Suzuki harps, chromatics

[Winslow Yerxa <76450.3230@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

TO: internet:harp-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I have played the Valved Promaster and the Easy Reeder from
Suzuki.

The Easy Reeder is very cheap (about $5 - $6) and comes, I think,
only in C and has ugly red anodized covers, but it's quite a
decent little harp. Stays in tune, and with a little adjustment,
overblows quite well. You won't get a BIG sound out of it, but
for a cheap Special 20 knockoff it's quite passable.

The Valved ProMaster, for me, is no substitute for a
MeisterKlasse - it doesn't have that thick-walled Cadillac engine
feel. I always feel with a MeisterKlasse that there are playing
possibilities beyond the reach of human stamina, and that they
can actually be worn in over several years, like a very good pair
of shoes. I can drive them harder, and get more volume out of
them, than any stock harp I've ever played (I'm leaving Joe
Filisko's custom jobs out of the discussion). Of course, I'm
talking about the pre-modular instruments.

The valves on the valved ProMaster make the blow chord very
loud, as they prevent any of the blow air from escaping through
the draw reeds (and also prevent overblowing, although I've been
told that the unvalved version overblows well). They make it
possible to bend the blow notes in the first six holes, but not
with ease or control you might hope for. But at least you can get
more vibrato, and do some expressive bending on the blow notes.
These are nice capabilities, and create a certain niche for this
instrument.

However, the valves also buzz quite a bit after some playing. I'm
a medium hard player, and I found that the buzzing set in after a
couple of months of keeping this harp in my general rotation of
instruments. It also went out of tune a bit. This is to be
expected, but Suzuki's advertising tends to sell the in-tune
aspect a little too much.

I've never played the Leghorn chromatic, but I'm told it's the
same as the Huang 1248. Depending on who tells the tale, Huang
gets all the good ones and leaves the rest to Suzuki, or the
other way around. Heaven knows who's right.

Spence Pearson asks about taking the round-hole mouthpiece from a
Leghorn and putting it on a Hohner 270. I can't say anything
about this, but I know it works with a 270 and a 12-hole Hering.
Only problem is, you also have to migrate the screws that hold
the mouthpiece down, and these may be a different thickness from
those on your Hohner, and either be too small for the screw hole
- which is in wood - and fall out, or be too large and ruin the
hole if you decide to go back to the regular 270 mouthpiece.

One thing I observed when I migrated the mouthpieces was that the
response and some of the tone (brightness, warmth and size) - both
good and bad aspects - tended to migrate along with the
mouthpiece.

As far as 16-hole chromatics go, the Larry Adler 16-holer is just
a 280 with different covers and box, while the 12-hole Larry
Adler is just a 270 - this from Gerhard Mueller, Hohner
production manager.

I haven't played a 280 for several years, and the last one I
bought, in 1971, I didn't like (just before that, I lost a Larry
Adler which was one of the best 64's I ever owned. I mentioned
this to Gerhard Mueller. He commented, "maybe the guy on the
production line was having a good day when he made it."). The
Super 64 is a nice instrument, if you can get one that doesn't
leak like a sieve. The Super 64X is the 16-hole instrument for my
money - big sound, good action, airtight. Many people mourn the
CBH 2016, no longer made by Hohner (Cham-Ber Huang, the reputed
inventor, has some interesting comments on this in the
forthcoming HIP No. 5), but people want a fortune for these
nowadays, and I always found them plasticky sounding when miked,
and plagued by valve problems.

I've never played an Amadeus, but I stood next to Cham-Ber Haung
when he tried one, and he didn't seem overly impressed. The
August-September 1992 issue of Harmonica World (put out by the
National Harmonica League in Britain) contains a review by
British chromatic maven Douglas Tate, who has recently published
a book on chromatic repair and care. After over 100 hours of
playing the Amadeus, he concludes that "in spite of some quite
serious flaws, it is a brilliant instrument." He likens it to a
good quality student flute, and notes that his review instruments
(he received two) had matured over time. This is quite high
praise from a man who built his own stainless steel chromatic in
1967 and has played nothing else since. He spends most of the
review commenting on the construction, then goes on to describe
its musical qualities, saying that it is "quite wonderful to
play." 

If you want to get the issue containing the review, you could
contact HW's editor, Steve Jennings, who is on this list and can
be reached directly at 100010.1152@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Winslow Yerxa