Comment by Stratoscope

This is very nice, thank you for creating it. I have a few suggestions, but they will have to wait until later this week. I see an email address on the Imprint page on your website - is that the best way to reach you?

Somewhat related, for any harmonica player who likes to play cross harp for that bluesy sound, and wants to branch out into songs written in a major or natural minor key (e.g. much pop/rock/country), let me suggest the Melody Maker tuning. This gives you a major scale (along with the relative minor) all up and down the harp in the cross harp position.

And you can still bend notes. You just don't have to for the major/minor scale notes.

For example, a High C Melody Maker is perfect for playing Stevie Nicks' vocal in Dreams. The song is in A minor, but the A minor harps from Lee Oskar and Seydel are in a lower register. The High C matches her range.

The song begins with "Now here you go again", and Stevie has a signature vocal bend on the word "go". She starts that word nearly a semitone flat and then slides up to pitch.

On the Melody Maker, that note is on the draw 3, where it is super fun and easy to start with a light bend to mimic her vocal style.

The nice thing is that you don't have to be so precise on your pitch with this bend. You just start low and slide up, like Stevie does.

I used to make my own Melody Makers by retuning a conventional Richter harp. You raise the blow 2 by a full step to get the second note in the major scale, and raise the draw 5 and draw 9 by a half step to get the minor 7ths. So an F Richter harp becomes a High C Melody Maker and is labeled that way when you buy one.

For years, Lee Oskar only sold Melody Makers in five keys, but now they have expanded it to nine keys including the High C and the Bb that I use for the late Songbird's vocal on You Make Loving Fun.

Seydel has always sold their Melodic Maker (same as Melody Maker) in all 13 keys, but their cover design is so different from Lee Oskar and Hohner that I never could switch back and forth without off-by-one-note errors.

(Yes, 13 keys, because there is both a Low C and a High C.)

Oh - how do you retune a harmonica? File the reeds! File off some weight at the tip and it raises the pitch. Scratch off some weight at the attached end and it lowers the pitch. You just need a single edge razor blade to lift the reed out of its slot, a fine point file or other small file, and an instrument tuner like Let's Bend.