I've made a series of videos demonstrating how to make your harmonica play better in a few minutes. I think too much time is spent discussing customizing, especially by newer players that frankly should be practicing. However, adjusting your out-of-the-box harp is a skill that all players should learn. Hopefully the videos will make my point, I hope you find them helpful.
Thanks Joe that was very informative. It was interesting to see how you barely tickled a reed to improve it's response. I been using far too much force. Also how you tested each reed during the process with the minimum of air. Thank you. ----------
Very cool thing to share, Joe, thank you. I wish I wasn't at work I'd fire them up. I'll do it when I get in tonight. I'm feeling a lotta love in this thread right now... I really do.
The main things I learned from these vids is that a)you don;t need to remove the reed plates when gapping b) if you do it this way, with the reed plates still on, you can easily check you gaps to see if you have them correct, and c) CORRECT gapping makes A LOT more difference than I had thought previously!
Thanks for the videos Joe! You're right about that embossing stuff, the golden melody I tweaked I can now get 5 & 6ob but I believe I screwed up the 8,9,& 10 draws. Crazy, most of my harps can't make much of a sound without the cover plates guess they could all use a little gapping.
---------- ~Ryan Pennsylvania - H.A.R.P. (Harmonica Association 'Round Philly)
Thank you for these Videos...I just adjusted my first harp out of 15. :) Much better now. I have 2 Lee's that I bought and they always really bad out of the box. Almost useless. I am going to adjust them next.
a side question, with new harps i have taken to embossing and then gapping, and they seem to sound better after the embossing, but given what Joe said, the gapping could be more important and most gapping is narrowing. Embossing also probably narrows the gaps because you somewhat push down on the reed (if it has not been removed), wonder if that is what I have been hearing as improvement as much as the reed slot width tolerance getting tighter?
Thank you very much for the videos! 'maybe tuning or reed replacement'? I'd be happier with 'tuning', too! Even though I did a horrible job with my first reed replacement. 8(
Great videos Joe, thanks a million! I believe I finally have the courage to touch those reeds. And YES!! a video on tuning would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for taking the time to do this! ---------- DutchBones Tube
Last Edited by on Aug 07, 2009 10:21 PM
That's awesome! Thanks for the tips. I tweaked a couple of mine with a toothpick with the cover plates on after watching the first video. The suzuki harpmasters have room to do a few holes this way and now they will overblow...now i just need to get good enough to do it in music.
Thanks for the video's, you made it look so simple I gave it a try on a A GM, and messed it up! I'm not doing that again, just as I'm not doing home improvements..
harmonicanick , this is not for everyone , you have to be good with small things , and have a lot of patience , and do practice on bad harps , this way if you screw up it's not a big deal. Most of the screw ups you can fix , you can see it in the video , Mr Spiers sometimes closes the gap too much and the reed chocks , well not big deal you can open the gap again , and it's the same with the embossing . But you gotta be patient and work in very small steps . To tell you the truth after learning how to do it , and see how much time you have to put in( even at a beginner level), I don't know how the customizers can sell those harps for so little money , they ending up working for the minimum wage.
