12-hole Marine Band
A very good friend of mine recently gifted me a vintage 12-hole Marine Band harmonica that used to belong to his dad. It would be from the late '60's or early '70's, I think. My question for this forum (I'll be posting another in the Tech forum), what is the tuning on this compared to a 10-hole Richter-tuned diatonic? It has "C" stamped on it, so I'm assuming it to be C major diatonic, but certainly goes lower. And, this has the change in scale (blow/draw - draw/blow) at hole 7, it is lower on the scale than a 10-hole, but there is still the note skip at hole 10 (I think), it may also be there at hole 12?
I'll have to try it with my tuner app on my phone, but any additional input would be helpful. I'm quite excited to have this beautiful instrument.
[Edit to add]:
So I used the tuner app on my phone and found that the tuning/scale used for holes 1 through 10 are the same as my C Major harmonica, except that it's an octave lower. But holes 11 & 12 do an odd kind of dance back & forth around the notes I guess. Don't know quite how to say it. But here it is;
Blow: C E G
Hole: 10 11 12
Draw: A B D
So, to play the scale going up, you play 10 - 11 - 10+ - 12 - 11+ - 12+
That seems (and is) cumbersome to play. I expect it's the chords (C E G and A B D) that are the main thing we're looking at here?
Additional input or thoughts are still very welcome.
Thanks you very much Winslow. Is there a reason for the kind of odd (to my thinking) tuning of the last 2 holes? They don't progress in the same manner that the rest of the harmonica - going up scale from draw to blow, but rather seeming to jump back and forth a bit. I may not be wording this right.
The reasons the tuning gets so strange in Holes 11 and 12 is the same reason it changes at Hole 7.
The C major scale has 7 notes: C D E F G A B
If you make three of them the notes of a C major chord: C E G
That leaves four notes as draw notes: D F A B
Are you beginning to see what's gonna happen?
In Hole 4, you get C blow and D draw - the note goes up from blow to draw.
In Hole 7, though, C is now matched up with Draw B, so the note goes down one scale degree. it's that 4 draw notes to three blow notes mismatch coming home to roost.
On solo-tuned harmonicas (such as chromatics) the Holes 4-7 pattern keeps repeating, so after the C/B combination, you star over again with *another* C that's paired with D.
But on diatonics, that doesn't happen. Instead, starting at hole 7, C goes down to B (instead of up to D) E goes down to D (instead of up to F), G does down to F (instead of up to A).
And in Hole 10 - WHAT DOES C do?
Does it go up to D? NO.
Does it go down to B? NO.
Remember, we've got B, D, F so far as draw notes. Next one up is A.
So now C goes down to A, not one but now two scale degrees - the draw notes keeps slipping lower and lower in relation to the blow note.
In Hole 11, E goes down, not to D, but to B three scale degrees!), while in Hole 12 G goes down, not to F but to D (three scale degrees again).
So you see, that 4-to-3 mismatch is the gift that keeps on giving. When Hohner made the 14-hole Marine Band 365, Hole 13 went *down* from C to F (four scale degrees!), while E went to A (four degrees again) - the difference kept getting wider and wider. And all because of the 4-to-3 mismatch between draw and blow notes.
Thanks so much Winslow! That helps a lot. It makes sense now.
Take the first 10 holes of a standard Marine Band in C, and drop them one octave lower - thats what you get with the Marine Band 364 in C. - It's essential a Low C with two extra holes at the top end.
The two top holes are
Hole 11: E Blow, B, Draw, 12:
hole 12: G BLow, D Draw.
The 364 in D is also like a Low D with extended high range.
The 364 in G is reagular G, also with extended high range.
There is also a solo-tuned version of the 364, which will be stamped with the world SOLO on the cover near the key. This is in regular C and is tuned like a chromatic without the slide.