Retuning Penta harp harmonica to a normal harp?
OK , I hate Penta Harp with all my strength mind and soul LOL .
To save my money is there any way to tune it back to a normal harmoncia ?
Natural minor, Harmonic minor , Paddy or Major ?
whocares: Brian's suggestion re asking Kinya is spot on. If you have the inclination to re-tune reeds, great! If not, the PentaHarp is part of Hohner's Progressive line, and appears to have cover plates and reed screw alignment like the Special 20. Tho' buying a set of Special 20 reeds costs almost as much as a whole new Special 20. (But you end up with what is essentially a Special 20 with a cool blue comb!). Best bet if you're not up to returning reeds yourself might be to try to sell the PentaHarp on eBay. On the other hand, you never know when having an oddball-tuned harp in your bag might some in handy. So you might want to hang on to it.
Retuning a PentaHarp to regular tuning is tricky for the same reason it's hard to retune a regular harp to Penta.
The problem lies with the top four draw reeds:
- Draw 7 needs to go down 4 (!) semitones.
- Draw 8 needs to go down 4 semitones
- Draw 9 needs to go down 5 semitones
- Draw 10 needs to go down 6 (!) semitones
(retuning a regular harp to Penta, you need to retuned *up* by the same amounts.)
These pitch changes are way too much for those tiny reeds, unless maybe you're really great at tuning.
What key is it in? Maybe you could sell it or give it to seombody who'd want it.
I've swapped covers, combs and reedplates among PentaHarp, Sepcial 20, and Rockets with no problem.
If you just want to swap in a set of regular reedplates from one of those models, it's easy to do.
The Penta harp is not for everyone. David did a really good job reviewing it and explaining who the harp is for.
This would be a question best direct to our resident harp guru, Kinva, in the Ask Harp Tech Expert Kinva Pollard forum. Pollard has also made many videos on how to repair and modify harmonicas which are posted on bluesharmonica.com. If you ask your question to him, I’m sure he will point you to the videos and forum post that will apply to your needs.
Brian in Tennessee