Re: [Harp-L] Custom harmonicas: filisko method...(longish)




----- Original Message ----- From: "Ken Ficara" <kenficara@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, September 13, 2004 12:05 PM
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Custom harmonicas: filisko method...(longish)



Well, I just finished my set of Sleigh harps with a new shipment from
Richard and I'm thrilled. I think that the biggest advantage of these
harps is that you can play them much more gently than a stock harp and
get better tone and response. I can play what I need to play on a
stock harp, but it takes more work, and I find that the lighter the
touch, the better the playing.

Ken

Hi,
That's basically the case with all custom harps, which I can personally attest to. For beginners, there's NO WAY in the world I'd recommend them ever getting custom stuff because it'll take a bit of time for them to unlearn bad habits, and one bad habit 90% of all beginners will have is playing the instrument excessively hard all the time, especially during the bending process. Playing much more gently even on a stock instrument will give better tone, greater overall agility, and will help keep the reeds in tune MUCH longer, and as a result, you don't blow them out quickly. All the players who constantly whine all the time about their stock harps blowing quick are usually the same people who play way too hard all the time in the first place, and far too often, they haven't really made a concerted effort to unlearn this really bad habit in the mistaken notion that their tone will suffer, which if anything, will improve it, and they will blow out a custom harp even quicker than a stock instrument. There were no custom diatonics around when I used to see Big Walter Horton play, and he played much gentler on a harp than the average player does, and his tone as well as tone control was nothing short of awesome.


The customs, to me, won't make you a better player if you don't really have the skills yet to begin with, but it makes everything unquestionably much easier to play, and when you unlearn the average harp player's bad habit of playing excessively hard all the time, you should be able to get not months out of any harp, but YEARS out of them, most especially on a custom instrument. Great instruments won't hide poor playing habits for a nanosecond, but they will surely expose them in a hurry.

Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
MP3's: http://music.mp3lizard.com/barbequebob/






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