[Harp-L] repair people for chromatic harmonica

[JON KIP <jonkip@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Jun 3, 2013, at 5:24 PM, harp-l-request@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:

>> A) Satisfaction with completed harmonica based on requested services.
>> B) Changes you would consider on your next order.
>> C) Quality of communication.
>> D) Speed of completed harmonica.
>> E) Probability of using and recommending the same person again.


(this may or may not apply to diatonic-based repair people, I don't know any of them.)

I'd want to ask two other questions:

F) how much sleep do you get?
G) How do you survive on so little sleep?

Being a chromatic horn-smasher can't be an easy way to make a living. In my past life, I played Expensive Instruments, like flute, oboe, sax, clarinet, in return for money, a health plan, and the chance to play pretty nice woodwind solos while my friends in the string section checked their stock portfolios. In Chromatic-harmonica-based dollars, repair people for those costly horns can be really expensive.  And at times, their repair can easily cost more than the total cost of an average chromatic harmonica, plus shipping.

So the chromatic repair folks are clearly in a bind. Their hourly cost of living is the same as the rest of us.... we eat, we have homes, we go to work, we come home, have cars, children dreaming of college, and ex-wives to pay for. How many people will pay $100 an hour for someone to fix a $200 instrument? The answer is "not enough." or, alternatively, "too few".

Ok, if you're playing a $4000 chromatic harmonica, it might make sense... but buying a $4000 chromatic harmonica is just plain silly, unless you buy six or eight, and tune them to various versions of "A=44x" and then it's just ...oh... .yeah,....expensive and silly.

So how do the repair people working on chromatic harmonicas make a living?

I'm not sure, I've only known two, and one of them is dead, and the other one writes me emails way after midnight, his time.

jk
jonkip.com