How long do the harmonica really last? Does anyone agree that the lower the tuning the longer the harmonica lasts? I also think that the steel reeds are over advertised. Seydel's harmonicas are the only ones I have had a really broken reed (3 times). Other materials just come tired and lover the tuning. The clock is four in Saturday morning (15.9.2018) here in Finland and I decided to play something with my oldest harmonica here in my surviving camp Haapamäki (my cottage). This is an about 50 years old Hohner Marine Band 12 hole diatonic C-harmonica still in perfect shape. Might be identical with one the Master himself is using, except that I have gold plated this with 24 carat gold. All comments are very well come also about my playing, mara.
Maraboy - that's a nice rendition of Bye Bye Bird!
In my 30 years of playing, I think I have only broken 4 reeds: 3 while playing and 1 while cleaning/gapping. The ones broken while playing were in specific situations where the band had become stupidly loud, and I could not hear myself in the mix. So I played stupidly loud.
Since reed breakage is very rare, I expect my harmonicas to last a long time. Covers can get dents and scratches, and wooden combs will suffer from aging. But a good quality harp can be maintained for a lifetime, especially with a non-wood comb.
I like the Seydel Steel reeds because they stay in tune. The value is about "gig night reliability" and the consistency of tuning, rather than "breaking less". (Again because reed breakage is such a rare event). I find that Hohners tend to drift out of tuning more frequently/unexpectedly, and need more maintenance. I find the Seydel Steels require less maintenance.
Last Edited by AppalachiaBlues on Sep 15, 2018 12:28 AM
The more harps you have the longer they last,If you blow ,not so hard.If you play the same harp,it`s gonna ware quick. 3 or 4 of the same key and you give a harp a rest.I`ve been playing 50 yrs.,and at first I used too,blow a harp in 2 weeks,then after a wile I realized,float like a butterfly and sting like a bee attitude,works. So I have harps now ,that I`ve been playing 25 yrs.YA.YA.
I like @NOWMON have some Lee Oskar harps that are 30 years old and still in tune and play well, I've tried several harps over my 40 plus playing years. Special 20's, Crossovers plus a couple of the later Miesterklasse Hohners (not so clever) Manji's, Olive's, Hammonds, Firebreaths, I bought a couple of valved MR 350's and 4 Fabulous 20's at great prices on eBay direct from Japan. Then I've now got 5 Seydel 1847 Silvers. There is a lot to be said for the humble Lee Oskars in my opinion. They last well but only have 5 screws holding the reed plates down and none at the front and you can't sand the comb flat. Some overblow and Overdraw out of the box, but it's not guaranteed! Not quite the full range in the low harps. A low E is it. I can buy them locally for the equivalent of US 28.00 with free shipping That said I really really like the Manji's that Joe Spiers did for me and the latest Jason Richie Signature Low F that I bought from Tom Halchak at Blue Moon. These of course are all only a couple of years old and still all in perfect shape. I was disappointed with the longevity of both the Crossovers and more so with the Seydel 1847 Silvers and blew reeds on all four of the Seydel's I bought. 2 failed inside 6 months the other 2 in 18 months with similar times for a couple of the Crossovers. Then again they are both great sounding harps but compared to the Suzuki range, I've only blown one reed in the 4 years I've been buying them and just one of the really old Lee Oskars that I'd bought years ago. No doubt 4 years back when I really started playing a whole lot more I was probably blowing too hard. One thing for sure is an out of the box harp is a lottery. The more expensive harps do tend to play better out of the box. A custom harp is a thing of joy. I don't have a low Eb and while it wouldn't get a lot of use I'm thinking of getting a session steel Seydel direct from Germany. They, like Hohner have a fairly good international shipping system.
What don't I take to gigs, the 2 miesterklasse harps bought at the same time, I was given a good deal and I bought the 4 Olives A,D G and Bb which seem a bit breathy but just haven't got round to looking at because they look very similar to the hammonds!? I must have some 70 plus diatonics and truly I'd have been better off spending more money on just a few custom harps. But you do what you do and I also haven't got of my backside and put a lot of work into setting them up. That's my story!
A couple of the several Olives I purchased in the last two years initially seemed breathy. I loosened and retightened the reed plates, gapped them tighter, and now they play great! I now do this routine with almost every new OTB harp of any brand I buy unless it seems to play perfectly out of the box, a rare occurrence. Gapping and resetting the reed plates often makes a major difference. ----------
Ideally, if I'd had foresight, I'd still have the 1955 model Marine Band I inherited from my dad, and he got from my grandfather. Not much in life is ideal however. In 45 years' playing I can't count how many harps I've bought and killed a reed on. Seldom have I broke one but there have been a few. Trying to play on stupid loud stages nearly every time. One memorable night I wrecked reeds on 4 of my 7 harps. Bye bye gig pay that night, and then some.
I have flatted a lot of draw reeds, mostly until I changed a couple of things. One was, no more high volume bands. Because even with a 40 watt great amp I was still having trouble hearing myself and playing too hard, which also sends tone out the window. Two, I chose lower volume projects. That works pretty well for me. Three, I learned about focus instead of force breath-wise. If you really listen to guys like the Walters, the Sonny Boys, and other old school players, they didn't blow the hair off anyone's head, they played with style and made sound equipment work for them. Getting a few voice lessons helped me tremendously as far as both keeping my pipes in shape and also not sucking reeds into oblivion.
I do still flat a reed here and there, and I find it easier to replace a whole plate for $30 or so than mess with replacing reeds or sending a harp off the be fixed. Each their own on that.
Re: Eb, I have both regular tuned and low tuned and I use them both on one song which I wrote!
I have also decided to keep my Manjis as acoustic busking harps and my MB Deluxes and others for electric gigs.
I don't expect a harp to last a lifetime. Plus with new brands and models coming out lately I like to try new stuff as well. So if I get a few years out of a harp I'm good with that.
I've got a small enough sample size to not really be able to tell how quick harps blow out by range. I'd never thought about key vs. durability. I suspect there are a lot of factors but higher keys would swing at a higher frequency which might make them wear faster, but there are probably a lot of metallurgical/thickness issues that also come into play.
I don't tend to play my higher harps nearly as much. D is about my highest key that I regularly play. I use a low F. That's not to say I never pull out my E or F# but compared to my other harps it's pretty infrequent.
They’ll last a good long time, especially if you don’t play them much. I don’t mend a lot of F harps. My own main F harp is a stock marine band, unsealed comb, bought in 2012 in a clearance sale. I know how often I use it. I suspect a lot of F harps see a lot more carry time than play time. I do repair a lot of D harps, and A harps. My own use pattern indicates these are the most commonly used keys. What I’m saying is that the chronological age of the harp is not necessarily indicative of how long they can be expected to last. It’s about playing hours and then also hours playing in a loud band may accelerate the aging process compared to hours spent jamming to a backing track. And spreading the time around a few different harps makes it very tricky to calculate how much time a harp may really have on it. I have several A harps on the go. The one I carry, the one in the gig case which I also use at rehearsal, the one on the hifi which I pickup for practice. The practice harp might see more use than any other harp, but it’s all low volume stuff. The carry harp would see a lot of use too, but also low volume. The rehearsal and gig harp, might see an hour or 2 solid use per week, because it’s key A and I do a lot of songs in E plus a couple 1st position in A. All that use is amplified and it may be a bit louder than I practice but I am conscious of the tendency and do try to resist. So I dunno. Over the last couple years at least the practice harp and the carry harps have changed too. Not because there was anything wrong with the others, but I bought a harp from Deak and started carrying it instead of the other A harp I’d been carrying, and I left a Sp20 lying about which eventually migrated to the top of my hifi amp and became the harp I pick up every morning and afternoon. That Sp20 came to me secondhand too. Currently it may be aging 7 times faster than my gig harp of the same key. I’ve probably got another 5-7 A harps around here which are all good enough to use in any of those roles. Currently they’re all getting old but they are not seeing play time. I don’t expect them to wear out anytime soon.
