Every flummoxed overblower wants to believe it’s the harp (dammit!) which
is defective—-not the player. Believe me, I know! I wish a pro would pick
up my harp and struggle as much as I, confirming what certainly must be
the source of the problem: the gear. Well, last weekend I got my wish,
although the outcome was not what I’d hoped.
During a break at Howard Levy’s workshop in NYC, a student came up to him
and asked the perennial question: Is it possible to overblow an out of the
box harmonica? Howard looked down at the suspect Marine Band in the
clutches of the humble inquirer, asked if it was new (“almost” came the
earnest answer), rolled his eyes with a what-the-hell, and extended a
trusting hand to accept the instrument in question. To an audience of
incredulous ears and jaws agape, he ran up and down the ten holes of the
stock Marine Band like it was a custom Filisko. Well, almost. After
blowing musical brilliance through the $20 toy, he declared, “Not bad,
although it doesn’t overdraw.” Of course, at the speed he played the
fusillade of notes, you’d never know.
When he handed back the harp to its owner, there was smoke pouring from
the vents in the cover plates. The wooden comb surprisingly hadn’t caught
fire, but the equipment excuse long blamed by frustrated overblowers had
been burned to ashes.
Ansel
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