[Harp-L] Re: Customizing (was Harp soaking)

[Steve Baker <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I had the pleasure of meeting a number of the older generation of  
harmonica techs who worked primarily on chromatics for the pros, such  
as Bill Romel or Earl Williams from Portland OR, and I also spoke to  
Jerry Murad, who Earl did a lot of work for, a couple of times about  
harmonica modification. Those guys did all kinds of adjustments to  
their instruments to make them play better, but they didn't to my  
knowledge emboss reed slots. I'm confident that the earlier diatonic  
players just used instruments out of the box and made no adjustments  
whatsoever  -  people didn't even know how to tune in those days, as  
is clearly audible on numerous recordingings where the harp is  
seriously out of tune. This is relatively easy to fix, far simpler  
than embossing. To the best of my knowledge, the pioneers of reed  
slot embossing are Joe Filisko and Rick Epping.

Steve Baker
www.stevebaker.de
www.bluesculture.com