I can use this table to quickly look up what the pitch should be.

(Right-click on the image to download the low-resolution version of this chart for free.)

Find the reed you are looking for in the chart. Stay in the same column and look for a reed with the same pitch (or within one or two semitones if you are comfortable with tuning a reed up or down by two semitones. Try to get a reed that's as close to the pitch you need.)

Example: I need a 4 draw reed for a D harp. The pitch is E5. Within the same column, I can find the exact same reed on:

-a G harp, 6 draw
-an A harp, 6 blow
or
-an E harp, 4 blow

Remember to stay within the same column.

The highest slot (the ten hole) on Long slot reed plates have different dimensions than the eighth slot on Short slot reed plates. They are separated on the chart.

Some notes of the scale have different names - C# is the same note as Db and G# is the same note as Ab. If this were a table of scale degrees, I would respect the proper names. But since this chart is built for speed and simplicity, I've picked the most commonly used names of the notes. I've only used one name for the enharmonic notes.

Use this chart to help plan out altered tunings. I find it helpful when the altered tuning goes beyond three octaves. You will find that it's often more advantageous to start with a high key (short slot reed plate) and tune the low end downwards rather than start with a low key and tune the high reed up. You often have more options when you start with a short slot set of plates.

Save and use the chart displayed on this page for free. Right-click on it and save it to your computer or phone.

I am offering a higher resolution version as PDF files. There is a color one as well as a black and white version.

Download PDF page.

I can also send you a printed version in high resolution on coated 100 lb stock which is perfect for hanging on your wall by your workbench at eye level for quick reference.

Purchase printed version page.

How do you replace a reed? You can do it! Take a look at my Reed Replacement Kit.

I have revived an older project and completed it.

I had not been happy with the final cut of these videos so I went back and made the necessary changes. Now is the time for this.

Because of the Covid19 pandemic, many folks are stuck at home and with a reduced income. I hope that these videos can help you bring the best out of your instruments and allow you to become self-reliant in keeping your harps in top shape.

I'm releasing this at half price for the duration of this pandemic.

You can get this set two ways:

1- As a 650 Meg download from my website.

2- As a USB drive shipped from RockinRon's.

This set of videos is a guide for hands-on learning. Harmonica customization is a hands-on art.

These videos cover a lot of ground. A lot about the diatonic harmonica is not well understood - There's a lot of misinformation on the internet about what's supposed to work to get your harp to perform. These videos will set you straight. Had I had access to this information when I first started repairing harmonicas, it would have taken years off my learning curve.

This is a simple and effective way to open up / fold the backs of the cover plates.

It may be more interesting to modify the back of the cover a different way, though. Some versions of the pre-war Marine Band had a much smaller "lip" but because of the 90 degree angle, it can provide a lot of support against crushing. It's still very open.

This is a modern cover plate modified in that way:

This is how it looks assembled:

I am introducing a new color for my Dark Combs™.

As soon as I decide on a name, I will be adding them to the website.

Will a custom harmonica help students make progress faster?

Some would say that a custom harp should be reserved for experienced players who have learned breath control. I disagree. I think it's easier to learn breath control from the very start. Playing with too much force is a bad habit and it can be hard to correct these behaviours.

A custom harmonica is extremely responsive and allows you to focus on fine motor control. It's also more fun to play which can lead to a better outlook and more hours spent practising.

Will a custom harmonica make you a better player?

Some pro players use custom harmonicas, some don't. Many professional players can make music on any harp - no matter how bad it is.

But will they play each harp exactly the same? Will they play the same riffs? Will they take as many risks? I'm sure they can find a way to express a feeling no matter what instrument they've got because they've put in the years of practice.

A stock harp has the notes, it's just harder to play them. I think it's easier to play a cheap harp once you have developed fine motor control using a responsive harp like a custom harmonica. An unresponsive harp just needs more force.

I believe the opposite is harder - It's a greater challenge to develop fine control if you start off with lots of force.

We need an evidence-based study to shed light on these questions.

Some would say that it will always be a subjective experience and therefore the question can never be answered (all answers are correct.)

It is possible to get an objective assessment of something subjective. Take pain for example. You cannot tell exactly what someone's pain feels like but you can objectively compare treatments and rate how pain scores change. This is what inspired 'the assessment': https://harp.andrewzajac.ca/TheAssessment

As for an objective study, I've started the conversation with a few instructors. It would require a lot of work over several years.

My idea so far is as follows:
- recruit several top instructors to have their students enter the study.
- all levels of progress would be welcome but I think the least experienced students would provide the best data because they would have developed fewer bad habits.
- each student will receive two harps from me. On the outside, they will be identical. One will be defect-free stock and the second will be high-performance (custom). Which harp is which will be randomised. The student's won't know nor will the instructors. (Randomised, double-blind.)
- each student is given a schedule to use a particular harp exclusively for study and practice that week. The schedule will give equal time to both harps over a period of a few months.
- after each lesson, both the student and the teacher complete an evaluation. Questions are about objective (teacher evaluated) progress (did they achieve the lesson goal? ) , subjective (student evaluated) progress (how do you think you did?) How may hours did you practice this week, how fun was practising this week, etc...
Possible outcomes to look for are:
- do students make better progress with custom or stock harps?
- do they put in more hours when using one harp over the other
- do they have more fun?
- can the evaluator guess which harp they are playing without asking or getting any hints?
- which type of harp has a greater propensity for blowing out a reed?
- etc...

I think we would need to gather data from 50-100 students being followed over a few months of lessons to reach significance.

I estimate I would be able to provide both harps for CAD $200.00 which is slightly more that the retail price of two performance level instruments.

Possible weaknesses include:

- Bias from instructors evaluating their own students.
I feel that this would be controlled because both the student and teacher are blinded to the type of harp. It would be ideal to have an independent evaluator measure progress, but this would be complicated and I fear compliance rates would be low due to the extra time and effort required after each lesson. Using the instructors for evaluation would be straightforward since it's something that could be done in the final minute of each lesson.

- Different instructors would have different criteria, lesson plans and teaching styles and therefore absolute progress would not be expected to be the same between instructors.
I feel that this would be controlled because we could measure relative improvement instead of absolute improvement.

- The expense of the instruments and lessons may correlate with the level of interest or emotional investment of the student. If instructors charge different rates for lessons, this introduces another variable that can have an impact on outcomes.

2019-12-15

Contact me if you have any suggestions or questions about this idea. I'd love to hear from you.

Order Tuning Cards here.

A harmonica won't "break" or sound wrong if you tune it a little differently than how it came from the factory. Harmonicas are said to conform to a certain temperament but most off-the-shelf harmonicas are not tuned precisely enough for the temperament to matter all that much anyway.

These days, if any chords are in harmony, it's usually limited to the bottom end of the instrument.

Before the 1960s, harmonicas were in much better tune because it seems that making a perfectly-tuned instrument was the primary focus at the factory. (Little did they know the same things they were doing to the instrument to help make the chords play well also helped make it easy to bend notes!) By making today's harmonicas play with harder breath and try to last longer, we've moved away from factory-made instruments that are in perfect tune.

Putting that aside, imagine that you do indeed get an instrument that is tuned with a lot of accuracy from the factory. What does that mean?

What is temperament?

Equal Temperament is a configuration where the pitches of all notes are divided up equally. In this configuration, chords don't sound in harmony. Tuning your harp to this configuration doesn't really require a lot of precision.

7-limit Just Intonation is a configuration where notes are slightly off-pitch to make the major chord of the scale play in perfect harmony. This configuration requires the most precision because each reed needs to resonate at an exact frequency to produce the strongest harmony.

Compromise tuning is anything in the middle, including "19-limit Just Intonation". Chords can be in tune and the notes can still sound fine when played alone. There are a few different "recipes" for Compromise tuning however there is not one best way to compromise between the two extremes.

Are octaves in tune? Compromise-tuned harmonicas are supposed to provide smooth octaves, but they often fall short. Most Equal Temperament harmonicas don't even try. What if you play octaves but don't play major chords? (Example: Playing in the style of William Clarke requires lots of octaves but hardly any chords.) You'd be very happy with Equal Temperament along with in-tune octaves which is less work than tuning for chords and octaves.

The tuning of some Equal Temperament configured harmonicas is so imprecise that some of the notes are farther out of tune than if configured for strong sounding chords.

The conclusion is: Your playing style may not align with one particular temperament. There's no need to conform to any particular configuration. You can tune a harmonica any way you like. Spend time working on the elements you need and save time by not worrying about the rest.

What should I use instead of temperament?

Decide which chords, octaves / intervals and single notes you need to be in tune.

- Do you need chords to be in tune? Which ones? Who says you can't tune half the harp for chords and the other half for single notes?

- Do you need octaves to be in tune? Do you prefer them wet*?

- Do you need the intervals of the Fifths and Thirds to be in harmony? Don't worry about any intervals other than octave, thirds and fifths.

- Lastly, does tuning for major chord harmony make the thirds sound too flat when played as single notes to your ear? If so, choose between the chord or the single note.

(*) Wetness is when an octave beats intentionally. Example: Tremolo harmonicas have two identical reeds playing the same pitch but slightly off-tune from the factory. On a 10-hole diatonic harmonica, tuning the reeds to be in perfect tune is ideal. You can hit the octave dry and if you want some wetness, you can phase out the pitch with your embouchure. You probably can't take a wet octave back in tune using your embouchure though.

I've created The Tuning Card to help you tune a harmonica freestyle - without necessarily using temperament. The Tuning Card helps you tune what you need.

Lay the plate (or the assembled harmonica) on the Tuning card. Use the colors to help you map out which reed you need to adjust.

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I do not advocate tuning "by the numbers." You won't end up with chords or octaves in tune if you simply play each note into a tuner and adjust the pitch. The pitch of a single reed played on a harmonica is not stable - it's influenced by our embouchure, our breath force and a few other factors.

Pick the method that meets your requirements:

Simple: If you never play chords or octaves, accuracy is not required. Use Equal Temperament. It's the easiest configuration. Simply use a tuner to tune all the notes to an offset of zero on your tuner. This is how most budget/inexpensive harmonicas are tuned. You can expect the accuracy of each note to be about + or - 6 cents.

Intermediate: If you like chords and octaves but are not skilled at tuning, tune only the elements you need. Tune the chords on the low end of the harmonica. Tune the rest for either smooth octaves or Equal Temperament. Chords and octaves can sound fine when tuned with an accuracy of + or - 2 cents.

Advanced: Perfect harmony gives your chords more power. Build a chord using dynamic breath for extra precision. Double check each note with the fifths and thirds. Use the octaves to tune the other chords and use their thirds and fifths to "square" - double or even triple check each reed for maximum precision. This process takes more time, skill and attention to detail. It requires accuracy and notes should be accurate to within a fraction of a cent.

Most people - even those with perfect pitch - can't pick up on 13 cents difference in absolute pitch. But relative pitch - when two notes are played together - is much more obvious to everybody, even those not gifted with perfect pitch.

The Tuning Card helps you through the process of tuning using relative values instead of absolute ones.

You can use the French Tuner™ along with the Tuning Card.

The underling principle is to play the notes you are working on together and use your ears to help you decide whether to raise or lower the pitch.

The gapping paradox is a reed that doesn't respond unless it is very tightly gapped or a reed that locks up unless the gap is opened too much. It's either all or nothing. In both cases, the instrument is no fun to play no matter how you set the gaps. The Gapping Paradox is also the expectation that the only setup a harmonica needs is gapping.

Sometimes gapping doesn't work.

Gapping is adjusting the height of the tip of the reed at rest.

The height from the reed plate determines how much breath it will take to get the reed to play.

Best practice is to adjust the gaps so that the reeds all respond to the same breath. If the instrument offers you enough range, you can fine-tune the reeds to best suit your breath force habits too. Some players prefer harps to respond best to hard breath and some prefer harps that play with less air.

There is an expectation among harmonica players that the only setup skill you need to learn is to gap a harp "to your preference".

We all know this is false. There are times when you can't get the reeds to respond unless the gaps are way too tight - so tight they are not playable. And if you open up the gap even a little bit, the note becomes sluggish or plays with too little power and bad tone.

Likewise, we see reeds that lock up unless the gaps are opened up far too wide which makes both the blow and draw notes too airy and very weak.

This is the gapping paradox: It's either all or nothing.

When faced with this paradox, most harmonica players come to one of two conclusions:

1 - "It's my fault, I'm terrible at gapping. There is some secret extra skill to gapping that I just can't tap into."

2 - "This harmonica is a dud. There is nothing anyone can do about it."

Usually, both conclusions are false.

When you run into the Gapping Paradox, understand that to fix the problem you need to go beyond gapping.

It's the harp's fault. It is a victim of mass-production syndrome. It's not possible for a factory to churn out perfectly-adjusted defect-free instruments unless hours of work are spent on each one. But it doesn't mean the harp is a dud, either.

In most cases, the defect(s) can be corrected in a matter of minutes.

Foundational problems include warped or bowed reed plates and combs. Another foundational problem is a reed that's off-center at the base.

Bowed reed plates are particularly sneaky! In addition to making the harp leaky, you can be fooled by gaps that seem to change all by themselves.

You can adjust the gaps to your liking with the covers off only to find that the harp is completely reconfigured every time you put on the covers. This is because the covers are changing the shape of the slots as the screws are tightened. You are putting tension on the bow.

A bowed reed plate can also make you think there is a problem with the reeds' shape. (See below.) But the problem is that the slot is not a straight reference (it's bowed!) Always address foundational problems before you consider reed work or you will be working against yourself.

Gaskets can help relieve air leaks but they don't make the slots straight. The best solution is to straighten all components.

With a little practice, you can correct the flatness of most combs and both reed plates in a matter of minutes. I offer tools to help with this which allow you to see the curvature and fix it.

Off-center reeds can be aligned at the base. See here.

Reed shape problems are another common cause of the Gapping Paradox.

Gapping focuses on the very tip of the reed. "The gap" is the height of the tip of the reed by definition. Think of reed work as gapping the whole length of the reed. We are adjusting the height of every part of the reed from base to tip.

For example, if the middle of the reed enters the slot before the rest of the reed, there is no amount of gapping that can make that reed perform well. This reed will always disappoint you until you fix its shape.

You can find more details about reed work in the second half of The Grip video and on my USB videos

Again, with a little practice you will be able to fix obvious problems with reed shape in a matter or minutes. This will turn that dud harmonica into a fully-functional part of your collection.

You can do it! A little bit of knowledge and an afternoon of practice can make all your harps play better, save you money (don't throw away a dud) and give you more confidence.