Jagrowler
1 post
Oct 31, 2010
12:00 PM
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I am a new harp student (age 47) and have a question for you old hands. The leaflet with my new Hohner Blues Harp has top of the Care and Maintenance recommendations the following -
'Play it gently and softly for the first weeks. This will enable the reeds to develop their full sound and increases life expectancy'.
While I understand the mechanical theory behind the statement, I am curious (sceptical even)that you guys follow this advice. Any feedback would be useful.
Thanks in advance
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eharp
876 posts
Oct 31, 2010
12:10 PM
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i think most of us attempt to use breath control at all times. playing a harp hard will increase the odds of it weakening reeds sooner.
besides, the harp will only play so loud. extra force cannot increase it's volume past a certain point.
but as to your question- i have never broken a harp in by playing it differently at the beginning. and i only warm a harp up if it is extremely cold.
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nacoran
3121 posts
Oct 31, 2010
12:20 PM
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Welcome to the forum Jagrowler! The best advice I can give is to learn to play softly first, and then learn to play loudly. If you are going to be playing along with other musicians, or even loud recordings, look at using a microphone. The better you get with dynamics the more you can push it and when and if you do blow a reed you'll know how much force you were using. Harp reeds do change over time. A new harp may be harder to bend on until it's been played a while.
---------- Nate Facebook Thread Organizer
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htownfess
197 posts
Oct 31, 2010
2:50 PM
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A couple of principles that affect my running-in practices--
First is that much of what people perceive as the harp breaking in is probably the result of spit residue plugging up leaky spots between the reedplates and comb. Depending on how leaky it was to start with, the harp can become perceptibly more airtight and efficient after a few playing sessions. Unsealed wooden combs may also swell enough to seal better, more so if one plays the entire harp rather than mainly the bottom six holes.
As for the reeds themselves, there is a theory that their outer skin oxidizes from exposure to air, but microfractures can develop in the tougher oxidation in the flexing zones of the reeds and become the starting point of the stress cracks that eventually kill reeds, especially when you subject a reed to sudden new stresses. A factory-fresh harp has the original oxidized skin from air exposure, and if you gradually increase playing pressure/time over the period Hohner suggests, that might give any new microfractures time to oxidize new skin before the next playing session. I don't know if the oxidized skin theory has been confirmed scientifically.
However, more than a decade ago, Pat Missin advised letting a harp sit for 72 hours after gapping before tuning it, or after retuning a harp, because the tuning would be much more stable that way. Obviously that would give new microfractures (gapping) or newly abraded areas (tuning) a chance to skin over before the next playing session.
So instead of following Hohner's recommendation, I play a new harmonica moderately hard, doing all usual bends plus whatever overbends it will do, all the way up and down the instrument, for 10-15 minutes when I first get it, and then leave it alone for 72 hours. That's aimed at letting the reeds skin over in response to my usual playing stresses; residue is going to seal the harp at its own pace, so I don't worry about that aspect of break-in.
I don't have a problem with early reed failure since I started this method. It is difficult to leave a new harmonica alone for 72 hours but I think it gives the reeds a better survival chance than Hohner's suggestion and may require less patience overall. It is sort of pre-stressing the reeds moderately and then giving them a thorough chance to recover (i.e., oxidize).
If you're not skilled at bending notes yet, just try not to sustain bends very long in the initial playing session--the tendency is to bend too far and that's probably the worst stress on the reed. It's also better to do the initial break-in session privately rather than onstage because there's too much chance of needing to play too hard onstage.
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Jagrowler
2 posts
Nov 01, 2010
1:57 AM
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Thanks for all the advice - just the sort of thing a newbie can benefit from!
I am instinctively trying to practice quietly to hear (my many) mistakes and so on. When I improve a little I'll try playing through an old Pignose amp that is lying around the house.
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Ant138
629 posts
Nov 01, 2010
2:06 AM
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Hi Jagrowler welcome aboard.
I tend to blow a few chords first for a minute or so then just start playing how i would normally . I don't spend alot of time warming up the harp even new ones. Having said that i don't play the harmonica hard anyway, i never have done. I don't see the need to play the harmonica hard to get the result you want.
I don't mean hard to mean bending notes stuff like that , i mean using alot of breath force ----------

http://www.youtube.com/user/fiendant?feature=mhum
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MrVerylongusername
1337 posts
Nov 01, 2010
6:00 AM
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@htownfess - thanks, a perspective grounded in science rather than simple tradition is always good to hear. I'd never considered the oxidation layer before. Very interesting.
I've never really bothered with 'breaking in' myself and have never had a short-lived reed problem - then again I gig mainly with Lee Oskars which tend to last me for years. I've not noticed it with my Golden Melodies though, which I started playing a couple of years ago and haven't had a problem with yet.
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htownfess
198 posts
Nov 01, 2010
3:42 PM
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@MrV -- By my standards the 72-hour tuning rule is empirical proof that something is going on with either oxidation or grain structure of the metal or both, because before I heard of it I was really frustrated with chasing tuning every day for a couple weeks after customizing before it would settle down. As soon as I went to the three-day interval, suddenly only one or two tuning sessions were needed. A rule of thumb for tuning maintenance that I derived from that is that I'll play a reed whose pitch has been *raised* immediately, but if pitch has been lowered, then a 72 hour wait before playing if possible.
I think it's plausible that reeds do "break in" at the surface level according to our accustomed patterns of flexing them, and thus with a single short, moderate playing session we can create a stable pattern of microfractures and let the fractures oxidize, and then there'll be less opportunity for a fatal fracture to start.
You're right--IMO anyone who's serious about harp longevity should just buy Oskars and learn to set them up for themselves. Take a look at the milling at the base of Oskar reeds (compared to other brands) to see why they last--that plus (I *think*) a thinner reed and reedplate that stress the reed less all help to make them last noticeably longer. Those elements are also probably implicated in the LO squeal syndrome but there are ways around that. A thing that impressed me was digging up some mid-1990s NOS Oskar plates to customize--current Oskar reedplates have better tolerances, alignment, and gapping. They've improved and if someone wants the sorta "traditional + 6 overblow" formula of playing/setup, the change in pricing relative to Hohner handmades makes Oskars a terrific buy today. A decade ago, Oskars cost twice as much as SP20s and now they cost less.
I'm not surprised your GMs are lasting well too--you sound like you're sensible in how hard you play your harps. Hohner has also been working very hard on longevity but I think the improvement doesn't register with people because they either play out and buy harps too sporadically to monitor longevity methodically, or if a working pro playing stockers, they buy on need and don't break in the replacement harps, so the replacements are particularly vulnerable to early failure. I notice that with pros I know who work more than two nights every week. So there's a case to be made for buying backups in advance and breaking them in ahead of time, if one can afford to think that far ahead.
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MrVerylongusername
1341 posts
Nov 01, 2010
5:01 PM
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Funny you should mention that.
I found an intact Oskar when I was tidying my loft a few weeks ago. Judging from the box it was in, it had probably been discarded mid to late 90s. Just one reed dead, but blimey it was so much leakier than the ones I play now (which I don't bother gapping at all - they work fine for me out of the box). I'll have to find the same keyed harp in my current line up and compare the plates.
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