Newton Fourkey, similarity to Spanish tuning

[Gnarly He Man]

Hi—
I just dug out a 10 hole diatonic I had retuned to Fourkey—
| C c# | D e |  F f# | G g# | A b |
And recognized the similarity to Spanish tuning—

|C e | F g# | A b |

In both cases the “chord” is F blow, E draw. On the Fourkey, these are pentatonics.

Anybody using either of these tunings?

[John Broecker]

Hello, Gnarly.

I've never tried Four-key tuning, but I've played the
F major/E major "Spanish Tuning" on a special order
Hohner Pro-Harp, described as "F/E draw bending".

On these charts, the Large letters are upper reed plate
reeds, small letters are lower reed plate reeds:

|| 1   |  2  |  3   | 4   |  5  |  6    |  7    |  8    |   9   | 10   ||
||A b |C e |F g# |A b |C e |F g# |A  b  |C e   |F g# |A b   ||

and the "F/E draw and blow bending":

||  1  |  2  |  3     |  4  | 5  |   6   |   7  |   8   |   9  |  10  ||
||A b |C e |F g#  |A b |C d |F eb |A gb |C bb |F db |A gb ||
||         (E7 draw bending) || (Ebm7 blow bending)         ||

The two harps were also called "Demmler System" harps.
In the 1990 Hohner English language (USA) catalog, the
Hohner Pro-Harp was available in all Natural Minor and
Harmonic Minor factory keys, and low F and high G.

I was more comfortable with the phyrgian mode on a standard
Richter diatonic harp (5th position), for Spanish music, mostly
in the lower-keyed harps. That was back in the early - mid 1990s.

Best Regards, Stay Healthy

JB
The Hermann Gottlieb
of Harmonicas.

[Gnarly He Man]

I received a PentaHarp as a gift from Mike Peace, and retuned it to Spanish—at that point, I thought I should let him have another whack at it.
I think he likes it well enough, I will report back with his impression.

[SlideMeister]

I seem to remember, that's pretty much all "Jazzman" (David Merryweather?) used to talk about.

[Gnarly He Man]

Yes, the LeGato is a slide version of Newton Fourkey.
The interesting thing about N4K is that the “four keys” lie between the two pentatonics.
So F blow, E draw, those two keys are one flat and four sharps, the four keys are C, G, D,and A—

[Gnarly He Man]

http://home.uchicago.edu/~rmyerson/reading/fourkeyintrod.pdf
Roger Myerson SPAH presentation on N4K and the variation he came with (that I am studying) called PentaBender.

[Gnarly He Man]

Roger makes mention of using the Hohner 365 (it has 14 holes!) for these tunings—I think the Lucky 13 would be a good choice as well, but some modifications would be necessary.

[SlideMeister]

Roger makes mention of using the Hohner 365 (it has 14 holes!) for these tunings—I think the Lucky 13 would be a good choice as well, but some modifications would be necessary.

That's the ONE suck-harp that I really miss. I've heard guys at conventions that absolutely played the snot out of them. I had a real nice one, but have no idea what ever happened to it.