Hi Ive been playing standard solo tuned chromatic harmonica for a few years now am thinking of retuning a secondary harp in an alt tuning for more access to double stops or harmony across keys for tunes or accompanying others.

Would appreciate any thought on which tuning(s) I should choose (in terrible at choosing trade offs), I mostly play classical and folk but also some rock and bluesy stuff since they're crowded pleasers

Circular/spiral

Usually a diatonic tuning that gives all the common chords in a key with adjacent alternating minor and major thirds, I realized a Chromatic version of this could play half of all major/ minor chords with the rest faked as power chords (tongue blocked fifth double stops), looked it up and found a couple people gave tried it**.**

Pros: easy access access to all perfect fifths as well as half of all major 3rds and 7ths and the opposite half of minor 3rds and 7ths, ~three octaves in ten holes so more cuppable.

Cons: no octaves eg asymmetric, not truly key agnostic

The other two options are basically major/ minor variants of each other

Diminished

The most popular alt tuning for chroms, built on adjacent minor thirds. Diatonic players often like it bcs it only has three patterns to learn every standard scale and semitone bends on every draw unvalved (I like valved bends though so not too much of a draw either way).

pros: makes all minor 3rds, diminished 5ths, major 6ths, and octaves easily available. Allowing you to play root-third of minor chords and third-fifth of major chords

Cons: I don't find much of the Playing I find online inspiring, can sounds tense/unresolved to me, great for moody songs but could be undesirable otherwise

Wholetone/Augmented

Diminished's less popular little brother built on adjacent major thirds. Like dimi it only needs four patterns for standard scales but since every note up the scale is a whole tone step (slide filling the semitones) it eliminates any repeat notes giving it three octaves in ten holes

Pros: access to major 3rds, minor 6ths and octaves easily available. Allowing you to play root-third of major chords and third-fifth of minors, again ten holes cuppability

Cons: not much info online, should have the opposite end of the stick to diminished, resolved sounding harmonically though at least it has every augmented chord which do have an "unresolved" quality.

Thanks again for any advice, I might try retuning harps to two of them and choosing which I prefer.

Hello!

I know this isn't strictly a fiddle question but i thought you'd be good people to ask since your familiar with an instrument that often plays limited (not fully chordal) harmony.

I play chromatic harmonica, mostly anglo/Celtic folk tunes and classical (though also a bit of blues too since it's a crowd pleaser) and was considering retuning a harmonica which would offer easy access to more harmony to for accompanying others/ adding double stops to my playing.

The standard tuning, called solo, is good and intuitive but is centred around c and as such has varying harmonic possiblities which are quite limited in some keys without advanced techniques. for all these layouts notes on the same row are playable together (each row represents whether it's blow or draw and whether the slide which raises everything by a semitone is pushed in)

the tunings I've looked at are;

Diminished

Gives easy access to all minor 3rds and major sixths, plus octaves (and also diminished fifths)

So you'd have the root, iii for minor "chords" (C Eb, G Bb, ect) and the iii, V for major "chords" (E G, B D, ect)

Augmented/ "whole tone"

Gives easy access to all major thirds and minor sixths, plus octaves

So you'd have iii, V for minor "chords" (Eb G, Bb D, ect) and the root, iii for major "chords" (C E, G B, ect)

Circular

Gives easy access to all perfect fifths , and half of all major/minor thirds (also half of all major/minor chords) and sevenths, since it's built on alternating major and minor thirds

So you just have half of all major/ minor chords but the rest would have to be faked with fifths, ie you can play g major but not g minor, so you could play g + d. Also no octaves

Obviously all of these are useful intervals depending on what effect you want genre your playing but i would appreciate any advice on which option you reckon has the most useful readily available intervals or any other thoughts you might have (i may try making two of them to try out)

Thanks in advance for any help