Re: [Harp-L] re: cheap harps

[George Miklas <harmonicat@xxxxxxxxx>]

Warren, good point!  So let me throw in my little story... It was December
25th, 1978, and I woke up anticipating that my mom and dad would give me a
chord harmonica that day.  They did not.  Instead, they gave me a bass
harmonica.  I wanted to play the chord so much, that I took a piece of
cardboard that afternoon, cut it 24" long, drew a grid on it and named all
of the chords as they are played on a Hohner 48-Chord Harmonica.  For the
next 4 months, I practiced playing the chord harmonica on that piece of
brown cardboard box.  April 17th, 1979 was my 14th birthday, but it was
also the Steel Valley Harmonica Club meeting.  That night our friend Jack
Allison walked into the hall with a chord harmonica.  Evidently it was
planned that my dad would buy it for $100.  After dad and Jack made the
exchange, dad turned and handed me the 30 year old chord harmonica saying
"Happy Birthday."  Because I had practiced on a brown cardboard box for 4
months, I took the chord and played it on the open mic that very first
night.  I played that old chord for years, and still own it today.  That
one has been retuned to Major 7th, Minor 7th, Major 6th and Minor 6th
chords--I built a 4-deck chord in 1982 modeled after Al Smiths, and that
chord was one of my first retuning projects.



*George Miklas,* Harmonica Performing Artist and
Entertainer<http://harmonicagallery.com/>

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serving the harmonica community. <http://spah.org/>




On Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 9:33 PM, Warren Bee <wbharptime2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Jimi Hendrix started strumming on a broom. So much doom and gloom about
> cheapo harps. Sometimes I just have to shake my head. Maybe some were born
> with a silver harp in their mouth. I wonder how many great players started
> on a cheapo. The operative word STARTED. I would rather give a kid a
> BluesBand  instead of a lecture on saving his/her pennys for a "real harp"
> , I used to sell 5.00 harps at a flea market. Many times a kid would pick
> one up and the first words out of the parents mouth was NO. I don't want to
> hear that racket. As they walked away I would say; Smoking crack is quiet
> maybe that would be better.
>
> WB
>