RE: [Harp-L] Cheap/Huang => so harp became a rich man's game (?)

[Steve Shaw <moorcot@xxxxxxx>]

> I know it's meant to be funny Tom, but you do know it's rubbish, right?
> When did trying to save some money became a bad thing? I try to save money 
> on éverything, for the simple reason that I have to.
> I read the silliest things, like 'buy expensive', 'but the best you can 
> get', 'buy custom', 'dont try to save money', etc... Some of you guys 
> probably make loads of money aside from making music, but unfortunately not 
> everybody does. And don't start telling me now that harmonica's are cheap, 
> because they're not.
> Man, I would love to buy me a couple of customized harps from all over the 
> place ... but never did and probably never will. For the plain and simple 
> reason that I just can't afford a couple of 100 euros to buy me a harp 
> that's a little less leaky and so I don't have to work so hard on that 
> thing. (Unless somebody can convince me that those harps don't blow out just 
> as fast as the cheaper stuff, like Golden Melody or Lee Oskar) Mmm okay, so 
> I just work a bit harder to still try to make music I like. And maybe try 
> some embossing, tuning and customizing myself on a cheap harp. Ye never 
> know...
> 
> So MHO: it's okay to save a few bucks by practicing on Huangs and save your 
> Hohner & Suzuki's for the gig. Life is expensive enough as it is

> Cheers
> Bart
  Well, Bart, I can't afford those expensive custom harps either. I don't make money out of my harmonica playing and my income is all pension these days. :-(I do think, however, there's a sort of happy medium. In my view, paradoxically, my biggest harp expense over the years has been cheap harps that don't last (that is, go quickly out of tune or that frustrate me in other ways, such as by having uneven response or leakiness). I could start a commercial junkyard with my knackered cheap harps. I hate naming names, but I would include in those the Easy Riders, Silvertones, Star Performers, GLHs and a host of others I've tried with the failed objective of saving dough. A music shop near me let me try out one of those Johnsons Blues ones once. I'd been playing it for two minutes before 7-blow went flat! Harps such as Bluesmasters and Lee Oskars are robust enough and good enough for both practising and gigging, and they don't cost a fortune. Once you've learned to play without blowing out reeds every five minutes (and everyone does need to learn that: it's the easiest thing in the world to blame your harps for your bad technique. I did that for years!), these harps are brilliant workhorses.  I'm a tad more circumspect with my SP20s as I find them to be a little less robust, so I save them mostly for gigging, and I love 'em.  As for custom harps, there's no need to pay €200 for them. Tony Dannecker will rustle you up a SP20 to your exact specifications for sixty quid (about €70), and I can assure you they are so superior to anything off the shelf that you'll be amazed at the pleasure you'll get from them. They are louder, sweeter, more responsive and longer-lasting by far. If you can rustle up the pennies, treat yourself, or get Granny to buy you one for Christmas. In the meantime, your Oskars and SP20s are fully up to the job. I made a whole CD of my playing using just a G Lee Oskar and a low D SP20, both of which had received no more than my own amateurish tweaking.