Just intonation harmonicas

A commenter on the last post informed me of a remarkable fact: for most of the twentieth century, Hohner harmonicas were tuned in just intonation, not twelve-tone equal temperament. This is surprising! Just about every fixed-pitch instrument in the Western world is tuned in 12-TET unless it’s highly specialized or esoteric. The most detailed information I can find on this subject is this post on a Hohner discussion forum. It says that before 1974, Hohner harmonicas were tuned in seven-limit just intonation. This doesn’t mean some weird Harry Partch tuning; Hohner used mostly five-limit intervals along with the harmonic seventh. In 1985, Hohner switched to nineteen-limit just intonation (!) because it gives pure intervals that approximate 12-TET more closely. In 1992, they switched again to a variety of tunings that split the difference between just intonation and twelve-tone equal temperament.

Before your eyes start glazing over, the important thing here is that when midcentury blues musicians like Little Walter Jacobs were playing their Hohner Marine Bands and Special 20s, they were playing in just intonation. 

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Check out this excellent blue note

I got a question from a Twitter friend:

Let’s find out! The note in question comes at 1:28.

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I Want To Hold Your Hand

My kids are deep into the Beatles right now, and unlike me, they like the early stuff as much as the late stuff. So I find myself listening repeatedly to “I Want To Hold Your Hand” for the first time in basically forever. As with so many Beatles songs, the silly lyrics are sitting on top of some highly ingenious music.

The funniest day of music theory class in grad school was when the professor played us the intro to this song as an example of bad voice leading. Everybody in the room lit up with recognition: “Oh yeah, we love that riff!” If the professor was trying to illustrate the universal validity of eighteenth century voice leading conventions, “I Want To Hold Your Hand” was a terrible choice. If those conventions are supposed to be universal, then why does it sound so good when the Beatles violate them? But if the conventions are limited to a particular historical and stylistic context, then why does every music major have to learn them?

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I Heard It Through The Grapevine

My first exposure to Marvin Gaye’s recording of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” was on the Big Chill soundtrack, which my baby boomer parents kept in heavy rotation.

Here’s a live version. Nobody wore a glittery tux like Marvin Gaye.

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Dorian mode

Dorian mode is such a cool scale. It evokes medieval chant and the blues. Its characteristic minor sixth chord is almost a diminished chord. And it’s unique among the diatonic modes for being symmetrical, meaning that it uses the same sequence of intervals going up and down. When you write Dorian on the chromatic circle, it’s left-right symmetrical, and it’s even more obviously symmetrical on the circle of fifths.

Dorian mode is like a combination of the natural minor scale and Mixolydian mode. You can make Dorian by raising the sixth of natural minor, or by flatting the third of Mixolydian.

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The Ghostbusters theme song

It’s Halloween, and that means that everyone is scrambling to find seasonal music beyond Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” In the pharmacy this morning, I heard “Ghostbusters” by Ray Parker Jr, and remembered that it’s an absolute banger. This is one of a long list of songs that I loved as a kid, became embarrassed by as a teenager, forgot about in young adulthood, and then learned to fully appreciate in middle age. I watched the movie about a thousand times as a kid and had the soundtrack on cassette. But it took me until recently to understand why I loved the song so much, and why I foolishly became embarrassed by it for a while.

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Blues harmony primer

For a more detailed and scholarly version of this guide with a bibliography, see my Blues Tonality treatise. See also this post on blues melodies.

How do chords and scales work in the blues? Is there a “blues scale”, and if so, what notes does it include? What are blue notes? Why does it sound good to play minor melody notes over major chords? To answer these questions, I combine my experiences of listening to and playing the music, talking to practitioners, and reading academic sources.

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Mixolydian mode

If you flatten the seventh note of the major scale, you get Mixolydian mode. It’s like a bluesier version of major.

Mixolydian is a medieval mode that fell out of favor with “art” music composers during the Baroque era. However, it stayed alive and well in various European folk traditions before having an explosion in popularity during the rock era, helped by its resemblance to the blues.

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The microphone placement playlist

Last week in music tech class, we talked about audio recording, and how the placement of microphones relative to the voices or instruments can shape the sound of a recording. Mics don’t just pick up the sound of the voice or instrument itself. They also pick up the sound of the voice or instrument bouncing off the walls, floor, and ceiling. Depending on where the mic is relative to the sound source, it might pick up more direct sound or more indirect sound. The specific blend tells the listener a lot about the environment that the sound was recorded in, and carries information about style and genre too. 

Here’s a highly simplified diagram of sound in an environment. The solid line represents direct sound, pressure waves going straight from the guitar into your ear. The dotted lines are indirect sound, pressure waves that bounce off the walls, floor and ceiling before reaching your ear.

In a recording, microphones are a stand-in for your ears, receiving pressure waves and converting them into electrical fluctuations. If the mic is close to the sound source, it will mostly pick up direct sound. If the mic is far away from the sound source, it will mostly pick up indirect sound. 

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In My Life

My daughter is getting deep into the Beatles, so I’m listening to them a lot with her. I don’t usually listen to the Beatles all that much, because I know their songs backwards and forwards and inside out. But it’s always nice to come back to the songs in a new context, and it’s rare to listen through them closely and repeatedly with someone who has never heard any of them before. One of the ones that piqued the kid’s interest was “In My Life.” When I was a teenager, I loved that tune without really knowing why. Now I have the tools to find out. So let’s find out!

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