Mahcks
44 posts
Jul 04, 2015
9:37 AM
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I've been wanting to practice my tweeking more, so I'm thinking about buying some special 20s to give to family and friends as gifts. You know, something a little more personal than gift cards at Christmas. None of them have played nefore, though. There are a lot of customizers here, so I'd like to hear some of your thoughts. Could going all out with tuning and embossing hinder a new player?
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tookatooka
3748 posts
Jul 04, 2015
11:21 AM
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Apart from allowing you to practice tweaking, I don't understand why you would want to do that.
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WinslowYerxa
915 posts
Jul 04, 2015
12:06 PM
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New players tend to play too hard and lowering gaps and embossing might work against them.
To some extent out-of-the-box harps are set up to favor the beginning player, with gaps set so that they're less likely to choke out when a beginner breathes too hard or sets up interfering suction or pressure in the oral cavity.
If you were going to do anything to new harps for non-players, I'd slightly raise the gaps. But I think it's better to do nothing. A new player has to adjust to the response of the instrument.
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Winslow
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Gerry
53 posts
Jul 04, 2015
12:59 PM
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I think it's a fantastic idea. Plus, in a Christmas card, tab out "Silent Night" or another carol so they have something festive to practice over the holiday.
You get to work on the tweaking skills and they get a custom harp free! There is no downside to this plan.
Of all the frightening nightmare "homemade gifts" that you could receive this is one that is actually cool.
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arzajac
1658 posts
Jul 04, 2015
6:36 PM
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"Could going all out with tuning and embossing hinder a new player?"
With all due respect, if you know what you are doing, then, no. If you are sure you can offer them a well-playing harp, then go for it! A well-playing harp doesn't have to be tight.
That being said, embossing alone will not get you far. And a total beginner who doesn't bend notes might not notice the difference. In fact, they may find the harp bright-sounding or even shrill.
Tuning may be irrelevant to a beginner, too.
But if you think they may take up the harp because of this gift, I would do more than just embossing. It takes a lot of work to make sure all the bends are easily played without gapping too tightly. Specifically, make the harp as airtight as you can and adjust the reed shape so you can have as much range as you need. Once you get to that point, embossing will give you a further boost.
Are you up for that?
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Custom overblow harps. Harmonica Combs and Tools.
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mlefree
330 posts
Jul 06, 2015
10:36 AM
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Actually, I think giving a musical instrument as a gift is a little like giving a nice cute puppy or kitten. Your generosity may or may not be well-received.
Unless your recipients are highly motivated to learn to play harmonicas many of your gifts will likely find their ways into dresser drawers within a week or so. And, some recipients may even misinterpret your gift as an effort to impose your personal musical tastes on them.
If I wanted to give the gift of music I'd give folks iTunes or CD Baby gift cards and let them choose their own "poison."
But maybe that's just curmudgeonly old me. 8^)
Michelle
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SilverWingLeather.com
email: mlefree@silverwingleather.com
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Beornls
3 posts
Jul 06, 2015
11:49 AM
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I've given harmonicas as gifts quite a few times myself actually and they always seemed to be received well. I guess I've always been under the assumption that everyone would like to learn how to play one :) maybe I'm biased?
I would usually do Pocket Pals though or something similar along with Gindicks 'musically hopeless' book (which I think used to actually include a Pocket Pal back in the day...or at least I know my copy did).
I think it's a great gift idea.
Last Edited by Beornls on Jul 06, 2015 11:52 AM
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nacoran
8575 posts
Jul 06, 2015
7:32 PM
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Michelle, but giving them to a friends kids totally rocks! The kids love them, and you get to passive-aggressively inflict hours of torture on your friends!
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Nate
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mlefree
331 posts
Jul 07, 2015
5:48 AM
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I couldn't agree more with that, Nate and thanks for pointing it out. Give the gift of music to a child. It will keep on giving -- for life!
And, there's no better way to do that than to give them a harmonica. Half the world's population (China) learns to play and appreciate music that way.
Michelle
PS: One X-mas I sent my brother's kids those 3-foot plastic corrugated tubes that make a loud humming sound when whirled overhead. They were a double threat. Not only did they produce that loud, annoying sound, they were also prone to breaking things as they whirled over the kids' heads. My brother retaliated the next X-mas by sending my kids those frog clicker toys. After that I called a truce. 8^)
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SilverWingLeather.com
email: mlefree@silverwingleather.com
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florida-trader
730 posts
Jul 07, 2015
8:26 AM
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@ Mahcks - I don’t want to rain on your parade but even though your intentions are good, I think this is mostly a bad idea. The best part of your idea is giving harps to you your friends and family as gifts.
Here are the parts that I think are not so good. By your own admission, you have limited experience tweaking harps. Anything you read about learning to customize harps comes with a few words of caution that go something like this – “Be prepared to ruin a few harps as you develop your skills”. And it is true. So why would you want to practice on some brand new Special 20’s that are going to cost you $35 - $40 each? Surely you can find some junk harps that you can practice on. Whatever skill you are trying to learn, if you can get one reed to play the way you want, mission accomplished. In other words, even if you have a harp that has blown out reeds, or is otherwise a piece of junk, work on one reed and see if you can get that one reed to play the way you want it to. It doesn’t have to be a complete harp. After you have developed your skills then you can focus your attention on a brand new complete harp.
Second, the people you will be giving these harps to are complete beginners. I’m sorry. They would not know the difference between a decent OOTB harp and a $250 Custom Overblow harp. So even if you were able to improve those Special 20’s you are thinking about, your target audience would not really have any appreciation for your efforts.
Perhaps you have unlimited funds and the financial aspect of this is not really a concern to you. If money is at all an issue then here is what I would suggest. Buy some Big Rivers. Big Rivers are, in my opinion, the least expensive of the harmonicas that can be classified as “real musical instruments” vs. toys. You can find them for $20 - $25 all day long on eBay. You can use the extra money to purchase some instructional videos and/or books. If your friend or family expresses a genuine interest, you can follow up the harmonica gift with something that will help them learn how to play.
Just my 2 cents on subject.
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Tom Halchak
www.BlueMoonHarmonicas.com
Last Edited by florida-trader on Jul 07, 2015 9:31 AM
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JonV
34 posts
Jul 07, 2015
8:41 AM
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A friend of mine decided he wanted to start playing and having a couple of lesssons, so I got a special 20 and spent a short while going over it.
By taking the most obvious curve out of the reedplates and doing some quick reed curving / gapping / tuning I could be sure that the harmonica played well enough with no major flaws and that anything he wasn't able to do would not be the fault of the harmonica. It took maybe 20 minutes to do.
Agree with the above that it probably only makes sense if you're confident about what you're doing.
I think a consistently responsive instrument that doesn't require too much air can only help with learning.
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Dragonbreath
58 posts
Jul 07, 2015
10:34 AM
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That's a nice gesture of you, but I kind of agree that it would be overkill to get sp20's and tweak them. They're pretty good to begin with so you could mess up and ruin a perfectly good harp or maybe succeed and end up giving away your best harp only to have it being possibly ruined right away.
What would make more sense and what I would do would be to get a couple of little cheaper harps. Not the cheapest, but something like hohners intermediate harps. The blues bender or whatever. Not the cheapest, but why not the harps from the "tagged" series. Those are the new ones with graffiti on the covers. The kids might actually think they're cool and get more hyped to play them. I haven't tried them but at least they come in a couple different keys, and it seems the ones that come in different keys tend to be of little better quality than the absolute crap.
So what you could do would be to try to tweak these harps into being at least as good as you can get them. They are also harps that could benefit more from some customizing and would make a bigger difference, while you get to practice techniques without losing as much if you screw up. Gapping can be all over the place OOTB, they are a little leaky so you could see what you could do aboy that, maybe sand the reedplates, maybe even some light embossing, because cheaper harps generally have wider gaps around the reeds, so some slight embossing can make a noticable difference without having them over sensitive. Yoy could also check the tuning and tune them better if needed, adjust reed profile etc.
I would get harps in key of A because I think they might be slightly easier to play than C and sound slightly better.
So this way you get to save some money and hopefully do some work on them that actually makes a bigger difference and makes more sense.
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Rhartt1234
188 posts
Jul 07, 2015
11:56 AM
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Give them to me.
I am an experienced player that works on his own harps and I am working on my overblows.
I will give you honest and useful feedback.
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