Re: Feasibility of machining harp plates

[Pat Missin <pat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Some comments on some of Pierre's thoughts:

>The ultimate goal would be to create a harp so tight it 
>would be trivial to set up for overblows.

As Vern has already said, airtightness is not the major factor in
setting up a harp for overblows. It is important, but not as important
as correct reed adjustment - something which varies from player to
player.

> Most musicians buy good stock instruments and just play them, 
> why can't harmonica players do that too. 

Just about every good guitarist will refit their instrument with their
own choice of strings, adjust the action, perhaps adjust the neck
angle and adjust the pickup height, etc. That's not too different to a
harp player setting their reed gaps to suit their own taste.

>I have considered custom harps but I don't like wood combs. 

Not all custom harps have wood combs.

>Also good custom harps are really expensive and I can't be 
>sure the harp will be set up to my taste so I may have to fiddle
>anyway and I may mess things up rather than improving the 
>thing, then its trial and error again. 

The whole point of a custom harp should be that it is customised - ie,
it is set up to meet the needs of a particular player. Obviously, it
can be hard to do this if the player and the customiser are hundreds
of miles apart, but even so, you should have to do much less adjusting
of a good customer harp than any stock harp. Most customisers are also
happy to readjust the harp until the customer is satisfied (within
reason, of course!).

>The main problem is converging, since when you bend a reed you 
>don't know if a) you did anything at all because you can't see micro 
>adjustments and b) you bent too much or too little. 

There are areas where visuals are only a rough guide. You know that
you have adjusted a reed properly not when it looks right, but when it
plays right. Likewise, you know you have over-adjusted it when it no
longer plays right.

>Ok, I realize a tight plate does not fix the reed setup problem but 
>having a tight harp would probably make it easier.

It can also introduce other problems. As Vern mentioned, decreasing
the space between the reed and the reedplate can increase the
likelihood of getting foreign material caught in the reed. Also,
reducing the clearance around the reed tends to brighten the tone of
the harp somewhat and many players do not care for this. On my
workbench at the moment I have a customised Marine Band which is
considerably brighter in tone than a stock Lee Oskar.

>Anybody have any idea how significant the results could be? How much 
>does embossing help when its well done? 

Reducing those clearances certainly improves the responsiveness of the
reed, but that is merely one factor in the equation. Reeds would still
have to be adjusted to suit the individual, or in the case of
mass-produced harps, adjusted to some sort of average to give a good
proportion of happy customers. For overblowing, reed adjustment is
even more critical.

>Is this feasible and would it improve the harp enough to make it worthwhile?

That depends on the cost of producing such an instrument. Someone
recently said that most harp players want a thousand dollar instrument
for a hundred dollars. Actually, I think most of them want a thousand
dollar instrument for ten dollars.

Having said all of the above, some of the stuff that the Turboharp
company has in the pipeline will address some of the above points and
their initial offerings have been very promising, as well as
competitively priced.

 -- Pat.