Re: Custom Harps

["Bob Maglinte" <bbqbob917@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

- ----- Original Message -----
From: "IronMan Mike Curtis" <ironman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <Wow71@xxxxxxx>; <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, February 19, 2003 8:42 AM
Subject: Re: Custom Harps


>
>
>
> > If a custom harp doesn't improve ones sound, why spend all that
> > money?
>
> Why buy ANY harp if they all sound pretty much alike?  And a good
> player will indeed minimize differences in sound.  As many of us have
> said ad infinitum, the tone and quality comes from the player. I have
> recordings of myself playing $2 harps as well as $60 ones.  If I
> didn't know which was which, I couldn't tell by listening, at least
> not just by the sound.  And if we play a cupped bullet thru an
> overdriven amp, they get to sound all that much more alike.
>
> Some harps are easier to play.  They all have a unique "action".  Some
> (like Lee Oskars) outlast the competition by a wide margin.  Some
> (ditto) are extremely consistent out of the box.
>
> It's like a car.  A Porsche won't make you into a racecar driver (many
> opinions aside ;-)  But it will give you better handling, cornering,
> and such, which makes your job of driving that much easier, and helps
> you out when things get tough.

Hi,
Very true statement here as a whole. Truth be told, a great player can play
great stuff out a crappy $2 harp 100 times before a very marginal player can
do that with a VERY expensive instrument. Same goes for ampification and
mics. If you've never driven a Rolls Royce or Mercedes and all you ever
drove was your beatup old Chevy Malibu with all the rotted sheet metal,
you'll never know, but if you have, it's like night and day.

For someone who is a hobbyist whose playing is basically in his or her
living room or the occassional local Sunday Blues Jam, the custom harp may
not be worthwhile. However, for a pro, especially if you play at least 10-15
nights a month or more, it's worth every penny invested in it. Why? It's
already setup for the way you play, unlike an out-of-the-box instrument, the
action and playability is consistent top to bottom, air leakage problems are
removed, which means that to do what you played on a stock instrument at
FULL breath, you can now accomplish this with 50% LESS effort, and what this
means alone is that in the long run, it works out FAR cheaper, because with
less effort needed to play them, it will last considerably longer, even if
you DON'T baby them from the get go. For those who may be nursing a bad
cold, or have respiratory problems such as asthma or bronchitis, it's a
blessing, and makes like SO much easier.

I've recently made the switch to using Hot Rod Harps from Tim Northcutt, and
let me tell you, it's a pleasure to not have to spend hours screwing around
with tweaking, so I can put my time to better use (such as trying to book
gigs). I've tinkered with my harps ever since I bought Blackie Shackner's
book, "Everything You Always Wanted To Know About The Blues Harp & The
Marine Band, But Didn't Know Who To Ask," when it came out in 1975 with the
first published information that I'm aware of on tuning, maintenance and
repairs (Thank You SOOOOO much, Blackie!!!!), and all this tinkeing is
EXTREMELY time consuming work, so I can fully appreciate what these
customizers do. Now all customizers say I don't have to break my harps in,
but with these, wheras production line stuff takes me 2 weeks to a month to
break in (plus ENDLESS tweaking), I broke these in within a week. And the
fact that I have to use EASILY 50% less effort, it puts less strain on both
the instrument, and for me physically.

Now the guys that usually play the hardest, the most abusive, and are
useless careless about their instrument's maintenance 24/7/365 usually tend
to be the Blues players better than 80% of the time, and they're the ones
usually bitching about it the most, and they're usually the ones that can't
make a harp last longer than 1 or 2 months at best, and it doesn't matter
what brands they're using or praising, and because of this, they often
deprive themselves of the instrument's tonal color abilities and its dynamic
range, and that's not even taking into account poor breathing techniques.

The point of the custom harp for me is that I donlt need to be screwing
around with them much and can spend more time making music. Besides, even if
I wanted to do some of those things the customizers do, my landlord won't
allow somw of the machines necessary to use in my apartment!

Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA