[Harp-L] Seydel Concerto

[Jonathan Ross <jross38@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I am a bit surprised at all the recent praise of the Seydel Concerto.

A few years ago I bought a batch of these (six in standard keys) and  
while I liked the construction (nice plastic combs, good cover  
design, overall comfort if a bit larger than an Auto-Valve) the ones  
I got were not all that well-tuned--quite noticeable in an octave  
harp.  This was particularly true of the top octave in all the  
harps.  Simply put, they will not hold their tuning very well in this  
range: the reeds drift and will not settle into a pitch for any given  
length of time.  I am suspicious that it might be an issue of reed  
scaling not being well matched to the specific pitch needed--indeed,  
these reeds are very narrow in relation to their length and pitch.   
Perhaps this was just a problem with the batch I got (made before the  
switch to having the tonic consistently in the first hole), such as a  
bad bit of reed material, but there it is.

From my experience, I would not recommend these, unless you don't  
mind retuning your own harps out of the box and never intended to  
play the top octave.



 ()()    JR "Bulldogge" Ross
()  ()
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