Overtones

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  • #7318
    Per Christian
    Participant

    When using my new Hohner 32 Fire, I’ve discovered a set of interfering notes/overtones when I play 2 notes at the same time. Eg: A in the lower register and C in the hihger register. Do anyone know something about this? Has it something to do with the quality of the instrument? Is it not in tune? Or is it a common problem with melodicas. Is there anything I can do about it?

    Per Chr

    #7319
    Daren
    Keymaster

    Hi Per Chr

    Welcome to the forum!

    The dissonant overtones you’re hearing are definitely common to the melodica, – many notes which sound great on their own don’t work well with other notes, as chords.

    This must have something to do with the construction of the instrument, as other free reed instruments such as the accordion don’t have this problem.

    You might be able to experiment with alternative, perhaps more natural tuning methods, such as ‘Just Intonation’, where the frequencies of the scale notes are related to one another by simple numeric ratios, or the similar Pythagorean system. It would be interesting to see what happens…

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