Re: [Harp-L] tripple reed -specific

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

I happen to be a huge fan of the XB-40. Out of the box it's just fine, though I can't resist tweaking it.


By the way, the XB-40 is NOT a triple reed harp. It's a quadruple reed harp.

The Sub 30 gets the form factor down to standard diatonic size, and I think Brendan and Suzuki have done a great job in achieving those goals. However, this means sacrificing the greater flexibility of the 4-reed design and forgoing the huge sound of the XB. 


Still, the extreme flexibility of the XB is something many players can't handle - the XB is too much harp for many - too big, too bendy. For me those are positives, but clearly the marketplace and I don't inhabit the same space on this particular matter.

Is triple or quadruple reed design the future of blues harp? 


Hohner thought so and came a cropper. The obvious marketing angle of bendy =  blues turned out to be the wrong way to sell it. The truth is, the XB-40 is too different from the standard diatonic for traditional blues. 


The XB is brilliant for other things, such as Celtic music, but either that market is too small or too few discovered its virtues - myself, James Conway, Marko Balland, Steve Shaw and maybe a few others are the ones I know about, in addition to Rick Epping, who developed it. 

So how will the Sub 30 fare? Right now price is prohibitive and the early examples haven't been ready for prime time, at least out of the box. Brendan's own tweaked ones are much nicer (I speak from direct experience).


Overblow players complain that the new bent note locations are disruptive of their existing knowledge. And here's the real problem, whether you overblow or not. A new harp with new capabilities requires new skills. Players prefer all gain with no pain, and new designs offer the gain but also require work, and require the player to disturb their established habits. Will players see enough that's compelling in a new design to fork over cash and do the work of acquiring a new layer of skills?

Time will tell.

 
Winslow Yerxa
Author, Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5
            Harmonica Basics For Dummies, ASIN B005KIYPFS
            Blues Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-1-1182-5269-7
Resident Harmonica Expert, bluesharmonica.com
Instructor, Jazzschool for Music Study and Performance


________________________________
 From: mik jagger <harpomatic@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx" <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx> 
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2012 10:52 PM
Subject: [Harp-L] tripple reed -specific
 
Here is a phenomenon I'm still trying to understand, I do find it fascinating and very harp-specific: 

I agree that triple reed design is brilliant, and a future of diatonic harp, no matter who thought of it first. For many years now, I've been playing xb40 hohner, first 3pple reeded harp I was ever introduced to. I have nothing but love for this harp that delivers every wonderful thing that it promised, and more. ("More" would be the fact that in hohner's case, you could not really count on longevity, but my xb took years of hard daily play ever since it came out, and sounds brand new till this day) . I remember all the excitement and anticipation around its introduction. Now there are 2 pieces of news in the "harp-land" that happen to coincide, thus prompting me to post my questions:
1) XB-40 is "out"
2) Sub30 is "in"
Usual excitement follows. Nothing is wrong with that, I'd like to get a piece of that, too. But as I find out, the new harp is a) smaller (good), but offers less note choices by bending less and not on all the holes, less responsive out of the box, and significantly more expensive on top of that. further, the design is not AT ALL fundamentally different from the XB40.
Here are the issues I still cannot put together, and therefore, I am compelled to ask fellow members for  help:
1)It seems that the "world", or harp community at large did not vote with their cash for the initial triple-reed offering by Hohner. (true/false?)
2) the next, inferior offering by Suzuki, despite an unexplainable  week and feeble "buzz" on harp-l, will surely die out, if it continues to exist in its present form. (true/false?)
................
So here is a thing that, out of  very "harp-centric" curiosity,  I'm trying to understand.  Perhaps, the majority opinion (as unexpected to a fan of 3-reed design, as I may be) is that a "triple reed" is NOT the future of diatonic! If it is so, if such opinion is out there, and even especially so due to it  being majority opinion, I would really, sincerely like to hear it being expressed. Not for target practice purposes, but for an indeed live and informative dialog - I'm really curious what makes others tick, especially if they indeed are different from me. 

Or, I could re-phrase the question as " so how many people love their XB-40 out of the box?"
Or, ask the same question in these words" what is it about our community that makes us resent true innovation?" I bet it is the same "thing" that makes us hate Sugar Blue and john Popper, while loving Jason Ricci...
Sorry to ruffle feathers along this complex journey to getting an answer to a question that now seems to be more complex than I thought at first. 

Thank you moderator and harp-lers for your patience,
Michael, therefore "Mick - I am (but Jagger - I am not)" Korosty.