Comment by noduerme

Very interesting! I've played harp casually all my life without ever really learning about alternate tunings. The Melody Maker sounds like it would open some nifty possibilities! Someone bought me a chromatic harp once as a gift and I could never figure out how to play it properly. It's funny though, because as a piano and guitar player I never thought about what I was doing. I just play a cheap blues band or marine band, and I realize now that the positions that feel most normal to me are 1st, 2nd and oddly, 12th. I remember once jamming with an old folk rocker (my former guitar teacher) and he started playing something in F major while I was on a C harp. He didn't think I'd be able to follow - at the time, I just called this "cross harp" because I thought that was the generic term for playing in any other key! I don't know why playing in a major 4th seems so unusual, but he was kinda shocked that I pulled it off. There's only one note you can't play straight in that setup...