Album Notes

The Black Mountain Harmonica CD displays a unique approach to the harmonica. Tutorials and mp3s are at my site, reached by following the link on the left hand side of this page. A key feature of this new harmonica style is that it adapts well to fiddle tunes.

Fiddle tunes underpin Irish and American traditional music. Over time, only the best tunes survive, and enter the standard repertoire. This forms a common language, which is shared by musicians everywhere. Fiddle tunes are played on many instruments, for example the mandolin, guitar and banjo in Bluegrass, and whistle, pipes and accordian in the Irish tradition.

The diatonic harmonica however is known mostly as a blues instrument, and is not often used for fiddle tunes. In particular, the "cross" position adopted by most blues players eliminates notes needed for these tunes. Also, the bending techniques needed for some notes are difficult in fast melodies. The standard "Richter" harmonica tuning was developed for solo playing (not blues), to allow chords and melodies to be played together. While some manage this style beautifully, it is difficult at high tempos

To address these problems, and to play this wonderful music, I developed a different tuning system for diatonic harmonicas. This allows a playing style which more easily matches the swift tempos of Bluegrass and Irish players. The fiddle tunes on this recording, all from the traditional repertoire, use this modified tuning.