A bit over 3 Octaves and 1.5 tones are gained in the low end where as 1/2 a tone is lost in the highend as compared to the same key in Richter.
Octaves everywhere 4 notes apart. This makes switching octaves using TB extremely easy. And I love the sound of Ocataves.
Eliminates the need for OB/OD unless your into jazz. 10/12 notes avail per octave
All draw bends. It’s essentially the 1st 3 holes of Paddy Richter duplicated over the whole harp - and shifted up a little so you get some extra low notes which is super useful for me.
Same breath pattern throughout all 10 holes.
Repeated Octaves makes it amazing for improvising with.
On a C Harp, I play the keys F, C, G and D (and their relative minors) with a focus on pentatonic scales. C and G require no bends throughout all 3 octaves. F and D require one bend (for pentatonic scales). I play blues in 1st and 2nd position on this harp when i want to do blues
The strength of this tuning is the pentatonic scales, so if you like those, this tuning rocks.
14 4 hole octaves no matter where you are on the harp. Numeroud double stops, 3 and 5 hole splits.
Some Cons
If you’re a speed player, say goodbye to the diatonic scale opened up in the second octave. I’m more of a tone player.
It’s works well for the blues, but it’s more of a general purpose tuning than a blues tuning. It’s strength lies in improvisation.
Having all 3 octaves the same is a pro and con. A pro for me, but for someone who likes have 3 differently laid out octaves, it’s a weakness.
All my harmonicas use this tuning. I feel like this tuning helped me progress faster on the harp than I would have with the traditional richter tuning. I’ve been playing the harmonica for 4 years now. I have some videos from last year - but nothing spectacular. I’m much better now but I’m working on my skills for another year before I start posting things that make this tuning shine.
Here are a couple from a year ago. The first video is improvised. I never heard this song before I played it. Remember I’m a newbie but this tuning makes improvising easy…
The second video is me just doodling a radio head song:
I use 6 harps to play all 12 keys of music, my favorite key is G, not because it’s the easiest to play, but because I love the sound…
Will Wilde has a rock tuned harmonica you can get from his website (Shop). Here is the description…
Holes one to five are exactly the same as standard tuning. Holes six, seven and eight are the same as holes two, three and four (just an octave higher). Hole nine is the same as hole two (two octaves higher) and the reeds in hole ten are reversed (so that what was a blow bend is now a draw bend). This makes fast minor pentatonic/blues scale runs much easier and means you no longer need to overblow/overdraw to get the flat third and flat five in the upper octave as they are now available as simple draw bends.
I have a couple of these Wilde-tuned Seydel 1847 harps that I really like (bought them direct from Seydel). However, I still prefer the Seydel 1847 PowerBender which allows you to bend the scale’s 6th note to get a flat 6 (= sharp 5) without having to overblow.
Using a C harp as my example, that means with a PowerBender you can play -5’ (this is then an Eb) – which is something I seem to use quite often.
Having said that, the Wilde-tuning is such a close second to the PowerBender … that I now have several harps in the same key but each with a different tuning: one in Wilde-tuning and one in PowerBender (and, of course, one standard Richter that doesn’t get used so often).
Hallo @Slim , kann ich nur bestätigen, der Südwesten Deutschlands ist wunderschön. Schwarzwald, Freiburg und Co., herrlich. Den Rhein liebe ich auch im Westen (;-)).
Beste Grüße Astrid
Ja @AstridHandbikebee63 es ist wirklich herrlich hier im Südwesten. Wir fahren oft in die Pfalz (heute sogar), um zu wandern und Weinstuben zu besuchen
Elsass ist auch gleich uns gegenüber und hat fantastische Weine, Essen, Wanderwege und Leute!!
Hey Slim - do you have any PowerDraws? It seems like maybe PowerDraw tuning and Will Wilde tuning are the same thing? From @bcorbitt82’s description I think it’s the same unless I’m missing something?
I’m looking forward to trying PowerBender and PowerDraw buy feel I might like the latter better because I will miss the -45 trill so much on the former, just like I do when I play the MelodyMakers.
No the PowerDraw (PD) and Wilde Tuned (WT) are different. Although both are identical from +1 (blow 1) until -5 (draw 5). So for the -(45) warble/trill there is no difference. Only holes 6 & 7 are different between the two. I will explain the difference using a C major tuned harp as my example.
PD hole 6 : +6 is G / -6 is A (so your hole 6 is like on all typical blues harps)
WT hole 6: +6 is E / -6 is G (root note is -6 and you can bend it to F# and even down to F)
PD hole 7 : +7 is A / -7 is B (so A occurs twice up here: -6 and +7)
WT hole 7: +7 is G / -7 is B (now G occures twice and -7 can be bent to Bb, A & Ab)
Thinking about it is one thing, actually playing them is the only real way to appreciate what you can do with them. It is really great to be able to bend the G at -6 on the WT harp (as well as on the PowerBender harp, although there +6 is F rather than E). This is reason enough for me to prefer the WT to the PD harp.
The ability to bend the WT harp’s -7 the same number of steps as -3 is also very appealing, however I personally find it rather difficult to accurately hit the A & Ab at -7 (plus, their high pitch is rather annoying compared to simply playing a bendable -6 or a (non-bendable) +7 for the A on a PD harp (both of which have better tone quality for the A than the -7 double bend for the A on a WT harp).
I had already mentioned in another post that I do not use the -(45) warble very often and I like the ability to bend the E to an Eb at hole draw 5 that you get on the PowerBender harp. So that is my main reason for my personal ranking of these 3 harps as:
Thank you SO MUCH for taking the time to note the differences between the PD and WT tuning. It seems like for all of these tuning the lower keys (G-Bb kind of range) would probably be the best sounding as the high draws bends probably don’t sound good, say on an F harp. LOL. But who knows. I’m so excited to dip my toes into these alternate tuning harmonica waters!
Thanks again, Slim. This thread is becoming quite a nice compendium on the subject, thanks in no small part to you, my friend!!!
You are very welcome, @Luke – and you are correct (in my opinion): the tunings from Bb and lower produce the best bending tone quality in the upper (hole 7 and higher) range. I have a Seydel 1847 PowerBender (PB) – not PD – in low F that is really sounding good up there.
And I should add that my 1847 Wilde-tuned harp in A is also excellent !!!
I was mentioning to @drexellkleber that if I were playing Heard it in a Love Song I would probably choose a G harmonica or a D Melody Maker, and he asked me what’s the deal with the Melody Maker and why I might choose that harp? I thought I’d respond to that question here to keep things tidy.
The Lee Oskar Melody Maker is designed to enable the player to play a MAJOR TONALITY in SECOND POSITION.
The normal tonality of 2nd position is best described as Mixolydian, which simply means that it’s like a regular major scale with a Major 3rd, but the 7th degree is lowered by half-step.
So on a G harmonica, if we are playing in the key of D and we want to play the MAJOR 7 which is a C#, we can do down low on the -2’, and up high on the 9’, but in the middle octave the -5 is a natural C, the MINOR 7, and the ONLY way to get the C# which is the MAJOR 7 is to play an overblow on hole 5, which is a super advanced technique that few people can do well.
SOOOO, the Melody Maker is tuned where the -5 IS the C#/MAJOR 7. If you want the C natural theory, you can bend down the -5’, but normally it plays like you’re playing a D major scale.
ALSO, the 3 blow plays the MAJOR 2ND, which is E in the key of D, the note we would normally have to do the challenging -3" to be able to play.
And that’s basic scoop on the Melody Maker tuning. Hope that helps!
That’s great stuff Luke. Way over my head…lol…but great. My son is a professional tuba player so I’ll have him explain the details to me.
On the practical side, I bought a LO melody maker. In D since you tabbed it out in D. Should I have bought the MM in G and played it the way you tabbed it? Is the MM interchangeable with my other Hohner harps or will the different tuning of 5 draw cause some songs to sound wrong.
I’ve also been working on Jesu Joy of Man’s Desire. Pretty simple. All single notes. Will the MM be a better harp for that song? I read somewhere that the MM is best for single notes, tho better for draw notes than blow and Jesu is about 50/50 blow/draw.
Hey Drexel - the Melody Makers are labeled in 2nd position. So you got the right harp. A D melody maker is the the same basic harmonica as a standard G harmonica, with a few tuning variations.
The Melody Maker will sound wrong if you’re reading tab for a regular harmonica.
3 blow on the Melody Maker is -3" on a standard.
-5 is half-step higher on Melody Maker than on standard.
No I think straight harp is best for classical music. Melody Maker is good when you wanna add some jazz or soul to a melody with a major tonality. It’s also really good for country, soul, Motown, and reggae.
I have a question about the “Melody Maker” Tuning. It is probably not a great question, but I have played enough that I can take MANY songs and play them ‘by ear’, as my body responds to the note sequences and just pretty much plays the proper note by habit. I have about 3 harps that I really like, 2 g’s (special 20, Bushman) and 1 LC (LO). My other harps are cheepies, all in key of C (which is too high for my taste). I play mostly in 2nd position, where there are not that many changes to the notes (two F#‘s, one of which is bendable to F, the other (hole 9) not bendable. However, if I start relearning the key sequence, I will probably make my 3 harps (and about $150.00) obsolete. I really don’t know if I can relearn all my usual tabs with new tab sequences, but I can’t really see trying to play 2 different “octaves”. And, I believe that the "melody maker’ has different hole values than any of the Seydel, Bushmaker, or Hohner “special tunings” It is really like learning a new keyboard setup on a piano…What are your thoughts on that?
Thanks,
God Bless You
Poppo
, but play others in position 1. Would getting a ‘melody maker’ (as I am tired of struggling with
I’ve been playing a lot of minor key blues lately and looked hard at minor tuned harps. As Luke says in the opening to this list, it’s a rabbit hole!
My poor old brain has enough trouble finding its way around the normal 10 hole diatonic, and extending that to a 16 hole chromatic and a 29 hole bass has kept the brain busy. My compact chord harmonica is a bridge too far just now!
So rather than buy more harmonicas and have to figure out the note layout for every different harmonica, I have been focussing in playing in different positions (and sometimes using Lo octave harps as well) to get the notes that work for the minor tunes. At least that way the same note is in the same hole!
So I’m managing to avoid shopping for yet more harps!
