"whimsical faking" and 9th chords

On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 12:47 PM, Todd Crowley wrote on Cyberpluckers:

Quoting Bob Lewis: "We haven't yet seen a better idea. Two button chording systems that substitute ugly 9th chords for 7th chords are not it."

Since the Gentleman from South Carolina is a self-admitted diatonic purist, I would submit he is not in the best position to pronounce the 9th chords as "ugly substitutes" for 7th chords.

[Bob]

At the risk of dignifying a cheap shot, I have a couple comments about that.

That implies that you are somehow a better judge, neither of us spending a lot of time playing chromatics. Faulty logic. It would be very much like me dismissing the credibility of your opinion on lockbars, just because you don't play open notes and then don't value having lockbars.

How were you suddenly qualified to design the latest in chromatic autoharps, when strictly a diatonic player, single key at that. Granted you sought qualified advice, but all of us can depart from our specialty without deserving to be discredited. If one rarely plays a chromatic, how does that mean he doesn't know anything about chromatics?

Shall we tell Hal Weeks that he is no longer allowed an opinion about diatonics, because he gave up playing them? Shall we tell Bryan Bowers he cannot prescribe chord layouts for chromatics because he doesn't play one?

Should a luthier be entirely discredited because he isn't a player of any particular skill? Do you want to tell George Orthey that he isn't allowed to express an opinion about something in the autoharp realm either because he isn't actually a player or because he is deaf and couldn't possibly have anything useful to offer?

I have judged four times and turned down another offer. Two of my winners played chromatic. I would claim some credibility. I also do this stuff on a daily basis and am one asked to implement some of these fits of genius. I tend to find the errors and not get paid for the extra time in finding and fixing them.

You wrote to me once that you regarded my knowledge of theory relevant to the autoharp as second only to Mark Fackeldey's, effectively anointing me as numero uno after his passing. You will need to allow me to maintain my status even when it's inconvenient for you.

You thought enough of my ability to recruit me as one of your initial consultants along with Will Smith, Hal Weeks, and Pete Daigle. I declined to get very involved because I thought the idea was dead on arrival, noting that it provided no 7th chords and then not very interested in studying it further. It provided chords one doesn't need and lacks chords one would definitely miss. I did not want to be party to promotion of the use of these "9th" chords, poor musicianship or musically cynical in my opinion.

It's all just stupid, petty stuff. A point should be debated on facts and ideas, not discrediting of one who has an opposing view. I suggest you not use that argument again. We are either right or we are wrong, never mind what credentials we have hanging on the wall or whether you have deemed someone worthy of your blessing or a peer of your demigods.

More recently, I own chromatics and play them on occasion. I also work on/customize chromatics in one form or another almost daily. Today I am working on my own "Sharps chromatic", GDAE in the bass and standard chromatic from there up. It is 18 chord, meantone chromatic with three dim7 chords filling the three remaining slots otherwise unused in the 21 chord bar set. That is a tuning limited to 6 majors like all meantone temperaments. The V7 of the right most key is enharmonic to the major of any 7th major key to the left (beyond the limit of 6). For example, I cannot have both a B7 and an Eb chord, since the tunings of D# (B7) and Eb (EbMajor) would need to be quite different in a meantone temperament. A standard 21 bar has 7 keys while I only have 6, careful to avoid any notes that serve as both a sharp and a flat.

I have recently acquired custom fine tuners especially for the model B and which are light weight, so I am going through my instruments to upgrade them. Those instruments that didn't have fine tuners before will now get played more often, be easier and faster to tune and, most importantly, to more precisely tune. Weight in holding the instrument hasn't been a problem for me personally, but avoiding or removing weight should produce the better sound, the strings driving less mass. That has proved itself out in my impressions of instruments already upgraded.

The flats chromatic is next. The sharps harp is figured on the lower D# to D octave being 10 notes for GDAE instead of the standard FCGD within the D to C# octave. The flats harp uses the notes for AbEbBbF within an Eb to D octave. All of them are standard chromatic in the plain string melody range. Hoping to make that more clear for those not following me, the standard tuning in the first bass octave is 10 notes covering the key scales of FCGD. The D# and G# are omitted. Since that works so well for FCGD, any change in key emphasis simply affects that same range plus the very bottom bass The upper part of the instrument is left alone for practical reasons. It is designed for FCGD, and a veteran player's fingers know here to find notes...best not to move them. One might like to have a differing top end, but the instrument is not designed for that, and again, I already know where notes are located and would rather not move them. That is precisely the same concern as expressed by Harvey Reid, although I don't intend to imply that I play just like he does. I simply have noted that my playing deteriorates when I move things from familiar locations.

Three harps (chromatic) will cover the key range of 1) four flats, 2) one flat, C, and two sharps, and 3) four sharps. The prime keys are AbEbBbF, FCGD, and GDAE , the juiciest keys being Eb, C, and D respectively. I expect then that I will have 10 keys, four flats through four sharps, that I can play without having to put up with significant harmonics. 'Not a lot different in concept from Alan Mager's four key chromatics, wherein he chose to carry two instruments with different key emphases.

If I like these, I will upgrade the chord bars to 18 bar hand made sets. I now have end holders for 15, 18, or 21. I don't expect I would use the diminished 7th chords, partly due to tuning issues.

[Todd]

When I first experimented with opening the 9th on the 7th chords on my diatonic 'harps, I thought it was a failed experiment because there were too many competing open strings. But when I tried it on a straight chromatic having those two extra strings open felt like the whole chord opened up, and it sounded every bit as bluesy and jazzy as the dominant 7th it came to replace, if not more so.

[Bob]

Sorry, but it sounds out of place to my ear, not necessarily "ugly" per se, and existing harmony convention documents why. The 7-8-9-10 cluster is discordant. Some will not like it. Keyboard and vocal harmony practice leaves out either the 8 (normally referred to as a 9th 1-3-5-7-9) or the 7 (=add9). Even then it never repeats for another octave and then another. It cannot be well implemented on an autoharp, because the octaves overlay each other, when extending chords beyond a single octave (9th, 13th et al.). You can't adequately control the voicing and will get the 4 note clusters.

When Charles Deering, autoharp player as well as music professor, first suggested fingering two 9th chords at a time in a post here in 1997, using combinations of 9th chords to yield various conventional chords, he said nothing about playing a single 9th chord by itself. When you attempt to make a 9th bar a sub for a 7th, the whole concept loses credibility.

It's not so much that I couldn't play such an instrument as much as it seems a scam to suppose that people will spend money, time, and energy on this thing not realizing they will have no 7th chords or underestimating how much they will miss them. There is too much faith and hyperbole involved here, bordering on a cult like following.

People needed to read the fine print, because you do mention the absence of 7th chords in the write up. If you say that the 9th chords sound okay instead, that doesn't mean it's true. You (Todd) have on more than one occasion stated that you rely on others in the family for a better ear than yours. Offering up Hal Weeks' name as a defense or for credibility doesn't change anything. Hal has no problem sounding funky, while I and many others certainly do, playing a different kind of music than hard core blues. Younger musicians also have an ear for programmed chaos and energy, whereas an older generation might require more consonance and sense of order.

The diapentic is just an academic exercise in my view. The additional chords are stuff that no one needs or which they could already have in a 15 bar set. It fixes something that wasn't broken, using two fingers instead of one just for the sake of doing it. My single key harps have 15 bars and more chords than I really need. I wouldn't dedicate a good autoharp to a configuration with very limited application. Also, substituting chords would need to be my exception, not the rule.

[Todd]

Don't pay any attention to my pronouncements or any other self-proclaimed experts.

[Bob]

You have acknowledged my expertise in other contexts. Why so fickle? I only seem to have importance and gain endorsement when we agree.

[Todd]

You can also hear a sample of Diachromic playing, which is not as the Gentleman from South Carolina wrongly states "two button chording". In most cases the "two bar chords" are played just as easily with one finger as with two, making them little different than "one button" chords.

[Bob]

That also makes the bars harder to play and master, the fingers' position on the button tops now critical. What about the instrument for mere mortals to play?

[Todd]

Quoting Bob Lewis: "I would say Marty and Mark are not emulated much because they never had the right chords. It was all whimsical faking"

Well, then Marty Schuman whimsically faked his way right into winning the first Winfield contest, the 2nd MLAG contest (in which the Gentleman from SC took part),and the Autoharp Hall of Fame, almost immediately upon his passing. And if Mark Fackeldey doesn't whimsically fake his way into the Autoharp Hall of Fame, in this his first year of eligibility, it will be a great travesty.

[Bob]

I won first place in "the 2nd MLAG contest". Marty either wasn't there or didn't make the finals. I have records for all the top five for nearly all Winfield and MLAG contests. I placed third to Marty's second place in the first year's contest. Marty won in the third year.

Marty's induction into the Hall of Fame that quickly after his passing was sufficiently questionable that the rules were changed. In order that inductions would not be based so much upon emotional reaction to a death, inductions now have a waiting period, as you noted for Mark. That is better so that the basis of an induction is less open to question or cynical comment.

I am not sure what to say about Mark. Make up your own reasons for nominating him or anyone else. I am not sure what to list as extraordinary accomplishments for Mark, but he did write my all time favorite article in AQ (In the Mode).

These inductions are supposed to be more than who died lately or a popularity contest. There need to be extraordinary accomplishments to be considered peers of previous inductees and to avoid offending them, cheapening the whole concept.

Personally, I think it was a shame that Mark couldn't get much attention while he was alive, a classic case of you-have-to-be-dead-to-be-famous. If a veritable Who's Who, the posthumous Autoharp Hall of Fame induction should still be more than who died lately- couldn't get a gig while he was alive - never knew he had so many friends. It becomes a sad, even pathetic exercise.

Inducting Mark has to be more than because Todd was indebted to him and feels the void left by his passing. I recall that Mark was pretty much a pedestrian while alive, with few people knowing quite how to talk to him or how to react to him. He was a character, but one to be taken seriously. If you guys had some bond, that doesn't mean the rest of us have to view him or anyone else as a demigod. We'll make up our own minds, but feel free to campaign, recognizing that it is not an election.

--
Bob Lewis