the Blues Harp (like the Old Standby) was never anything else
but a standard Marine Band comb & reed plates fitted with closed
covers, which made the sound slightly less bright due to the
different shape and of course the closed sides.
Wow. This opens up something like a legitimate version of the materials
debate. Aside from the holes on the sides, is there anything else about
the shape of the covers that changes the sound of a diatonic harp?
As a guy who mainly plays acoustically, I'd LOVE to experiment with various
shapes for the covers, if that's going to give me different colors of sound.
Has anyone on Harp-l monkeyed around in that jungle?
Beyond shape, here goes an actual materials question: do different metals
or coatings on the covers change anything? I recall being knocked off my
feet by the sound of a tenor sax that had just been coated with an ounce of
platinum.