[Harp-L] Burnishing v Embossing

[Brendan Power]

Interesting to see this debate resurfacing, and the word 'swaging' being put
forward. It has its merits, but I think we should defer to the original
adopter of this jewellery-inspired technique with harmonicas: Rick Epping.

 

He was the first recorded person to deliberately reduce the dimensions of
harmonica reedslots for the purpose of improving reed response by
hand-working with a dedicated tool, and he called it burnishing. Rick
generously shared his technique to the wider harmonica community - which is
how it was learned and adopted by the big-name US customisers and all those
who came after them. How it came to be known as embossing instead I'm not
sure.

 

I wrote an article on this topic for Harmonica World magazine, and here is
Rick's own account of how it all started and spread:

 

http://www.brendan-power.com/blogs/HWDecJan13_Rick.pdf

 

Brendan

 <http://www.brendan-power.com/> www.brendan-power.com

 <http://www.youtube.com/BrendanPowerMusic>
www.YouTube.com/BrendanPowerMusic