Hello friends, I have a question about the durability of special 20 line. My set is only 7-8 months old and I have broken the 5 hole reed on my G harp. Is this normal to have to replace reeds so soon? It also unlocked a new fear! you see the reed actually entered my mouth. The thought of drawing too hard and inhaling it is a scary concept. Has anyone experienced anything like this? Is it normal wear? Or should I contact Hohnner? Thanks Eric
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I’ve not personally done any “durability” testing and am not qualified to - I will say I have found special 20s to be reliable and have never heard of this happening to anyone - so I would guess it’s a 1 off event.
all that said - I understand your fear - scary thought indeed to have a reed shoot into you mouth while playing.
If it were me I would definitely contact Hohner. At least so they know. I’ve heard they stand behind there products and take quality serious.
best
Mike
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A tad off subject as it relates to Hohner, but I recently purchased a Suzuki Manji Sky harp and the included instruction sheet has a small warning stating: Over time the reeds can become weakened and break through metal fatigue. Should any reeds break, please be careful to avoid inhaling and swallowing any fragments. To my knowledge this is the first time I’ve seen such a warning included with a harmonica!
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Well I did reach out to Horner and basically, it is my fault. They hit me with music theory to explain it. Still deep that rabbit hole 
. But to all the other newbies.. you can not bend the 5 hole draw on a G harp. It will break the reed. The more you know 
!
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The generally accepted situation concerning draw reed 5 is that a micro-tonal bend is possible. That means lowering the tone towards the blow 5 tone, but not going wild when doing so.
Example: on a C harp -5 is an F and +5 is an E. In western 12 tone music there is no tone between those two. So Fb (F flat) is an E and E# is an F, but between these there is no tone in the 12 tone scale common in western music.
Ronnie Shellist does this sort of micro-tonal bending on -5 often and even has video lessons using it.
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