Re: [Harp-L] chromatic advice

["Rick Dempster" <rick.dempster@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Winslow;
              Why did Hohner cease making the CBH - I mean the one with the plastic 'doors' instead of the slide- I never owned one, but when I've briefly played one, it seemed pretty airtight, and that was a  4 octave, wasn't it?
RD

>>> Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx> 15/09/2010 0:19 >>>
The Sliver Concerto is three octaves because it was the brainchild of Tommy Reilly, who was a three-octave player.
Doug became a three-octave player after playing four-octave instruments for awhile. He found his true preference, and when he and Bobbie Giordano went to redesign the chromatic harmonica from the ground up, they designed to that preference.  I once asked him whether they'd be making a four-octave instrument, as my main hesitation in getting a Renny - aside from the cost - was my preference four a four-octave instrument, and he admitted that they did't know enough about building four octave instruments to successfully take on such a project.
And there's the rub. Smaller instruments are easier to build. Ten-hole chromatic harmonicas are more airtight that 12-holers, and 12-holers are by nature more airtight than 16-holers. If you just add two or four more holes without doing the additional work of figuring out how to compensate for the longer slide and the greater surface areas that contact other areas, you're going to have problems. But Hohner, Hering, and Suzuki, and now Bends, have all, in my estimation, dealt with those problems and produce fine four-octave chromatic harmonicas.
Winslow

Winslow Yerxa
Author, Harmonica For Dummies ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5
Harmonica instructor, The Jazzschool for Music Study and Performance
Resident expert, bluesharmonica.com
Columnist, harmonicasessions.com

--- On Tue, 9/14/10, MundHarp@xxxxxxx <MundHarp@xxxxxxx> wrote
 
On the other hand... Why did Doug Tate build his "Renaissance", 
perhaps the "ultimate" chromatic harmonica, as a 3 octave? And why is Hohner's 
flagship harmonica, the "Silver Concerto" only a 12 hole harp?
 
John "Whiteboy" Walden
Cebu City
Philippines