More Harmonica Talk

Squeezebox & Harmonica
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Well, I think it’s time for more chat about Harmonicas. Why? Because I’m greedy…

I’ve been playing a short while now, and have at least been able to make some observations of my own personal preferences in instruments. As always YMMV.

For a Low D, there are three options I know of…Seydel, Hohner, or Soul’s Voice. Of them, I own a Soul’s voice and a Special 20. The Special 20 outshines the Soul’s voice in every way. Seydel’s are more expensive than the Hohner, and since I’m quite happy with the quality of the Hohner, I see no need to give a Seydel a try here.

For G, I’m currently playing a Lee Oskar (which I did the plate switch with MM plates to get Paddy Richter tuning without having to resort to my own tune-foo) and I believe it’s a very good harp. However, I got a Seydel Paddy tuned G in a week ago and I have to say I like it better for out of the box play. I don’t know if it will last as long though, as I havent’ been playing long enough to know.
If I ever do start tuning my own, I think I’ll go for Delta Frosts. I just love the way they sound and feel and I think the reeds will outlast most others. I have one in C and one in High D at the moment and the C is the first harmonica I owned.

That leaves my experiment with Chromatics. I picked up a Seydel Irish Tuned in G/F#. I can see quite a bit of potential in this one. Honestly, I prefer the Diatonics, but I can see breaking it out now and again. It’s hard to NOT go crazy with the slide ornamentation with that thing.

That’s my brand observations, and I thought I’d put it down in case anybody else is thinking about starting the Harmonica for ITM. Steve has been very clear in his preferences, and for the most part I agree with him (I think his problem with Seydel is that they are quite a bit more for around the same quality). I think I love Bushman Delta Frosts like he loves Lee Oskars though.

With all that, I’m at a bit of a conundrum in my playing. The vast majority seem to pucker block, and I learned by tongue blocking. I CAN pucker block, but it seems to bother my gums, where tongue blocking is natural. I know this means I’m out tonguing triplets, though I can vary the jaw flick by just tapping the harmonica quickly which gives me nearly the same sound (and I can pull it off pretty quickly). It DOES open up some things though, like Octave playing and the occasional chord slap (which are both heard in Concertina playing).

So, what I’m looking for here is what sort of ornaments would be more acceptable with tongue blocking. Just trying to start a conversation here…anybody?

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I must confess to not being very ambitious about trying different makes. I went through the business of going through all the cheapies a few years ago to find out whether there is any such thing as a free lunch, and there isn’t. Generally, the harps that cost around £20 this end (Lee Oskars, Hohner blues harps, Marine Bands and Special 20s, Suzuki Bluesmasters) are all OK in terms of playability. My technique has improved so much that I can make any of these harps last really well, though Lee Oskars are pretty bomb-proof for beginners! THe Huang harps are cheaper and look like good value, but you need to be prepared to do the fiddly work that the quality control dept. failed to pick up! I used to think that harps all had different tones, but having listened to recordings of myself playing different harps I now think that this is a bit of an illusion. They do come in different fine tunings, though, and to me personally this is a big issue. I am not keen on tunings for melody-playing that are not equal temperament. The only Hohner 10-hole in equal is the Golden Melody. So I have to fine-tune all my Special 20s and blues harps. Suzukis and Lee Oskars are equal-tuned. The Paddy retune takes me about five minutes these days, I’ve done it so many times. You can almost get away with not bothering to do it to D harps. I’ve found that I usually have to attend to the reed-gapping on most harps I buy, usually for just one or two reeds. Just one gap not quite right for you can end up with you leaving the harp in its box.

As for ornaments on 10-hole harps, you have cuts, bends, triplets and a fake roll (e.g. 6B-7B-6B-5B-6B and 6D-7D-6D-5D-6D :smiley: ), and I don’t think it matters whether you tongue-block or pucker. Of course, you have those other tricks in your armoury if you TB, such as octaves and split intervals, and you can do that vamping accompaniment thing (it never sounds quite in tune to me for some reason, but it’s part of the harmonica sound, so what!)