Re: [Harp-L] was experiment, now just combs

"Vern Smith" <jevern@xxxxxxx> · Sun, 21 Dec 2008 17:09:24 -0800

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Payne" <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

To: "Harp L Harp L" <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>

Sent: Sunday, December 21, 2008 12:35 PM

Subject: RE: [Harp-L] was experiment, now just combs

From: Vern Smith <jevern@xxxxxxx>

To: David Payne <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; Harp L Harp L 
<harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>

Sent: Sunday, December 21, 2008 2:07:44 PM

Subject: Re: [Harp-L] The Harmonica Comb Experiment
If you introduce your discussion with a false or controversial premise ("If
you would like a natural tone") the rest of the statement is irrelevant.

It is false because your test at SPAH, or wherever it was, refuted this 
for all time?

Not for all time...but until someone can demonstrate that they can hear the 
differences from the sound of the harp alone.  I offer a long-standing $1000 
wager that no one can. No one has taken me up on it.  Usually there is the 
different claim that even though a listener can't, a player can.  That is 
because there have been no chances for players to demonstrate this ability 
under controlled conditions.
The side vent discussion went the same way as wood, the accepted theory 
among the scientific is that they can not make any difference. On my test, 
the consenus was that I would have had to have it machine blown or 
something to make a valid test. OK, maybe, whatever. But I don't recall 
hearing of any machines blowing anything at either SPAH experiment.

We had both machine-blown and player-blown comparisons at the first SPAH 
experiment.   I spent days constructing the machine and then lugged it half 
way across the continent to get it to SPAH.  The airlines were more tolerant 
of extra luggage in '97. It used a tank-type vacuum cleaner tamed by a 2KW 
light dimmer as an air pump.  It used 25 feet of garden hose to isolate the 
noise of the pump (much reduced at 5 inches of water from the 80 inches of 
water generated at full speed) from the tones of the harps.  Not one of 30 
people could distinguish among lead, titanium, balsa wood, plastic foam, 
pear wood, and ABS plastic.   They didn't even know whether the sound came 
from different or the same harps blown in succession!
Vern 