Greetings, Tim; I was interested in this item, particularly where you mentioned using the 'Koch' assembly for the pairing plates pitched 4ths/5ths apart. (ie c/g d/a &c.) Some years ago, disregarding my lack of craftsmanlike expertise, I constructed something of this nature by glueing two Hohner plastic combs together, at, I suppose, about 37 degrees,. This left a 'V' shaped valley between the two mouthpieces which I then filled up with fibreglass. I then filed the whole mess to make a protruding 'V', with 2 rows of holes offset, so that (in the case of a 'c' and 'g') the first pos. #1hole (c) was just above and in between #2 & #3 of the lower (g) harp. I realized at the time that I was just re-inventing the wheel; it was just a variation on the theory of the chromatic, though without the mouthpiece mechanism. My idea was to not have a mouthpiece, and retain the raw diatonic qualities by having two entirely independent harps. It was a success of sorts. It had a sort of wild gospel sound when you flicked from one harp to the other. However, my craftsmanship being less than sublime, it had its shortcomings. Most importantly, neither harp was perfect as a single entity. I suspect that this was either a result of shoddy workmanship OR (I am most interested in this bit!) because the extended mouthpiece made the mouth just that much more distant from the reed than advisable. I would be interested to get your opinion on this latter possibility. In more recent times I have tried a CBH Chord Harmonica (the one with the two slides) These are discontinued now, which is a pity. It reminded me of my own effort at a custom harp. Your comments (and anyone elses) would be appreciated.
Cheers, Rick Dempster. Rick Dempster RMIT Libraries E-mail: ric~ib.library.rmit.edu.au
