[Harp-L] Richard Sleigh harmonicas, tools and harmonica technology instruction

["Trip Henderson" <trip.tunes@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hey all!

There's been quite a bit of bandwidth dedicated to custom harps recently so
I thought I'd throw my 20 cents in.

I have been playing Richard Sleigh's harps for years  (and believe me, I
ain't gettin' 'em for free!!). But even though I've spent a chunk of change
on them and had to wait a long time for some of them, I've never regretted
the investment that I made.  Playing music is what gives me some of my
highest highs, and these harps have taken me to places that I didn't know I
could go to. For example, I fell in love instantly with his low D for fiddle
tunes, and it completely changed that game for me - and it is so much kinder
to my neighbor's pets than the standard D, to boot… I play a wide range of
styles from Blues to Old Time, Standards to Country, and Richard has dialed
in the harps for my needs and then some. They are extremely even in their
response from reed to reed, and when it comes to playing bends and
overbends, it feels like I have power steering. They are WAY more playable
than any production harp or other custom harp I've tried.

In the past few years I have also studied with Richard at his shop and I've
been using his tools as well, and my sense of control over this part of my
musical life has increased immensely. Working directly with Richard has been
a series of breakthroughs and his tools just make tuning so much easier that
I look forward to it (sometimes). I have even gotten good at replacing
reeds, and it really makes it easier to know that Richard will bail me out
if worst comes to worst.

So here's the catch. These harps are so much more enjoyable to play than out
of the box harps that playing anything else became a miserable chore.  One
night while following a roadie up to the stage I read on the back of his
t-shirt a phrase that would change my way of thinking about my instrument
"life is too short for bad tone", I had one of those a-ha moments!!!  These
days I work primarily with acoustic musicians who think nothing of spending
several thousand dollars on their mandolins, guitars, fiddles, ukes...even
banjos!  So I sold a '59 Bassman, or two, and ordered 40 marine bands from
Richard.  Sounds excessive I know, but playing fiddle tunes is really hard
on your instrument and they'll go out of tune much faster than if I'm
playing blues. I have to blend with the fiddler so having at least 2
back-ups ready to go is a must for me.  My gig case typically has 3 or 4 of
each of the most common keys, some low harps (c, d, e, f), and some country
tuned harps - 40 in the case with another 20 or so on the workbench back
home.

Like I said at the top, I ain't gettin' 'em for free, or even at a
discount...I recently went to Richard's to study some advanced tech/tuning
techniques and walked out of there with a big chunk of change left on his
workbench.  I also walked out with some deep knowledge, learned at the feet
of a master.

Trip Henderson ~ New York, NY
http://www.myspace.com/triphenderson  http://www.youtube.com/tripharmonica
http://www.secondfiddles.com