Re: Re: [Harp-L] Gapping/Embossing, am I doing it right?...long.

["Steve Shaw" <moorcot@xxxxxxx>]

I just can't think that a professional customiser would ever regard himself 
(herself) as being in competition with inveterate tinkerers such as myself.  
I try to adjust my own harps because I don't earn money from playing, I 
can't afford customised harps generally-speaking, and because it gives me a 
lot of satisfaction.  Knowing what to do is not the same as knowing how to 
do it properly, tidily and with supreme precision.  I like the way my harps 
sound when I've tinkered, but, on the one occasion I got a couple from a 
customiser, I was bowled over by the difference.  The best customiser on the 
planet could publish his methods in graphic detail if he could find the 
words, but 99% of us would still make a relative hash of it I reckon.


http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/trad_irish_harmonica
HEAR my CD clips: http://www.gjk2.com/steveshaw/cd.htm






> From: "Greg Hommert" <mythacles@xxxxxxx>
> To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: Re: [Harp-L] Gapping/Embossing, am I doing it right?...long.
> Date: Sat, 06 May 2006 17:38:32 -0500
>
> Richard Hunter writes;
>
> "Frankly, it's  unclear to me from Greg
> Hommert's questions what his intentions are --  they could easily be to
> set himself up in competition to Messrs.  Sleigh, Gordon, Filisko, etc."
>
>
> EGS1217 writes;
>
> "Pardon my take on it...but it seems clear that if anyone  here wants such
> information from Joe Filisko, Richard Sleigh and  Jimmy Gordon (the Filisko
> "Guild", as they are known) they  can write to any and/or each of these 
> gentlemen
> (they have individual  websites) and ask them just what it is they use and 
> how
> they set up their  harps.  If they then respond that the information is
> proprietary,  then that is your answer....and what right does anyone else 
> have to
> question that decision?  Could anyone here possibly believe  that any 
> expert
> (Vern included) becomes wealthy working on  harmonicas?"
>
>
> .... I'm not even nineteen yet, ofcourse I DO NOT PLAN ON CONTENDING W/ 
> "Messrs.  Sleigh, Gordon, Filisko, etc.".  But how many times have I heard 
> Joe Filisko or Buzz Krantz say "all the best players know how to work on 
> their own harps."
>
> I believe there is truth to this, as well as a good point.  My questions as 
> to the combs.. I (personally) don't know pf a single person aside from 
> these guys that seals wooden combs! No matter what kind of harp they're 
> doing it to; so ofcourse I used them as examples (/references).  If 
> anything I apologize for my lack of knowledge, but I figured that was what 
> harp-l was used for.. curing the ailments of harmonica-linked ignorance. 
> It's not a matter of stealing anyone's secrets.. there's a difference 
> between stealing a secret, and acquiring a small basis of knowledge on a 
> subject.
> In truth I have no specific reference to go to other than these e-mails.  I 
> only get to see filisko's teachins once a year at spah (which, w/ the 
> beginning of college this year I will not be able to attend.. sooo), and 
> the teach-in's themselves are usually very crowded and dfficult to acult 
> any individual instruction.
>
> In short.. I just wanna make sure I'm doin it right; in order to advance my 
> skills as a harmonica "player", not a harmonica "customizer".. pretty hard 
> to easily utilize the overblow/draw methods on a normal stock-harp golden 
> melody.. in which case you might see my initial dilemma...
>
>
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