Shift Tuning

The standard harmonica note layout, developed in the 19th century and known as the Richter tuning, has served us well. While most players use this tuning exclusively, some look to alternate tunings for specific music styles. The most famous alternate tuning player is Charlie McCoy, whose style is based on Country Tuning, where the five draw is raised a semitone. This allows second position melodies to be played with all the major scale notes, without overblows. Brendan Power comes next; his best known tuning is Paddy Richter, where the blow three note is raised a tone, allowing first position tunes to be played without the awkward whole and half-tone SHIFT TUNING bend on hole three. Brendan Power’s other tunings include the Power Tony Eyers Bender, where all draw notes can be bent. The amazing Will Wilde has a similar tuning, which underpins his unique rock style. I developed Major Cross tuning in the ’90s, and have used it since then for fiddle tunes. Cary Moskovitz has a Fiddle Tuning system, which adds a low note to the Paddy Richter system. These four tunings are all available from Seydel, at https://www.seydel1847.de/. The alternate tuning players mentioned here, myself included, are motivated by the same thing: a desire for a harmonica which better suits their music. While I’m mostly a tune player, I’ve recently started playing blues, swing, and country styles again. My guitar player uses 1940s jump horn lines a lot, I struggle to match them with standard Richter tuned harmonicas. Hence my latest idea, called ‘Shift Tuning’, outlined below. Jump style riffs often feature the same pattern over a I, IV and V chord. Moreover, the starting note, the root of the I chord, is generally the lowest. This doesn’t work so well in second position, however. A I chord riff, starting on the two draw, usually lays out

nicely. But repeating this riff on the IV and V chords (respective root notes being four blow, four draw) generally requires overblow notes. There has to be an easier way. The solution came to me one night. Move all holes one step to the right. Hole 1 moves to hole 2, hole 2 to hole 3, etc. Hole 9 becomes hole 10, meaning that we lose the Whammer Jammer note. This frees up hole number 1, which now has the old hole 3 notes, an octave lower. A standard Richter harmonica in C and its Shift Tuned counterpart are shown below.

Hole 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Blow C E G C E G C E G C Draw D G B D F A B D F A C Richter tuned

Hole 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Blow G C E G C E G C E G Draw B D G B D F A B D F C Shift tuned

Seydel has a nice feature on their site, the Harp Configurator, where you can design your own note layout. With the idea fresh in mind I went online, entered the Shift tuning layout shown above for an 1847 Classic model, and a week or so later it arrived. The first thing to note is that nine of the Shift tuned harmonica holes follow the standard Richter layout, just moved over one slot. A question then: would all the regular bends still work in the new slots? To my relief, they did. So all the standard second position patterns remain, except the ones using the old hole 10, which no longer exists. Note, however, that hole 1 on the Shift tuned harmonica repeats the hole 4 notes, an octave lower. Moreover, hole 1 blow on the Shift tuned harmonica is a G, the 2nd position root note for a C harmonica. You can also bend the hole 1 draw notes, just like you would for hole 3 on a regular Richter, but an octave lower. This means that virtually any 2nd position riff which has hole 2 as its lowest note on a standard Richter harmonica can be played on a shift tuned harmonica, but then repeated an octave lower, starting on hole 1 blow. This is a very powerful capability. Moreover, you have a complete