Tuning, plastic harps etc.

[Steve Jennings <100010.1152@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

First, off - Happy New Year to all.
Second, - ooops!! I started a magnum opus on types of harp and it seems
to have got sent incomplete - will send the rest when I get round to
it.
Third, Steve Baker's book "The Harp Handbook" has the best info. on
tuning and repair there is. If you've only got one reed noticeably out
of tune, you can generally bring it back up to pitch two or three times
before it breaks and needs replacing. You can buy mild steel rivets for
next to nothing, which means you don't need to attempt to re-use the
old ones - the reason I don't like the sound of that approach is that
you must inevitably be enlarging the hole the rivet goes into every
time you use an old rivet. The thing expands to hold the reed tight, so
it must follow that to get it to work again, you must expand it a bit
more etc etc.
As well as the Lee Oskar tool kit, which I like too, and the book's
good as well, Hohner did a repair kit about two years ago as well. It
contained a similar set of tools to Lee Oskars, but also had loads of
winsavers for chromatics, and glue, and silicon oil for the slide. It
retailed at about 40 pounds then, but their prices have just gone up
about 50% in the UK, because of all the recent fooling about with the
sterling/DM exchange rate. The toolkit has also disappeared from the UK
price list, but knowing Hohner UK stocking policies, this *doesn't*
mean they no longer supply it (not necessarily, anyway!!).

PLASTIC BODIED HARPS - I used to use Hohner Special 20's exclusively
when I first started playing about 10 years ago - they were what you
could get in plastic. Then I went to Marine Bands (not plastic) then to
Meisterklasses, then Huang Silvertones, back to Meisterklasses
(considerably adapted so they worked!), and now I play *only* Lee Oskar
(apart from some custom-tunings of my own which are still Hohner). I
know everyone loves that "deep warm Hohner sound" etc etc, but I don't
think it's the harp that gives that sound, it's the way you play it.
Musselwhite, for one, has got an enormous dark tone, and plays Lee
Oskar. Other advantages are that they seem to stay in tune much
longer, and to be much more robustly constructed (the covers don't
collapse if you sit on them by accident, for example), they are
actually in tune when you take them out of the box (this is partly a
matter of my personal preference, but Hohner invariably tune the 5 hole
draw too flat, and their octaves are often out, as well), and finally,
you can actually get replacement reedplates for LO without having to go
through the first six circles of hell to do so. Maybe things are
different in the States, but it's worth considering that the fact that
a company has a 90% market share doesn't mean it deserves it. Or
something.
Cheers for now - Steve Jennings