I check my harps with the bend-it-better tool to see if they are out of tune. Is there a better way to see if a harp is worn out?
I have been playing my ‘A’ harp a lot for two years, and I don’t want to experience reed breakage.
3 Likes
If you do not play it hard and it sounds good its not broke. If it were to fail replaced the reed plate. To see if the plates are flat take them off and very lightly rub the plate, reeds up, in circles. I use , wet and dry sand paper. I do not put any downward pressure on the plate. After you lightly rotate it over the sand paper take a look at the plate and you can see what part of the plate is coming in contact with the sand paper. It will look shiny. if you have a large place in the plate that does not show any contact then the claws can be used to slightly move the plate until the whole plate shoes contact. I do all new harps like this to get rid of any air leaks. Its seems to work very well. Always rotate with the reeds up and 1,600 paper will not scrape or damage the plate.
4 Likes
Great advice!
1 Like
Harps can drift out of tune over time. Use a tuner app on your phone to check, watch YouTube vids to see how to correct. For complicated reasons Reed’s are not usually tuned to exact note, each one will have a recommended variation, slightly sharp or slightly flat, which will improve the compromise between chords and single notes. For blues a lot of folks use 19 limit Just Intonation, which is used for Marine Bands, for instance, charts are available on line. It’s much cheaper to replace broken or seriously flat (fractured) reeds individually, but fiddly at first, and you need tools/supplies. Again YouTube is your friend. My pet hate is that reed plates are supplied in pairs, even though it is nearly always 4 and 5 draw reeds that fail. This means that reedplates are often not much cheaper than a new harp. Good luck!
1 Like
Play the cords, inhale and exhale in each part of the range. Should sound alright. If not, check it against a reference pitch, like a piano. If you can’t pull the note down into match the pitch, then it is probably flat and the offending reed, or reedplates, need to be replaces.