RE: [Harp-L] why custom harps - (my ridiculously and unnecessarily long reply)

[Jonathan Compton <jofjltn4@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Whatever you do, don't buy a custom harp!  It's the worst thing I've done in my 2.5 year harmonica-playing "career".  It's also the best thing I've done for it.  Let me explain...

Once upon a time, (BC...Before Custom), I accumulated stock harps as funds allowed.  My favorite brand and favorite key changed frequently with each new batch of harps.  When I had amassed enough to start duplicating keys, I realized that it wasn't as much the brand or key as it was the luck of the stock setup.  Some harps were my favorites because they just happened to have more good qualities than bad...or a harp's particular good quality was one that happened to be an area of focus for me at that stage of my development.  (Well, except for my A harps...all of which are my least favorite...or I've just had very bad luck and all four of them were "bad apples"...)

When I bought my first custom...(a Joe Spiers work of art), I realized that it wasn't so much that I like my previous favorites so much as it was that I just hated them less than the other harps.  This thing was awesome.  After a few minutes (okay, hours/weeks/months) of unlearning little things I had been doing to work around the inconsistencies of the stock harps, my playing improved.  (Go ahead, naysayers, and argue that it was psychological...that I *wanted* to hear a difference.)  My theory is that I had fewer things to *think* about.  Other musicians will surely attest that sometimes even having to think about even ONE thing can drastically impact your playing.  Was this the harp with the draw three bends that take a little more to hit?  Was this the harp with the airy draw two?  (Later, is this the harp w/ the overblow six or blow bend 10 that has a tendency to squeal?)  It just had a consistency and a dependability that made it effortless to play.

Prior to the custom harp acquisition, I had been trying to get overblows.  I don't mean "get" them like play them well, I mean "get" them like make them play at all.  I tried a half dozen different tricks and eventually was able to make the "noise" on a few holes of a few harps.  With the custom, I could make the "noise" on every overblow.  When I played my stock harps in other keys, those missing overblows were now there.  The custom harp significantly knocked down the learning curve.  Psychological?  Maybe...but who cares.  Now those overblows...whether on custom or stock...are actual notes in actual songs.

A known-good custom harp also helps you in your efforts to tweak your own harps.  It's the new benchmark.  As a beginner, without knowing what's possible, you can only compare the result of your tweaking to how you remember it being before you tweaked it.  Like as eye doctor asking is this better or is this better, but making you wait a half hour between your two options.  "Let me see the first one again."  "No, sorry, that isn't possible."

Why is it the worst thing I've done?  Because while it has improved my playing, it made playing stock harps less fun...or more accurately, it highlighted what I didn't like about each of them.

Some will say that a custom harp in the hands of a beginner is a waste
of a good custom harp.  It's true, compared to what a non-beginner
could do with it, there's a lot of lost potential there...but that
isn't the comparison that matters.  The real question is, will you
receive in "value" more than you gave up (paid) in value?  My guess is that the answer to this is almost always yes.  I don't know your financial situation, but if you have the means, I strongly encourage you to at least try one...and I also strongly advise that if you think you're happy with your stock harps, don't ever play a custom.

Jonathan "essay" Compton