[Harp-L] Leo Shi Chord harmonicas



I recently ordered a bunch of harmonicas from the Jiyang Musical Instrument company in China. They are probably best known in the US for making the entry-level Golden Cup brand of harmonicas. They also make the Leo Shi brand instruments which have gotten some notice on harp-l and elsewhere, particularly for their "Bass" model. While ordering a few of these, I noticed that they also made some interesting chord-harps, and so decided to get these.

There are two varieties, the 2Chord and the 3Chord. The 2Chord model is all-blow and has two combs held together in the way a traditional Bass or Chord harmonica is with metal hinges at either end. The lower comb has major chords in the following order: Bb, F, C, G, and D. The upper comb has the relative minors of these: Gm, Dm, Am, Em, and Bm. The 3Chord model adds a third comb below these two with the following chords: F7, C7, G7, D7, and A7. However, unlike the major and minor chords, the sevenths are draw chords. All the chords are voiced in octaves, and the plastic comb is similar to that used in most tremolo harmonicas, in that there are two rows of holes top and bottom, so each reed sits in its own cell. While the traditional Chordharp and some of it's diminutives (Vinettas, Chordets) can be thought of as evolving out of the Knittlinger style of octave harmonica (Auto-Valve, etc...) this could be seen as an evolution of the Wiener-derived double-reed harmonicas more commonly found in China, particularly the "Single" style of harmonica.

Quality control is very good throughout, with acceptable edges to the exposed reed-plates and nice plating on the solid feeling brass covers. The comb is black ABS plastic, and the partitions between the chord groups are quite smooth, a nice feature since your mouth often covers this area. Each comb is roughly 6 1/2" long by 1 1/8" deep by 1" high at the covers' highest point, and the hinges are about 2 1/4" long total. The pitch is centered about A=442 and the chord voicing is equal temperament. While the tuning isn't perfect, it is more than acceptable and these are tuned as well or better than any double-reed harmonica I've purchased from Hohner, Hering or Seydel, if not quite up to the level of the top of the Suzuki and Tombo lines. One caveat is that these seem to be made-to-order, and thus when they arrived the combs were still out-gassing a bit from the molding process. This is easily fixed simply by leaving the harmonica in a well-ventilated area for a few days.

All of which gets to the playing. First, I wouldn't mind if the hinges were slightly closer together. That's the only negative comment I have. These are a joy to play. The octave voicing of the chords makes them really stand out with a full, rich sound, giving more presence and available volume than the four-note chords in the Chordet, for instance. Combine that with the responsiveness of the reeds which allows for a wide range of vocal effects and tone shading. It's easy to isolate single notes, octave notes, split intervals and top and bottom reed-plates for a massive range of note and chord choices. Moreover, the single reed-cell design creates a very easy-breathing instrument, with neither the need for valves of the big 48-chord nor the ramps found on many other smaller chord- harps. I've come to prefer the 3Chord version in not just because it has the added seventh chords, but also because they are draw chords, which lets you develop some interesting blow/draw patterns between the sevenths and the major and minor blow chords. While this is obviously rooted in C, it is useable and useful in most of the closely related keys--think of this as a diatonic chord-harp rather than a chopped off 48-chord and it comes into it's own.

These are by far the most enjoyable chord-harps I've ever played. They are well-made, well-designed and just plain fun. The only difficult part is ordering them. AFAIK, they are not distributed in the US, but you can contact the Jiyang company directly through their website:

http://www.golden-cup.com/

In English here:

http://www.golden-cup.com/ebar1.htm

And click on "order form".

The website is not the easiest to navigate, as you sometimes have to type in numbers because links don't work (this could be due to my being on a Mac, though), so here are the links to the page with the Leo Shi instruments:

http://www.golden-cup.com/ebar318.htm

http://www.golden-cup.com/ebar319.htm

The Chord models are listed at the bottom of the page items JH020S-2 and JH020S-3.

Thanks to Candy at Jiyang for her wonderful customer service and fast responding emails as well as all the people there who make these excellent instruments.



 ()()    JR "Bulldogge" Ross
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