Re: [Harp-L] Suzuki's Fabulus....Rant...Strictly IMHO

[martin oldsberg <martinoldsberg@xxxxxxxxx>]

Maybe this topic is a bit worn so I´ll try to be brief.
 
  Thanx to Elizabeth for some practical advices. Rationally I know that´s the way to go but the threshold is pretty steep. But I´ll surely try gapping w/ something light next time around, and of course, pretty stupid of me to attack a brand new GM, but I had this notion that I wanted at least one (1) perfect harp.
 
No big deal, but:
>Martin: I don't think the issue was whether or not the harps were playable. They're all >'playable'.
 Depends on what you mean by "playable". If one reed is choked/stuck it´s not playable, as I see it.
 
And:
>As far as I can see the tuning of a guitar IS most definitely applicable. Just ask a guitarist >if it's as simple as just stringing a guitar to tune it. If the idea is that one has to take it >back to a shop to have it 'tuned' as you contend,  then this falls into the same province of >a harmonica purchaser returning a harp to the factory to have it tuned to his/her own >specifications, does it not? 
 
  Nope. My example was if a guitar string on a new guitar didn´t ring -- that´s a case for a legitimate complaint, don´t you think?
 
  Generally I find that quite a few Harp-l-ers take a somewhat Panglossian view on the harmonica market, to some extent probably due to the majority of Americans here: you seem to get them cheaper, less need for carping. Also in the US a more general satisfaction with the workings of the market -- not due to the market´s actual performance, mind you, but more based on a certain mind-set, or ideology. (This claim could be supported by empirical research but that takes us way OT. "Is he a friggin´ COMMUNIST!?" Well you never know with them Swedes, heavily indoctrinated as we´ve been, living 100 years behind the Iron Curtain.)   
  
  Sounding lika a busybody here, I know, but the market economy need customer feedback in several ways and it´s good to air the complaints you have: something might trickle down. But in all honesty I don´t think the industry gives one rodent´s rectum for our gripes, so I don´t hold my breath: harmonicas appear still to made mainly for the one time customer, the average bozo who thinks he should perhaps take up the harp and give it a try. He soon quits and is not a very demanding type.
  Waxing nostalgic here, I would gladly revert to 1974/5 when I started playing and a Marine Band cost the same as a set of guitar strings, and lasted through several sets of guitar strings. That is, as I remember it, but memory, as we all know, is a prostitute.
 
Cheers,
Martin