RE: [Harp-L] breaking - in, looking for a metallurgist

[Patrick Killeen <patrickkilleen@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

You don't need a metallurgist to establish whether or not breaking 
in a harmonica has a perceptible effect, an experiment to test the 
theory could go along the these lines:
 
Give a harmonica player 10 new harmonicas to break in, keep an 
identical set of 10 new harmonicas aside.
 
When the player has finished breaking in the harps you'll have 10  
pairs consisting of one broken in harp and one matching brand new 
harp.
 
Blindfold the harmonica player so that he can't see which are the 
used harps and give him each of the pairs in turn, asking him two 
questions:
1) Which of the two harmonicas is the one that was broken in?
2) Which of the harmonicas sounds better?
 
Repeat the above until you get a statistically significant set of 
results.
 
If breaking in does make a significant difference then the players 
will tend to identify the broken in harmonicas and say that they 
have a better sound. 
 
If it turns out that breaking in harmonicas does have a perceptible 
effect then it will be time to ask metallurgists to suggest possible 
causes.  
 
How about it, are there any harp-lers out there looking for a 
science project?
 
Regards
 
Patrick 		 	   		  
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