I always admire people who have dual careers in unrelated fields. Another example is my harmonica hero Richard Hunter, who is also a Gartner Fellow.
His book Jazz Harp got me started exploring alternative tunings for diatonic harmonicas. He described a "country tuning" that gave you a major scale in the "cross harp" position that gives you a more "bluesy" sound. He also explained how to retune the harmonica. (You file the reeds! File the tip to raise the pitch, or file near the rivet to lower it.)
I extended that a bit to get a major scale all the way up and down the harp. Other people independently discovered the same tuning, and it is now commercially available from Lee Oskar as the Melody Maker and Seydel as the Melodic Maker. I have a feeling that all of us got the idea from Jazz Harp.
It would be interesting to hear about other people who have had dual careers like this! I asked Miss Chatty (ChatGPT) and she reminded me of some other examples:
Hedy Lamarr, glamorous movie star and co-inventor of spread spectrum communications.
Brian May, Queen guitarist and astrophysicist.
Jeff Baxter, guitarist for Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers, and adviser to the Department of Defense on missile defense systems.
Without signup:
https://dnyuz.com/2025/01/09/the-flying-maestro-a-top-conduc...
I always admire people who have dual careers in unrelated fields. Another example is my harmonica hero Richard Hunter, who is also a Gartner Fellow.
His book Jazz Harp got me started exploring alternative tunings for diatonic harmonicas. He described a "country tuning" that gave you a major scale in the "cross harp" position that gives you a more "bluesy" sound. He also explained how to retune the harmonica. (You file the reeds! File the tip to raise the pitch, or file near the rivet to lower it.)
I extended that a bit to get a major scale all the way up and down the harp. Other people independently discovered the same tuning, and it is now commercially available from Lee Oskar as the Melody Maker and Seydel as the Melodic Maker. I have a feeling that all of us got the idea from Jazz Harp.
It would be interesting to hear about other people who have had dual careers like this! I asked Miss Chatty (ChatGPT) and she reminded me of some other examples:
Hedy Lamarr, glamorous movie star and co-inventor of spread spectrum communications.
Brian May, Queen guitarist and astrophysicist.
Jeff Baxter, guitarist for Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers, and adviser to the Department of Defense on missile defense systems.
Her list has a number of others:
https://chatgpt.com/share/67806847-2e40-8012-949a-d372feb324...