1. Introduction
It is only recently that I have started to tune my harmonicas on a regular basis. Previously, I did occasional adjustements of reeds that were clearly out of tune. But I often noticed that reeds that were badly out of tune (a semitone or more) could not be retuned. I have now learnt that this is due to a phenomenon called metal fatigue and that there is no idea to try to tune them. The only thing is to replace them, which, however, I find too difficult and time consuming. I simply replace the whole reed plate instead.
There is a large amount of information on harmonica tuning on the Internet which I have learnt a lot from. I highly recommend visiting Pat Missin's Web site and reading his explanations and advice. In particular his text Altered States [Missin, 1996]. He has also a lot of links to other Web sites with relevant information. The books by Steve Baker [Baker, 1991] and Lee Oskar [Oskar, 1996] are also very informative.
The tuning procedure that I use follows closely Pat Missin's recommendations, in particular the tuning scheme suggested by him. I have written an accompanying text Theory of harmonica tuning, which to a large extent is a rephrasing and summary of the information in Altered States. To this I have added some of my own ideas and experiences which will be summarized in the present text. There are some references [in square brackets] in this text which are listed in full at the end of Theory of harmonica tuning.
Nowadays, I enjoy more and more the sound of a well-tuned harmonica. And I realize that this is one of the factors that make professional players sound so good. As Pat Missin has put it: It is often said that the most important aspects of musical performance are the "three ts": tuning, timing and tone.