Readit Newsegdels commented on Show HN: Let’s Bend – Open-Source Harmonica Bending Trainer letsbend.de... · Posted by u/egdels
I've found Jason Ricci to be a most useful source as well. Adam Gussow, Tom Leckie, Will Wilde, and Howard Levy all have recommended YouTube content.
I haven't checked out the app, but certainly plan to in order to fine tune my scales (major/minor penatonic, blues, and a few more).
By the way, once you get 2nd position major pentatonic those same notes are 5th position minor penatonic (albeit with a different starting notes). Same for 1st major and 4th minor, and 12 major and 3rd minor.
Glad to hear you're planning to check out the app! It includes scale training for major, minor pentatonic, blues, and a few more. If you notice any scales missing that you'd like to see added, feel free to reach out — I'm always happy to improve it based on feedback.
egdels commented on Show HN: Let’s Bend – Open-Source Harmonica Bending Trainer letsbend.de... · Posted by u/egdels
This is cool! I made a similar app, but for guitar. However, I couldn't quite figure out how long I should sample. I wanted to make an app where it will play an interval and then you need to play it back on the guitar. If you can get this to work on a harmonica, I should be able to get it to work with a guitar. Will likely use your source for more inspiration, thanks!
Thanks! That sounds like a cool idea too. In Let’s Bend, I also included a scale training mode, where users can practice playing along with different scales. Maybe that could be useful for your project as well. Feel free to dig into the source code, and let me know if you have questions!
egdels commented on Show HN: Let’s Bend – Open-Source Harmonica Bending Trainer letsbend.de... · Posted by u/egdels
First thought I had - I never thought that one can bend harmonica (I used to play it as a child and found it quite impossible). Since that time I have no usable harmonica in my home. Another thought I had - I'll test it on learning violin vibrato.
And when I tried it - WOW! This software has very good responsiveness and those rectangles show tune in really clear way. It turns playing musical instrument into some sort of game which objective is "just keep in the middle of all squares". I've just used it to exercise violin piece and it's really helpful in showing me when I'm playing out of tune.
Great help! Thanks!
Could you please add 'no-screen-fadeoff' patch on android? It seems that I have to manually wake up phone every few seconds (depends on phone settings). Also manipulating scale to show lower G would be terrific, however I understand this is not intended for violin playing...
Thank you so much for the kind words – I’m really happy to hear you found it helpful, even for violin!
Let’s Bend was originally designed to support harmonica bending practice, but the idea of using the "stay in the square" feedback as a pitch visualizer for other instruments is incredibly exciting. It’s great to see it working in real musical contexts!
Just to address your points:
There’s already a *“Keep screen on”* toggle in the app settings – enabling it should prevent Android from turning off the screen during use.
You can also *change the root key and tuning system* in the settings. While the interface is still harmonica-focused, this makes the app more flexible – including for lower pitches like a violin's low G.
I’m genuinely grateful for your feedback and enthusiasm – and thanks for trying the app in such a creative way!
egdels commented on Show HN: Let’s Bend – Open-Source Harmonica Bending Trainer letsbend.de... · Posted by u/egdels
This is great. Would have loved it when I used to have fun with the harmonica.
Here is a suggestion. Display a graph of played-frequency vs time. Then I can compare visually how my bending performance improves over time.
Thanks — great to hear you liked it, and that’s a really smart suggestion!
Actually, you've inspired a related idea I’ve been thinking about: since the app already shows a magnified pitch view for each target note, I could track how accurately each target is hit — not over time, but per note. That means collecting cent-deviation stats every time a target pitch is active.
For example, if you’re working on bending hole 3 draw down to F#, the app could keep track of: - how many times that target was attempted, - your average deviation (in cents), - and your best attempt so far.
It’s not a full frequency-vs-time graph, but it's very focused feedback — and could motivate practice in a very concrete way. I’d love to make this part of a future version. Thanks again for the spark!
egdels commented on Show HN: Let’s Bend – Open-Source Harmonica Bending Trainer letsbend.de... · Posted by u/egdels
I love seeing projects that shed a little vignette on a wide world I had no idea about! Thanks for posting!
Thanks so much — that means a lot!
egdels commented on Show HN: Let’s Bend – Open-Source Harmonica Bending Trainer letsbend.de... · Posted by u/egdels
This is very nice, thank you for creating it. I have a few suggestions, but they will have to wait until later this week. I see an email address on the Imprint page on your website - is that the best way to reach you?
Somewhat related, for any harmonica player who likes to play cross harp for that bluesy sound, and wants to branch out into songs written in a major or natural minor key (e.g. much pop/rock/country), let me suggest the Melody Maker tuning. This gives you a major scale (along with the relative minor) all up and down the harp in the cross harp position.
And you can still bend notes. You just don't have to for the major/minor scale notes.
For example, a High C Melody Maker is perfect for playing Stevie Nicks' vocal in Dreams. The song is in A minor, but the A minor harps from Lee Oskar and Seydel are in a lower register. The High C matches her range.
The song begins with "Now here you go again", and Stevie has a signature vocal bend on the word "go". She starts that word nearly a semitone flat and then slides up to pitch.
On the Melody Maker, that note is on the draw 3, where it is super fun and easy to start with a light bend to mimic her vocal style.
The nice thing is that you don't have to be so precise on your pitch with this bend. You just start low and slide up, like Stevie does.
I used to make my own Melody Makers by retuning a conventional Richter harp. You raise the blow 2 by a full step to get the second note in the major scale, and raise the draw 5 and draw 9 by a half step to get the minor 7ths. So an F Richter harp becomes a High C Melody Maker and is labeled that way when you buy one.
For years, Lee Oskar only sold Melody Makers in five keys, but now they have expanded it to nine keys including the High C and the Bb that I use for the late Songbird's vocal on You Make Loving Fun.
Seydel has always sold their Melodic Maker (same as Melody Maker) in all 13 keys, but their cover design is so different from Lee Oskar and Hohner that I never could switch back and forth without off-by-one-note errors.
(Yes, 13 keys, because there is both a Low C and a High C.)
Oh - how do you retune a harmonica? File the reeds! File off some weight at the tip and it raises the pitch. Scratch off some weight at the attached end and it lowers the pitch. You just need a single edge razor blade to lift the reed out of its slot, a fine point file or other small file, and an instrument tuner like Let's Bend.
Thanks so much for this detailed and generous comment — it’s incredibly encouraging to hear from someone with your level of experience.
Yes, the email listed on the Imprint page is the best way to reach me — I’d love to hear your suggestions when you get a chance.
And it’s great that you brought up Melody Maker tuning! Even though I don’t currently own a harp in that tuning, I’ve implemented theoretical support for Melody Maker (as well as other Richter variants) in the app already. So users can visualize bends and pitches correctly even when playing in those alternate tunings.
Your Stevie Nicks example is such a beautiful use case. Expressive bending like that — starting just below the pitch and sliding up — is exactly the kind of thing I hope the app can help people hear and understand more consciously.
Also, I really appreciate that you mentioned manual retuning. Let’s Bend was designed to be lightweight and offline, so it’s ideal for checking pitch quickly when tuning by ear or file. That’s one of the practical scenarios I had in mind from the start.
Thanks again — I’m learning a lot from your comment.
egdels commented on Show HN: Let’s Bend – Open-Source Harmonica Bending Trainer letsbend.de... · Posted by u/egdels
Harp player here. When I first started playing, I had a Gindick's book, Country and Blues Harmonica For the Musically Hopeless. This was maybe 35 years ago. I would recommend that book and the tape (cd? mp3?) that comes with it, for beginners.
You can't see the notes you are playing on a harmonica. You have to hear them. You start by playing clear single notes and then shaping the note by articulating eeeh-yah or something similar and the note magically bends. You have to hear the note so you can tell if the note bends. It is very organic, and I don't think an app will help much. It may confirm what is happening, but it is not going to help if you can't do it.
Personally, I played along with Little Walter's greatest hits on my hour long morning commute, and eventually it was just natural to bend the notes at the right time.
My advice is to look for Jason Ricci on YouTube. He has hundreds or thousands of videos on beginner to advanced subjects. He is a weird dude, but I've never known a better teacher.
Thanks for sharing that — I really appreciate your perspective and experience.
I absolutely agree: bending is a deeply organic thing that you need to feel and hear in your body. No app can replace that. The goal of my app is not to teach you how to bend, but to help you understand what you're actually playing — especially for beginners who are unsure whether their bend reached the target pitch.
It’s more like a "mirror" than a teacher: you still have to do the work with your ears, but the app can help confirm (or challenge) what you think you hear. Some folks find that helpful in the early stages.
Also — yes to Gindick and Jason Ricci! Two amazing resources. I hope my app can complement, not replace, that kind of learning journey.
Thanks again for the thoughtful input!
MakeACopy uses reproducible OpenCV/ONNX builds and runs Tesseract OCR fully on-device. The PDF text layer is generated with Apache PDFBox for full searchability.
All binaries are F-Droid–compliant and deterministically reproducible.
Happy to discuss the OpenCV/ONNX integration or how the deterministic build setup works.