Re: [Harp-L] Re: Does anyone know what's being done about Marine Bands??? Warning serious harp heresy here.





The 1890s represents one of the greatest times ever as far as harmonicas go. If you look at the patents from that time, there were all kinds of incredible things going on. That's not to say there were no incredible things going on at other times because there were, but the 1890s kind of stands out to me. You start seeing all these patents for chromatic harmonicas popping up. 
 People started thinking perhaps more than they had about tone and doing something about it. In the late 1890s, Carl Essbach in Klingenthal came up with a variable reedplate, you could activate this second reedplate, thus you could switch back and forth between double reed and single reed tone. That's just one example.
But the simple ones were the ones that really caught on, specifically Jacob Hohner in Trossingen with the Marine Band and Richard Seydel Sr. with the Bandmaster, each with its own incredible, unique tone. Hohner approached the Marine Band design (this was the Mouse Ear) with the idea that if you lift the coverplate away from the reedplate at every possible point, the vibrating coverplate would alter the tone. So Jacob Hohner had the coverplates attached at the top of the reedplate and four nails on the corners. 
Richard Seydel used two screws, but moved near the top to hold down and had two coverplate supports at the bottom, so it also had very little coverplate touching the reedplate. He also had megaphones to direct sound out the side. 

Long story short, the Marine Band is still around and the Bandmaster is not because of how World War II turned out. Any idea just how bad it sucks that the true, prewar Bandmaster isn't around anymore? Or there are few around today who can remember how awesome it was? Any idea how bad it would suck if the Marine Band weren't around? It would suck almost as bad. Some would say worse. I grew up playing Marine Bands. I think there is a part of every player who likes the leaky things that doesn't want to lose that nostaligic connection with our harmonica forebears. 

Dave
_____________________
www.elkriverharmonicas.com 

----- Original Message ----
From: fjm <bad_hat@xxxxxxxx>
Cc: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, August 31, 2009 9:42:11 AM
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Re: Does anyone know what's being done about Marine Bands??? Warning serious harp heresy here.

> I just don't get it.



The 1896 Marine Band has so many things right it always amazes me to think about it.  Close to 125 years ago Hohher through some stroke of luck and genius conceived a harmonica that's almost perfect in many many ways.  The wood swelling is a fixable minor annoyance.  The reeds being the right width and length and profile for so many styles of playing is what's important.  So Bill if you play tweaked up special 20's you're playing Marine Band reed plates.  fjm
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