[Harp-L] Benefits and Burdens of Switching to Customs

[Mojo Red <harplicks@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hey Steve and all,

Speaking as one who is "in transition" toward
custom harps, I'd have to say that the experience
of that first custom was indeed the feeling of
"died and gone to heaven," but it's brought with it
a new learning curve. I want to get the  most out
of these most-excellent harps without ~ruining~
them. Let me explain:

* Biggest Immediate Benifit: Extreme ease in
bending, able to hit bends nuts-on effortlessly,
~much~ faster response, great tone with my custom
tuning (19-limit just tuned).

* Biggest Immediate Challenge: I'm being forced to
alter my playing style, to become much less
~forcefull~, to use much less air and become more
subtle in how I intonate, resonate and attack
notes. After 30 plus years wailing on out-of-box
harps, this hasn't been an easy (or particularly
rapid) metamorphasis. 
Forcefull playing on a well-setup harp will only
choke reeds and cause them to go flat sooner
(hugely frustrating). You don't want to do that to
your beautiful harp that you spent good money on. 

* Major Door-Opening Aspect: By accessing overbends
that I'd ignored for so many years (and getting
better at encorporating them into my playing), I'm
inspired to play more melodically (jazzy?) than
ever before, and find myself exploring new
(original?) lines of music. I'm also really using
my resonance to much better advantage, regaining
the volume I thought I'd lost by not blowing so
dang hard (big door for me).

* Back-door Benefit/Burden: I am certainly spoiled
now by the excellence of custom harps (I own 4 or 5
now) and find it more and more frustrating to play
a regular harp right out of the box. Also, being
the cheap-skate that I am, I've also started doing
more and more detailed reed set-up (gapping,
embossing, changing reed profiles, tuning) myself,
and have gotten considerably better at it. By now
I've set up all my Sp-20 harps and my Hering 1923
set so I they are much more responsive and I can
overbend on most of them. 

It's nice to be able to take care of my harps
myself, but now I can't buy a new harp (that isn't
a custom) and be happy with it.

Harpin' in Colorado,
--Ken M.

P.S. I'm so jazzed about getting out to SPAH this
year. Hope to see lots of you Harp-L folk in KC.


		
____________________________________________________
Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page 
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs