Re: [Harp-L] raising a reed's pitch

[Joseph Leone <3n037@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Dec 19, 2012, at 7:28 PM, David Payne wrote:

> Thank you Joe. 
> On this official secrets act stuff, when they were alive, they didn't want people to know this stuff because they didn't want somebody having a leg up on them playingwise.

It was a time when there were a lot of good players and with the demise of vaudeville, only a finite number of places left in which to practice one's craft. I can understand that they had to protect their careers inasmuch as people (like Blackie, for instance) had to vie for whatever studio work was out there. After all, when Blackie went to get a mortgage and they asked him what he did for a living, he told them he was a harmonica player. This turned out to be the kiss of death, and after he changed that nomenclature to: 'musician', while he still got the ole 'woogie eye', he had an easier time convincing them that he could stay gainfully employed. With a family to feed, I can understand his position. 


> Now, they are dead. Now there is somebody trying to expand their legacies, trying to say, "Hey, these guys were just as smart as any customizer today, etc."

Well, suffice is to say that I am with you on this as I have often said: "There is nothing new in the harmonica world. Nearly everything has already been tried before". I mean if there are people running around saying that we are not the only intelligent life in this universe, I would also add that just because we think something is new, why would we INSIST that it is new. I feel that this is a rather arrogant attitude because how do WE know that something is new. Hey, maybe it is old but someone forgot to write it down or make it part of history.  

Look at the discovery of America. I don't think anyone would disagree that the vikings or someone else wasn't here beFORE Columbus. Only problem? They forgot to write it down. There are a lot of people whom have done things with harmonica but they will never get any credit because the information highway wasn't there until recently. So it all got lost in time. Just like quotes. Someone says something and because they are famous, the quote becomes their's. Gimme a break. Am I supposed to believe that thy were the first to use that particular string of words?  

> If he were alive, anytime somebody'd pipe up and say "Rick Epping invented customizing," he - Diamond, and others would pipe up and say "That's bullshit. We were doing that back in the 40s." You know that. 

I would go farther back than even that. 

> These guys really knew what they were doing... and I'd love to be able to prove it more.

People in EVERY generation have known what they were doing. It goes at least as far back as the Egyptians. Am I to believe that I, a schooled electrician, know anything about electricity JUST because it's 2012. Jeez, Nicolai Tesla was 100 years older than I, and I could never learn what he forgot. 
> 
> I think he had the 3 in 1 oil on there because the slide was really tight.

Also, it fills up the voids. Like when blues harp players used water. 

> There's soemthing else going on with Leo's. He's either flattened every surface of the slide assembly or gasketed it.

Think construction paper. Yes, the kind that children do refridgerator art on. Blotter paper was too thick. 
smo-joe

> THat's not a normal slide. You can hear air escaping a normal slide. That slide is tight.  
>  
David Payne