[Harp-L] Chromatic Maintenance - Treading Lightly

[John Thaden]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Greg. I see things a little differently. Modern diatonic players will play a C harp in G and C for sure and of course in their relative minors, but also in F and likely in D and Bb, the endpoint being, you've got it, 12 keys. So take the 12 positions/keys on chromatic and divide it by at least 5 positions in common use on diatonic and the difference shrinks considerably. We all must contend with changing breath direction and holes. What's harder? A button push or a diatonic hole 8 overdraw?
Alt tunings can really simplify things. I play a 10-hole, 3-octave chromatic tuned to augmented chords (auggie) -- button-out blow is F A C# F all the way up. For the 12 major scales, I only have to know 4 positions!
Finally, I've just not had problems on that instrument with windsavers sticking. Nor with tuning. It may help that the body is unsealed pearwood (absorbs moisture) but I'm guessing that I owe my good fortune to the skills of the customizer who mounted the valves 13 years ago.
John ThadenBig Dog (the band)Brazos County, TX, USA




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  On Thu, Oct 5, 2023 at 12:05 PM, Greg Jones<Greg at xxxxx> wrote:   Glad to see the discussion here on chromatic maintenance.

Some thoughts of mine on the subject.

1. If you are a new chromatic player, note that you are trying to learn one
of the hardest instruments in the world to play. Having the skill to reheat
some Sonny T licks on diatonic is not the same as learning or mastering
chromatic.  Mathematically speaking, the chromatic has 12 different
patterns (12 keys) making it 12 times harder to learn.

2. The chromatic is a maintenance beast. It may not play out this way, but
if you plan to learn you should expect to spend about 15 minutes of
maintenance time for every couple hours of play.  They are made to modulate
and made to maintain.  Saliva, moisture, dust & dirt, hot & cold, shock,
and a host of other contributing factors mean you will have to effectively
field strip your chromatic quite often. All the great players do and if you
don't learn this, you will have trouble progressing.

3. There are many great chromatics out there. Far more than there were
years ago. The modern designs are *really advanced.*  We've come a long
way.  However, these less expensive chromatics which are outstanding have
no back end support. The manufacturers do not provide parts or have
established repair technicians. Your really nice chromatic that you paid
$100 for will eventually be a paperweight unless you know how to repair it
yourself and even then you won't find parts for it.

4. Take lessons.  Very very few players come even remotely close to mastery
without a teacher and the ones who do are already established musicians who
play piano, jazz/classical guitar, etc.

5. Consider a great alternative to the chromatic and that is the Seydel
NonSlider.  It is fully chromatic but with no slide and very few or no
valves, the maintenance headaches are virtually eliminated.  Buy it from me
and if you don't like it, I'll refund your money.

Onward..

Greg Jones
Seydel Tech & Customer Support
Seydel Service Partner




*Greg Jones*
*Seydel Sales & Service*

Web Site <http://1623customharmonicas.com>
Repairs
<https://www.1623customharmonicas.com/seydel-diatonic--chromatic-repair>