[Harp-L] Custom Harmonicas - a point that needs to be made



The current debate on custom harmonicas motivates this post, which I've been meaning to write for some time.

As Steve Baker indicates, there are a small number of customisers who apply a great deal of time and expertise to the shape and preparation of reeds, following techniques which I believe were pioneered by Joe Filisko. I played one of Joe's instruments back in 1999, courtesy of Trip Henderson in NYC. I had been playing for 20 years at that point, and I had never played anything remotely as good as this instrument. This is the dramatic improvement that Steve Baker is talking about.

For the last 6 years I have been playing instrumentsprepared by Neil Graham in Australia (www.neilgraham.com). For me, Neil's instruments have the characteristics that I recall from my brief encounter with a Filisko instrument, extraordinary volume and very fast response. I need instruments like this for my music, and I'm happy to pay the difference for the performance they give.

Neil spends about a day preparing each instrument. I do a little harmonica work myself, and having inspected his reeds I can appreciate where his time goes. I suspect that other top class customisers invest similar time preparing their instruments.

Now to the point of this post.

How should you reward a master craftsman who invests this much time on your behalf? Consider that they need to run workshops, power tools etc, and often have professional trade skills (e.g Joe Filisko is a toolmaker by trade). Another way of looking at this: how much would you expect to pay a licensed plumber or electrician who spent a day working at your house? The answer should give some idea of how much the very best customisers need to get for their instruments.

It is common for players of other instruments to spend many thousands on their equipment ( have a close look at the gear at your next blues jam or bluegrass festival to see what I mean). I don't see that harmonica players are any different. It is not easy for me to find the money for my custom instruments, but I consider them worth every dollar.

This is not to denigrate off the shelf instruments, which have improved enormously over the last decade. Similarly, there are a number of harmonica technicians who gap and tune reeds, adjust cover plates etc, and sell the resulting product for less than $100. I have played some of these instruments, and the extra they cost over stock instruments is well spent. However I imagine that these technicians cannot afford to spend much more than an hour on each instrument, otherwise they would go broke. The additional time put in by the very best customisers, and the many years needed to refine their skills account for the extra cost of their instruments.

To conclude: if you have never played a instrument from one of of these customisers, hopefully one day you will. Then perhaps you will see things as I do.

Tony Eyers
www.HarmonicaTunes.com
...everyone plays





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