wallyns10
1 post
Oct 03, 2009
5:44 PM
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Has anyone ever had a problem with flatted out harps like I have had? I bought a set of 5 marine bands in G,A,C,D,E and I already had a Bb and another C. I keep them all in the same case. I haven't had them for more than 3 months and ALL of them are flatted out. They ALL started getting flat in the 5 hole and then it started spreading (only in some, my D has only got a flat 5.) I recently just bought another E, not more than 2 weeks ago (this time a special 20) and it is flat already (5 hole again). Would this be something I'm doing? I admit I was not as careful with my harmonicas when I first started playing these, always taking them outside and everything. But lately none of my harps have gone anywhere unless they are in some kind of case. Could it be some kind of mold or something? The first harmonica I ever had was a marine band in C that I found in my grandparents house. Its probably close to 40 or 50 years old. It was already REALLY beat up when I found it, but I beat the crap out of it. Its all rusty and grimey, but I still keep it in that case kind of as a keep sake and kind of as a reminder of all the hard work I put in to learning on that thing (I taught myself how to bend notes on that, and neither the top or the bottom was air tight, I had it held together LITERALLY with scotch tape and paperclips haha). It is visibly rusty and probably has some kind of growth on it or something, could this be the reason why every harmonica I have bought has flatted out on the 5 hole or would it be something else? I'm quite confussed and REALLY frustrated because all of my harmonicas are either usless or damn close to it. Someone please help!
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MrVerylongusername
542 posts
Oct 03, 2009
5:54 PM
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You're probably blowing too hard - take it easy when you blow and draw or BBQ Bob will give you an ear bashing ;-)
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wallyns10
3 posts
Oct 03, 2009
6:31 PM
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Its all on the draw reeds, all my blow reeds are by and large in tune. Would blowing too hard still have an effect on it?
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harpwrench
87 posts
Oct 03, 2009
6:38 PM
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Its from bending the 5 draw.
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wallyns10
5 posts
Oct 03, 2009
6:55 PM
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really...dang
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jbone
158 posts
Oct 04, 2009
1:42 AM
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it's really not a laughing matter when you consider how much dough it takes to replace harps, or learn to replace reeds if you go that route.
imho it is in fact a question of drawing too hard and fatiguing a reed to death. it's a common mistake.
what is the answer? first, buy new harps as you can afford to. second, and this is really hard sometimes- bad habits are very hard to break!- learn to play like there's a baby sleeping in the next room. this may sound simple. it is. it just isn't that easy. how many harps have i blown out over my years of playing? dozens and dozens. i had a single night with a loud band where due to my ignorance, i blew out FOUR of my seven harps. i was getting paid but i was way deep in the hole once i bought 4 new harps a few days later.
this is one scenario: you're playing with a band live, or even on your stereo. maybe you've had a drink or three and you're feeling loose and ready to really get down and show out your chops. the band is fairly loud and it's hard to hear yourself. natural tendency is to try and play louder so you can hear yourself and be "extra sure" the audience hears you. wrong. what happens is, you stress fracture an actual reed in your harp, and no matter how hard you try to force more air in and more sound out, it NEVER works. once a reed is gone, the harp is basically useless, at least for me. unless you want to look into learning how to replace and tune individual reeds and take the time to do that, the other option is to buy a new harp and learn to play more responsibly.
if you take a cover plate off a harp and look at the reeds, it makes a lot of sense that you can put just so much air through a reed slot. it's easy to envision the force that's possible with a drawn breath
and how that force can kill a tiny thin little reed.
i know what the answer has been for me. play with less force. learn to breathe from much deeper in my torso. focus my air better and use less. voice lessons and exercises, yoga and martial arts training, can all help with this. breathing deep and relaxing every muscle i can in my "air column", sort of finding my center and playing from there.
if a band is just too freakin' loud, i have a nice big amp that will usually keep up, but past a point i just won't play with them any more. it isn't worth a harp or my hearing these days. and there is really no need to amp up like the band is playing the fillmore west or whatever. usually i play bar gigs to less than 100 people. small to medium rooms. why would i want to cram 100 watts of guitar amp into that setting? yet people do. but in cases where the band is at reasonable volume, it is nice to have 45 watts of bassman behind me. i often don't use half of my volume knob and it keeps up well and sounds great.
but square one is always, get the breathing under control, focus less air and get better sound and longer life out of a harp.
some harps can be improved by regapping the reeds, and there are other things that can be done. but NO procedure i've ever heard of will make a reed indestructible.
seydel makes a harp with stainless steel reeds. pretty pricey and i've yet to try one. supposedly lasts far longer than a brass reed harp. maybe someone here can shed some light on that.
for me, fairly joe average harp guy, working class, not a lot of dough laying around, it makes much better sense to take care of what i've got and when i need a harp, usually pick one in the $30-40 range.
i still lose a reed here and there, maybe 5 or 6 a year, which is way down from what it used to be! it's all thanks to breath control.
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wallyns10
7 posts
Oct 04, 2009
5:02 AM
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thanks jbone, very helpful. I'm definitely going to work on better breathing habits. I've been taking voice lessons for a couple of years and understand what your talking about with breathing more with the diaphragm. typically when I'm up around the 5 and 6 hole and I bend I shape the sound with my sinuses rather than my throat (I tongue block out of the front of my mouth, and not the side...I guess that's weird?) which I think leads to less control on the part of my diaphragm. Anyways, thanks again!
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Jfllr1
55 posts
Oct 04, 2009
5:41 AM
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You could invest in a custom...
They last longer in terms of tuning and individual reeds can be replaced by the customiser.
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"Blow as thou pleaseth"
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wallyns10
8 posts
Oct 04, 2009
6:12 AM
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I've been thinking about it, I really want to expand my...repitoire or like musical dialect I guess you could say, I don't know. I just recently started overblowing (on purpose) a couple of weeks ago, and that's what turned me on to the idea. The only thing was that I was worried I had some kind of 5 hole curse or something and I don't have any money haha
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jawbone
97 posts
Oct 04, 2009
7:19 AM
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I've never played a custom but I know I have blown out way too many harps (loud band and poor technique)It is a constant struggle for me to keep my breath force at the proper range when the adrenaline gets pumping. I would be afraid to try a custom since they are usually gapped tighter and much more suseptable to being blown out because of the tighter tolerances. It's my technique that needs work, not the harp, but I'm working on it.
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If it ain't got harp - it ain't really blues!!!!
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Andrew
650 posts
Oct 04, 2009
8:53 AM
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When I first started on the harp I read somewhere that you shouldn't bend the 5-draw at all, because it damages the harp. So for a long time I didn't, but then I started to doubt that bending the 5-draw could damage a harp more than bending the 4-draw or 6 draw, for example. I hardly ever bend the 5-draw, but small bends on it can be useful every now and then.
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wallyns10
11 posts
Oct 04, 2009
8:56 AM
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oh see I hammer it, thats where I tend to sit a lot of chord changes for some reason and I love bending semi-tones on the 5 and 6, get a real chromatic almost funky jazz feel
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"Listen...you know, sometimes I feel like that too. I be around a thousand people, and yet I be lonely. Its the truth. But you know when I feel like that, what I do, I call up Mr. Billy Preston and I say 'LETS GO GET STONED.' Thats what I tell 'm."
-Ray Charles
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nacoran
221 posts
Oct 04, 2009
12:41 PM
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I'm still waiting for titanium reeds. :)
Who cares if laser cutting titanium is ridiculously expensive and requires non-flammable gasses to be pumped in to prevent the titanium from catching on fire. Or memory metal...
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ElkRiverHarmonicas
274 posts
Oct 04, 2009
2:20 PM
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Wally,
Custom harps play better because more of your playing force is directed to the reed. That's why the respond so well. The bad side is, more of your playing force is directed at the reed.
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www.elkriverharmonicas.com
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wallyns10
13 posts
Oct 04, 2009
3:56 PM
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Well hearing that and putting two and two together, I'm probably going to stay away from customs for a WHILE. Titanium reeds would be awesome haha, you could call it the "Space-Shuffle" harmonica (I don't know, just going for a space age type pun). Thanks for all the responses guys, its been real helpful!
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"Listen...you know, sometimes I feel like that too. I be around a thousand people, and yet I be lonely. Its the truth. But you know when I feel like that, what I do, I call up Mr. Billy Preston and I say 'LETS GO GET STONED.' Thats what I tell 'm."
-Ray Charles
Last Edited by on Oct 04, 2009 4:00 PM
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walterharp
79 posts
Oct 04, 2009
6:51 PM
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if the harps are not too out of tune, you can get them back in with tuning using a small file and support behind the reed, if they are way flat, then it is all over, the reed is shot
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MichaelAndrewLo
24 posts
Oct 04, 2009
8:53 PM
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I had one of those Seydel stainless steel 1847 harmonicas and I would say that it didn't last as long as hyped. Both the 2 draw and the 4 draw went flat in little more than the time my old special 20 in A did (about 3 months). I have played them a lot, and very hard, but still, I didn't think it was unreasonable to expect them to last at least a year. It was a letdown for sure.
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Andrew
656 posts
Oct 08, 2009
1:54 AM
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I suppose if steel is less flexible than brass, then steel reeds have to be thinner than brass reeds.
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