Re: [Harp-L] Re: Breaking in harps

[Niall Tracey <internationiall@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

(Ooops... replied direct to Steve rather than to the list.)








> From: steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> 
> In the old Hohner factory, the master  
> craftsmen were insistent that that working a reed has an effect on  
> the crystalline structure of the metal and will tend to release some  
> of the tension it has accumulated while being rolled, milled, die  
> stamped and riveted.

No craftsman can see the structure of the metal at the atomic level -- which isn't to say that the craftsmen are wrong about the effect, but definitely about the cause.

Last time I was involved in this debate (about 10 years ago now), I thought we'd rejected the idea of the metal rearranging itself (the energy in a breath being insufficient to release the atoms) and were focussing on the idea of whether or not there was any "creasing" in the metal of the reed.  I seem to recall seeing microscopic photography of ree cross-sections showing stress patterns near the base of the reed.  The debate at the time was whether that was typical or just a lucky example.

> In the past I've certainly damaged reeds by playing them at full  
> power straight out of the box and prefer to accustom them to their  
> fate more gently.

There's a problem of perception here.  If you were unlucky enough to pick up a harp with a defective reed, it's going to break as soon as you start playing it hard.  If you're predisposed to blame this on not breaking it in, it will reinforce your belief.  If you'd broken in the harps and then it broke, or if it snapped or jammed during breaking in, you would put this down to a manufacturing fault -- you wouldn't see it as disproof of the importance of breaking in.

Which doesn't mean you're wrong, because someone who doesn't believe in breaking in would have a similarly biased perception.  A reed that broke before breaking in would be disregarded as one of a bad batch, whereas a reed that broke after breaking in would be taken as proof that breaking in is ineffective.

I'm kind of agnostic on the issue -- if the effect exists, it's so minimal that it doesn't affect me because I don't play that much or go through harps quickly enough that it matters.  If it affects 1 reed in 100, I'm only ever going to suffer from it every third or fourth year.


 		 	   		  
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