[Harp-L] Meanwhile Over On the Musician Forums..

[Ronnie Schreiber]

Elliot King <1elliotking at xxxxx> wrote:
> From:
> This endless conversation about who has a better method of filing reeds etc
> is getting very old
> Doesn't anyone play or did everyone turn into harp mechanics?
> Just saying~~~

How many guitar players aren't interested in gear? There are as many 
YouTube videos about guitars, pedals, and amps as there are teaching 
tutorials.

Let me ask you, where would music be today were it not for Leo Fender 
and Laurens Hammond? Leo couldn't play guitar or bass and Hammond was so 
profoundly tone deaf that he's been described as "amusical".

If I'd spent the last five years practicing playing harmonica instead of 
developing the Harmonicaster electric harmonica I'd be able to play an 
invention that didn't exist, and I'd likely be just another middling 
harp player noodling the blues.

Instead, since I wasn't going to significantly contribute as a musician, 
I figure this will be my contribution to music.

The technical side of things goes hand in hand with the art. Pianos 
didn't exist until iron casting technology got good enough to make a 
frame that could withstand tons of pressure from all of those heavy 
gauge strings.

As for whether or not this or that modification makes a better playing 
or sounding harmonica, I'm an advocate of blind A/B testing, but I also 
think that an experienced musician or critical listener may well be able 
to perceive nuances that a less trained ear might not hear.

Certainly response and playability are necessarily going to be 
subjective judgments. I suppose one could design an empirical test for 
quickness of reed response with a standardized burst of air pressure and 
waveform analysis, but ultimately it's going to be about how it feels to 
the player.

Instrument measurements are important but player and listener's ears are 
the ultimate judge. If the two agree, it's probably reality.

I'm experimenting with some pickups of my own design for the 
Harmonicaster. I was just A/B testing (not blind) the new pickups 
compared to the production pickups. I thought the tone was good but they 
weren't quite as loud. Close, but not quite. So I got out the dB meter 
and sure enough, there was about a 3 dB difference, about what you'd 
expect from a barely audible difference.

Still, there is lots of stuff you can't measure in a lab and expert 
players' ears and lips may be, in certain circumstance, the best 
measuring device.

Ronnie Schreiber
The Electric Harmonica Co.
http://www.harmonicaster.com