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beginner forum: for novice and developing blues harp players > Richard Sleigh Harps
Richard Sleigh Harps
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SuperBee
4106 posts
Sep 12, 2016
6:06 AM
I don't buy many harps, because I just repair my old ones. Sometimes I buy secondhand because I am pretty confident I can fix problems.
Because I don't have much expense in that way, and actually make a little pocket money doing repairs, occasionally I have bought some custom harps.
This also helps me think about how to work on harps, because I get to closely observe the end results of others' work.
I sometimes get to work on customised harps too, but having your own is better. Because you get to play it over a long time and think about it and study it over a long time.
I've worked on quite a few Neil Graham harps now. I dunno if people have heard of Neil, but he is one of the handful of 'Hohner affiliated customisers' in the world.
I own a couple of marine bands built by henry slim (uk). I bought those when he was quite new to the business. I know he does better work but I value these anyway. They play quite well but have some limitations to some degree as a result of the compromises/trade offs made in the process.
I have an Zajac marine band from 2014. I believe Andrew has also continued to grow his skill since he built this but it's a very nice harp, especially in the top end.
I have 2 Spiers stage 2 marine bands which are really fantastic. Keys G and Bb, just great they are.
Today I received a C and a D from Richard Sleigh. Marine band deluxes.
You know, I really wanted to know how good a D harp could be.
I compared (briefly) it to my Slim D marine band.
The Henry harp is not bad by any means. It's embossed a little tight for most of the way I play a D harp. I make it choke if I'm not careful.
Well, the Sleigh harp is instantly obviously more responsive than the Henry. The lightest breath is enough to activate it, and it's not stuffy at all. I feel less resistance to my breath, it's just easy-playing.
Blow bends on 8, 9, 10, easy. Draw bends of course, easy. And overblow 4, so easy I could probably even start to use it in my playing if I knew what to use it for. The 6 overblow, tongue-blocked, easy. The 5, it's there too but I know I need to work on technique if I want to use that. But I also know it's all there if I decide to pursue it.
There is no doubt this is a great D harp.
It's on the stock comb. The deal was that Richard would only do reed and slot work, no work on the comb.
I have some Zajac combs and I may instal one in this and see if it makes a difference. That also was part of the plan, to see how much difference a great comb makes when the reeds and slots are totally sorted.
Everything I said about the D harp is also true of the C harp.
its a small sample I know, but I have to say, Richard Sleigh is absolutely top flight based on what I've got here.
With G from Joe, A from Andrew, Bb from Joe and C and D from Richard, I'm just about set for awesomely good harps.
I should also say, it seems to me that 80/20 applies with harps as many things. You can get 80% of the performance with 20% of the work, but the other 20% is where the money is.
My homemade customs are actually pretty good, certainly they aren't holding me back except maybe for overblows but I'm not really trying for that.
I'm gonna play these a little while, then swap a custom comb in when I think I have a good feel for them.
Sundancer
25 posts
Sep 12, 2016
1:53 PM
I'm digging your post SuperBee. Instead of bragging about how you only play OOTB harps - which to me is like hearing someone brag about the 20 miles they walked to schol barefoot in shitty weather as a kid - you are acknowledging the craftsmanship & artistry of guys like Richard & Joe - whose harps I also own, play, apreciate & cherish BTW. Rodney Crowell & Guy Clark have a song called Stuff That Works which is apropos. Keep on harping.
SuperBee
4144 posts
Sep 27, 2016
4:24 AM
Just one thing about these harps which bugs me, is that because of my tongue blocking style, I hit the blow notes with a big puff of air sometimes which chokes the 4 blow. It's not that I blow hard, it's just this big slap and I guess the puff is percussive. Mainly 1st position licks this happens. Maybe I'll set up some special 1st position harps. I only need an A and a C.
Killa_Hertz
1784 posts
Sep 27, 2016
6:32 AM
Nice Bee. Im envious. I have yet to purchase a custom harp, but i would really like to try one. Perhaps i so contact Richard here soon and try one.

I really like the experiment your doing with swapping a good comb onto an already professionally setup harp. Let me know your findings, will you?

Also Re the 4 blow. I have heard this from a few folks, but never had that issue. But again I don't play 1st positon really.

Why could you not simply open the gap on the 4 blow? Perhaps not on the Sleigh harp. I wouldn t mess with it either. But just in general. Does it need to be open to the point where it will interfere with the 4 draw?

I do slap the 4 blow quite a bit playing 2nd. So how does this differ?
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SuperBee
4145 posts
Sep 27, 2016
2:49 PM
Completely correct. I don't want to open the reed up though. That isn't why I got the harp. If I decide to use it on the bandstand I'll be modifying my attack. I'm obviously puffing to much air on those blow slaps. Probably developed the habit from testing harps I'm working on.
Why different to 2nd? Probably not. Maybe just because it's the tonal centre for 1st so I'm going there a lot more and it's 'home' so I'm hitting it with greater emphasis.
And I just play louder with the band, I know. It's because my direct reference is drowned out and I'm relying on the amp and not trusting it. So I have to remain conscious of that. A harp that chokes is actually a good prod to remind me. I want to break the habit. It's a limiting factor. I play much better when I relax, play less forcefully, more fluently. I can do it. I just need to remember to do it.
As for the comb; I couldn't detect any improvement when I installed a 'guaranteed flat' comb. In fact I got a squeal from 2 draw bend. So I tried several other guaranteed flat combs, short and long slot types. Best performance was with the stock comb, as in no squeal from 2 draw bend. I suspect the plates maybe slightly deformed and the super flat comb causes the reed to sit differently in relation to the slot.
Or the super flat combs could be slightly not super flat.
I'm not about to start messing about trying to 'straighten' the reed plate on this harp. It works extremely well as is on the stock comb.
I think I may have some other combs from other makers I can try.

Anyway, the harp has a lot to teach me.

My best work is a lot 'stiffer' than this harp. Remember, it's had no comb work or reedplate flattening. It's all slot and reed work. It's super easy response. Plays with lightest effort. And great dynamic range. And easy feather touch overblows.

My harps can be played with more air. But they also need a bit more air.
MindTheGap
1779 posts
Sep 27, 2016
11:57 PM
Sounds great Superbee. As this is the beginner's forum I'm going to the be the one to say again that OOTB harps, with a bit of gapping, are perfectly good for learning on up to quite an advanced level.

It's true you wouldn't see a professional violinist using a student violin. But you do see professional harp players using mid-price, OOTB harps: FACT :) And not for the reasons Sundancer suggests.

Perfectly reasonable to desire a Richard Sleigh harp, but one, and enjoy and appreciate the craftsmanship, but you don't *need* one. Unless possibly you want to learn a very chromatic style with lots of overbends, when you might.

Last Edited by MindTheGap on Sep 28, 2016 12:20 AM
Killa_Hertz
1786 posts
Sep 28, 2016
4:19 AM
MTG .. Quick point. Most true OOTB players, consider a harp "Post Gapping" to be a Modified harp.

But I 100% agree with everything else.



BEE You know thats very interesting that the comb actually made it play WORSE. It just goes to show that certain exra steps ( like flattening the comb and plates) aren't necessary to make a GREAT harp.

I wonder if the flat combs did worse because the reedplates were not flat. So therefor it would change some of the gapping as you tightened them to the flat surface. ?????


"a Harp that chokes is a good prod."

Thats true I suppose. And again, I obviously dont know what its like to play on stage, but I can imagine you do tend to play quite a bit harder. I didnt think of that.

Also I do gap my 2 draw ever so slightly wider becuase I end up on long Vibrato draws on it, because its the root in 2nd ofcourse. So I can see why the 4 blow could be more effected in 1st now.

Good post BEE, very interesting. I'm still very "Noobish", in the grand scheme of things, when it comes to harp tech stuff. This has really opened a few good points.
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MindTheGap
1781 posts
Sep 28, 2016
6:18 AM
Killa, yes I see. We new a new acronym for it. GOOTB? (gapped, out of the box) :)

I didn't want to hijack Superbee's informative thread really, but I feel some sense of duty to my fellow learners.

Back to the programme...
SuperBee
4147 posts
Sep 28, 2016
2:28 PM
Lotsa words on my posts.
Sorry if it reads like I'm touting the line that stock is not good enough.
I see where that could be taken to be implied.

Wasn't my intention.

Sorry, I like this page because it is geared at beginner, I feel it's ok to be ruminative.

Really the driver here is my feeling that different keys of harps play so differently they could be different brands.
This is one of the challenges of learning to play.

Nowhere is the difference more marked than in the marine band (deluxe, crossover, special 20, golden melody) D harp

They are super-common and physically different to the lower keys.

A challenge to play, more than when moving between C and A I think.

So really my purpose in getting one set up by Richard was to find out how good it can 'reasonably' be.

As well as getting a comparison with the work of other customisers.

So in terms of what I discovered and trying to relate to someone who just bought a D harp and may be wondering if it's just hard to play or if they are not doing it right

I have 3 other D harps I commonly use: a crossover, a recent production marine band that I've modified with a Zajac comb and screwed together so more like a deluxe, and an older marine band from 2003.

The older marine band came from a guy who is an experienced player. He sold it with a batch of sp20 harps, but included the marine band because he'd recently broken the D sp20. This marine band was one he'd found to be virtually unplayable and kept as an emergency back up for a decade or so.

When I got it I found it very hard to play so I popped the covers off.
Very easy to pop the covers off a stock marine band.

I found the 3 and 4 slot draw reeds were gapped very close to the slots.
This meant they choked easily and delivered low volume.

Looking at the blow reeds I could see that the reeds in slots 3 and 4 were set very wide.

I adjusted these reeds, setting the blow reeds in a bit closer and opening up the draw reeds and this made the harp much better to play.

Often this is all it takes to make a difficult harp much better.

Of course this particular harp was secondhand and had a wooden comb. I couldn't bide the used comb so I set about to 'customise' the harp. I fitted a modern marine band comb.

The harp is good but I think that after doing all the work I know how to do, my crossover was still easier to play. This is when I began thinking about 'how good can it get?'

I'd had 2 tries at making a really good D harp and neither seemed to quite be as good as my best work on A, G, C, Bb harps. I started to wonder was it inherent in the design of the D harp (the reedplate slot format is different to the lower keys).

Hence the sleigh harp.

Did I learn anything?

I'd say that I learned a D harp is something of a special thing, but the difference is less marked.

I also learned that my work is ok but there is substantial room for improvement.

Even though I now have this very schmick D harp from Richard, I am picking up that old marine band and learning songs on it and somehow feel happier about playing it. Apart from taking a little more wind to play and not being easy to overblow (not that I do that in normal use anyway) it has no real vices.
MindTheGap
1782 posts
Sep 28, 2016
10:59 PM
Superbee - rumination is good here, lots of detail is useful, and I didn't take it that you were implying stock harps weren't good.

This is the place for detail. I was writing in response to Sundancer's comment. In the other place, the stock-vs-custom debate played out often, normally in a 'yes it is - no it's not' style. Which can be entertaining to follow, but I never found it much practical help.

Last Edited by MindTheGap on Sep 28, 2016 11:00 PM


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