Re: [Harp-L] re: What Should a Harmonica Cost?

[Rick Dempster <rick.dempster@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ah, Martin; I appreciate the irony (or should that be "brassery"?)
Time and again, when I have opened my gear case, people say "Wow! how many
harminicas have you got?" and if it's a guitarist talking, I will reply: "I
dunno. How many strings have you got?"
Nuff said.
RD

On 13 September 2012 23:28, martin oldsberg <martinoldsberg@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:

> I also play the guitar. Really hate changing them strings, though, used to
> put it off forever. But now I have solved this: Every time a string breaks
> I just buy a new guitar!
>   Have a heck of a problem selling my used guitars, unfortunately (they
> donÂt seem to be worth anything ...) so they do tend to stack up.
>   Apart from my basic set of 40 or so nicely stringed guitars (you gotta
> have extras in case a string snaps) I also now have quite a few ... broken
> ones just hanging around.
>
> But I think itÂs all for the best in this fabulous world where the price
> is always right (in fact, I think they could raise the price of guitars a
> bit: IÂd gladly spend some more!).
>
> /Signor Pangloss
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> >What should a harmonica cost?
>
> >Two stories:
>
> >1. I had a conversation with a man who is a music instructor at Penn
> State University. His specialty is the bassoon. I asked him about the
> instrument he was playing, and he told me that it cost him $30,000 from the
> instrument maker, then he had it shipped to California where he had another
> person make final adjustments to it. This cost him an additional $6000. He
> also paid the freight both ways.
>
> He also spends hours every week hand carving the reeds that he uses in the
> instrument.
>
> 2. When I got the idea in 1984 of how to build a harmonica that would bend
> notes blowing and drawing, I set out to build one. Over the next 8 years or
> so, i spent easily $10,000 and untold hours to build a prototype that
> really played well.
>
> I ended up with one prototype that played well enough to get on stage
> with, but it was bulky, a lot of work to play, and did not sound as good as
> one of my simple short harps. It was like dreaming of a Rolls Royce while
> driving a beat up bread truck.
>
> What is it worth to you to get the sounds in your head out into the world?
>
> To me, buying an SUB 30 for $200 plus whatever it costs to get the perfect
> comb, etc, and spending a couple hours working on it to get a harp that
> plays some of the music I hear in my head is the deal of the century.
>
> Richard Sleigh
>



-- 
Rick Dempster
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