After months of playing only Session Steels, I picked up my Special 20 and Suzuki Promaster recently. I found the Special 20 much more comfortable than I remember and the Promaster much worse. Then my DaBell Nobel arrived and I wanted to love it, but I found it nearly as hard to play cleanly as the Promaster. Then it dawned on me that the Promaster has really small, closely spaced holes. The DaBell too. But the Special 20 holes seem huge by comparison.
Has anyone else found hooks size makes such a large difference?
What size holes/spacing do different harmonica have?
Hello @bpcleary,
First of all, I warmly welcome you here in our forum. I can answer your question with “yes”. I play different Hohner, a Seydel Lightning and a Fender. The Hohner and Seydel have the same hole spacing and size, the fenders have a slightly wider hole size. At first I didn’t notice it with the single notes and slides. Since I am completing the “Beginner to Boss Course”, I have just arrived at tongue blocking and this is where I notice it. It is more difficult with the fenders, which works well with the others. Surely the difference will go away with more practice, as well as other initial problems. Many greetings from Astrid
Hole size and spacing are two (what I call) personal factors with some people seeming to be able to play pretty much any harp regardless of those two and others more comfortable with, say, larger holes or closer spacing.
I am sure you will eventually find yourself in one or the other of these “factions” of players.
For some harp models it is possible to buy custom combs that are made for that model’s reed plates and these combs can give you somewhat different hole sizes and/or spacings.
Interesting topic. I was gonna ask about this today, but decided to do a quick search and I’m glad I did. I’ve always played Special 20s. I also bought a couple natural minors from Lee Oskar as well as a couple Seydel Session Steel. Lee Oskar and SP20 are the same size (holes and spacing, anyway), but the Seydel is much wider. I just got a Crossover today and it’s a really sweet harp… same hole size/spacing as sp20. I’m only now beginning to work on tongue blocking and I’m finding switching from sp20 to Seydels awkward. I was wondering if it was recommended to stick with one size/kind, but based on the above, it doesn’t seem so. I’m also so new to TB and finding it quite challenging, so the differing size makes it worse, I suppose.
Based on the above, I think I’ll stick to one size (sp20 and Crossover) until I get more proficient at TB and maybe then I can throw my Seydels back into the rotation!
My Lee Osker has larger holes than my Crossovers and is much easier to play single notes on but all things considered the Crossover beats the L E hands down. Can not comment on any others. I wish I could find a harp that had the best attributes of both. I seldom play the Osker as I am played with the way a Crossover plays and sounds. The L O feels more like a match box,
I have to agree with @Slim hole sizing and space not a problem on diatonic as I have all sorts of different makes and models. However switching to chromatic I found the huge hole size very problematic at first but then I got used to it. I am tongue blocking really well on it and pursing poses very little problem now. I’m still going slow and steady but I am really begining to really open up the instrument, playing with a backing track is a huge help
