Chris L
89 posts
Sep 13, 2015
9:25 AM
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In light of Gary 62’s thread on an embossing problem, I thought it would be interesting to have a thread dedicated to fails and fixes, i.e. ways in which we have rendered harps unplayable and what we learned. Cliché or not, we all tend to learn more from our failures than our successes! I don't know if we as a community can actually get to 101, but it might be interesting to try.
For example: My own broken reed story.
A few years ago I was teaching myself blow bends on hole 10 and spent most of a 2 ½ hour drive practicing the technique on a new Hohner BluesBender harp. I tongue blocked everything at the time and was finding all bends challenging to learn. Toward the end of the drive the ten-hole blow stopped sounding altogether. I dismantled the Harp to see what was blocking the hole and at the first gentle touch the reed broke in half.
What I learned about the problem?
Blues Benders strength is their weakness. They have an inherent tendency to metal fatigue due to their extra thick reed plates. Due to their pricing they appeal to beginners, but are safer between the lips of people with more sophisticated breath control. I destroyed that reed by technique alone.
I learned that the sweetest blow bends are not facilitated by blasting gallons of saliva through a minute hole at ten times the required air pressure!
The fix?
Several points come to mind now. For that particular harp, reed replacement was the only fix. But that is the least important learning.
More important were the following:
1. Emboucher, not force, is the key to bending.
2. Learn to manage saliva better.
3. Something I learned on this website: blow bends are much easier when the draw reed in the same hole is gapped as closely as possible, still allowing for normal playing. Also, in regard to the tenth hole, gapping changes can be so small as to be almost invisible to the eye, yet yield huge results in playability.
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