[Harp-L] Why the harmonica needs mad scientists...

[Richard Sleigh]

I’ve been reading the latest posts going back and forth on tweaking
harmonica reeds and slots and finding the balance between working on harps
and playing them,


One of the things that I love about this forum is that we have such
dedicated and experienced people who can publicly engage in spirited, and
edgy debate coming from very different points of view. Even the complaints
force you to actually think (that is, if you have any inclinations toward
this fascinating process of rolling things around in your brain in the
hopes of coming up with new and more useful combinations).


There are a few reasons why the harmonica world has so many people working
on their own instruments (or buying customs):


1. The harmonica is still a relatively young instrument. Guitars, violins,
pianos, have all been around much longer and have had more time to be
refined.


2. The harmonica was not taken as seriously as other instruments until
relitively recent times.


3. The profit margins on harmonicas don’t create the kind of NASA “fly me
to the moon” budgets that speed up massive innovation.


4. Also in the world of money - there are a lot more subsidies and patrons
for instruments like the oboe and other orchestral instruments…  There are
a lot of $50,000 + violins, pianos, cellos, etc, because there is money to
pay for them. Not so much with the harmonica.


5. The harmonica world attracts misfits and rebels and back yard mechanics.
This is true for other instruments as well, but the harmonica has some
deliciously complicated problems that you just don’t have to deal with if
you play other instruments. For example, tuning… you have to negotiate
between the polarized worlds of natural harmonies based on the harmonic
overtone series (just intonation) and the world of equal temperament multi
key chromaticism. The diatonic harmonica has one foot in the ancient worlds
of folk music traditions and the other in the modern world of chromatic
expression.


6. Harmonica reeds have incredibly rich overtones that exaggerate the
results of tuning when you play chords. Harmonicas can sound really really
good and really really bad depending on how you tune them. You don’t have
these kinds of problems with other instruments like saxes or guitars for
the most part…


7. Back to money - by the time the harmonica enthusiast has become
hopelessly addicted to the instrument, they are faced with maintaining a
fleet of harps, and the incentives to learn at least a little bit of how to
make them last longer and play and sound at least OK are much higher than
among guitar players, for example. Once you learn how to replace strings
and use a guitar tuner, you are good to go for the most part. Getting to a
similar place with maintaining harps takes more study and involves more
complicated problems, but it’s worth learning the basics so you don’t have
to buy a new harp every time one of your harps go out of tune.


That is one of the reasons I created a series of videos and instructional
materials for harp players. If you are new to this stuff, you don’t have to
invent the wheel, you have resources (including this cantankerous forum).


If you read harmonica forums, you are going to be pummeled with tech talk.
It comes in cycles, because new players are tuning in all the time, and
they will be running up agains the same old problems we all wrestle with.


As far as evaluating the results of working on reeds and slots, it seems to
me that you could measure results with a combination of decibel meters,
compression measuring devices, and spectrum analysis gizmos to give you
voiceprints that show how the peaks and valleys of harmonic frequencies
change as you shape the reeds and slots.


I know with organs that use reeds that techs shape the reeds to “voice” the
instrument. With a pump organ, you can make radical differences in the
overall balance of bass, midrange, and treble by the way you curve the
reeds. With a pump organ it is not as critical to have the reed have
excellent compression because you can over-ride compression loss with the
brute force of the bellows.


With the harmonica you are balancing compression all the time against
changes in tone color to keep it responsive to the breath.


I’d love to see voiceprints of harmonica notes and chords - before and
after the process of working on reeds / slots.


Has anyone ever done this?


I don’t have the inclination to invest in gizmos (other than a high end
strobe tuner) to measure what I am doing when I work on reed plates. I use
a number of different lighting strategies and the strobe tuner and the rest
is what I experience when I play the instrument.


I also rely on the feedback and opinions of the people who buy the
harmonicas I customize. So far, since 1994, I’ve had enough people voting
yes with their wallets on my work with changing reeds and slots and tuning
reeds that I have been able to pay my bills. This may not be scientific,
but it does pay the bills.


If anyone has ideas on voiceprint type gizmos to analyzing the results of
reed plate work, I am all ears.


In the mean time…


Rave On!


Richard Sleigh
rrsleigh at xxxxx
http://hotrodharmonicas.com
http://rsleigh.com