Harmonicas

With Nate Cutshell

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And my guest today is Nate Cutshell, a harp tech from Central Pennsylvania. Nate, welcome to Zeitgeist Radio. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really happy to talk to you. This is going to be a really fun conversation for me. I don't play harmonica, but my dad does. Kind of has dabbled. And so I, I have a lot of questions.

He's definitely like a beginner but he's got the soul into it. So I think this is going to be a really informative conversation. I'm going to definitely send it to him. Hi dad. Yeah. I feel like everybody has a dad or a grandfather that plays the harmonica. Yeah. Quality of the instrument. Well let's, let's get first into some background.

Can you explain to our

So I am a people tend to know me as a harmonica player, but I'm also a songwriter and a guitar player. Um, I also play the piano. And I play in a band called M. A. M. based out of central Pennsylvania. And I also have a band of my own that I'm more of like a front person that's called The Scrapplers.

We are a new band. Our, our first show is gonna be June 9th. Nice. So, what is today, the, the 3rd? So we're just coming up on that. Nice. I'm really excited for that. And and yeah, I, I build and repair harmonicas. I, I teach lessons as well. So yeah, just a multidisciplinary person in the, in, in the music industry.

Yeah. Sounds like you have a lot of his things we could talk about. But we are here today to talk about harmonica. I think it would help set the stage. If you could explain at a basic level, I think everyone's heard harmonica, but like, Can you explain like what it actually is and like how I mean that I know we can get super granular here But like on a really basic level How does a harmonica work?

Kind of in the first place like can we set the stage for that? Sure so the harmonica was designed based on the diatonic accordion, which is There's two types of accordions. Well, there's probably a bunch of variations, but the two main types are like You The accordion with the piano keyboard that probably most people think of initially, or maybe haven't even noticed that difference specifically, but there's either the accordion with the piano keyboard, which is chromatic.

And you can play like classical music and jazz on that. Or the folk accordion, which just has buttons and the folk accordion is tuned to a diatonic scale as opposed to a chromatic scale. And the harmonica was designed based on that. So instead of using the bellows, you know, the in and out motion. Of the accordion in, in which case that accordion, it plays one chord when you go in and it plays in an entirely different chord when you go out which is the same thing as the harmonica.

It plays one chord. I'll just grab one real quick. It, the harmonica plays one chord when you draw in. And then it plays another chord when you blow out. I think Zoom has a an audio like a background suppression thing going on because I was not able to hear that. I can hear your voice fine.

Okay. I was not able to hear that. You want me to try it again a little closer? There's probably a setting that you can do called original sound. Do you want me to try it? It's, it would be under your audio settings. Right. Whoa, sounds fancy. Yeah, it'll automatically do, or it could be called background noise removal.

Okay, I'm getting there, I'm getting there. Background and effects? No, that's not what I want.

I'll change it on my end, but I don't know if it'll change it on your end.

Could you try playing once just to see if, if my change did anything? Yeah, let me see if I can maybe get a little closer too. Okay, so the harmonica has one chord when you draw in, and it has another chord when you blow out. No, it's still suppressing it, even that close. Oh no! Bummer. It's okay, I think we can have a, we can have a conversation.

It'll Okay. Yeah, yeah. Like I was saying, the, the harmonica has one, one chord when you draw in and one chord when you blow out. And it's based on that diatonic accordion. So roughly around the year 1825 harmonicas started to appear in Germany and France. They sort of argue over who invented it, but it was most likely Germany that harmonicas were invented.

And initially they were made by just independent people. You know, there's no factories. So early on, a lot of watchmakers had the tools to work on you know, the, the small and delicate reads. And then in the 1850s Hohner opened the first harmonica factory. So, the way that the harmonica works is basically There's a spring if you think about like one of those spring doorstops, you know, how if you like flick the spring, it makes a note.

Basically, that's sort of how a metal reed works in a harmonica. And it is activated by air, obviously. So the reed is placed, is riveted on one end over a slot. And when you draw air through the slot, it activates the reed. Is, is basically the mechanic. Man, I learned so much just now. First of all, It's interesting, because my, my exposure is so American so, like, of course, when I think about the big harmonica maker names that I know, they are more German, but I think to the harmonica being such an American instrument, like it and the blues are so tied together in my head, it's interesting that it didn't even come from there, from us, it's from Germany or France.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's. I would definitely say it's an American instrument because the harmonica never really caught on in Germany. Yeah. It's pretty uncommon. There's not really, I'm sure there's some German harmonica music and I can certainly play some German songs on the harmonica, but it never really caught on there.

It did catch on though in the United States and it sort of replaced another wind instrument called the quills, which is like a type of pan flute. If you if you've ever seen, it's like basically like a collection of tubes and there's like a short one and they get progressively longer until there's a longer one.

And people would play these pan flutes as a wind instrument. And the harmonica is tuned to a very similar scale as the quills. So folk musicians in the 1800s and early 1900s would play the quills and the harmonica sort of replaced that. It was also really common for people to carry a harmonica in the Civil War as Civil War soldiers. And and, and basically by, I think the, the statistic, I'm, I, I forget exactly what the numbers are, but by the year roughly 1910, I think they were selling 10 to 20 million harmonicas a year in the United States. A lot. Yeah, they were selling a lot. And it was like common, like the famous bluegrass guitar player, Doc Watson, he said that he got a harmonica every year for Christmas when he was a kid, which I think was like a pretty common move for parents. And there's all different keys of harmonicas. So, you know, you need one for the key of G and one for the key of a and one for a sharp, you know? So. It's nice. You get one a year until you complete the set, right? It's sort of like that story. Yeah, let's actually go into that. We'll jump ahead a little. Because that is something I find fascinating.

Again, watching my dad try to like, like learn. He, he I think he picked it up when he was driving trucks because it was so portable. Yeah, totally. And he could just like go park on a hill at a break and, you know, Play for a little bit. So he's got really good intuition around it, but, but eventually he started wanting to learn more about the music theory, music theory generally, and then the music theory specifically for harmonicas.

So can you explain that a little bit? Because it was a little complex as far as like choosing. Like, how to choose, like, if you're playing in the key of G, do you choose a G harmonica or a D harmonica? Like, what do you choose for that? That's a good question. So you, you could play in the key of G with a G harmonica, which makes a lot of sense.

Seems very intuitive. But then there's also some alternate positions that you can play in. So there's one position called cross harp, which is the most common position for blues. And if you're playing straight harp, which is first position, that would be playing a G harmonica in the key of G You will, your, your main notes will be blown notes.

And then the draw notes are sort of like the color notes or the extra notes to fill the spaces in. But if you play cross heart or a second position, then your main notes are going to be the draw notes or the draw cord. So on a G harmonica, that would be a D seven cord. It would actually be a D nine cord.

So. sort of changes in in music theory, they call it like the tonal gravity or like the tonal center. And if you if you focus on the draw cord, then it, it has a little bit of a different feeling. It sort of has that more bluesy kind of it lends itself to more bluesy melodies. And then beyond that, there's a number of minor positions.

There's third position, fourth position, and fifth position, which would be on a G harp, you could play that in a minor, that would be third position. You could play it in a B minor. That would be fourth position, or you could play it in E minor, which would be fifth position. And there's some other positions beyond that, but those are the most common ones that I use.

And it's, it's in each position, it sounds like a different melody. Is that first position, I'm guessing that's because you get that nice, basically it's a 5 7 chord for music theory folks, or like a, a leading chord going back into the G. Would that be the purpose of, like the theoretical purpose of doing that?

That's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. The minor ones, I'd have to think on that for, on the theory of it for a little bit of, of the minor ones. The E is the relative minor of G, so that one makes sense. Right. Yeah, because they share all the same notes, right? Y'all go sign up for my newsletter. I'll break this down.

Yeah. There's too much in this conversation. And then the A minor would be the Dorian mode, which would be like a song like the, the folk song Shady Grove. There's, there's different songs. That, that use that mode or the fourth position, which if you think about the cross harp that I was telling you about, right, which would be playing a G harmonica in D while the relative minor of D is B minor.

So it sort of gives you the relative minor of the five chord. Got it. So it's all too many numbers and letters, but you know, there's some options there. There's some options there. It's sort of a brain bender for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I get why, why he was trying to learn about it. Cause that definitely sounds like each of those.

Okay. So, so, okay. So I'm interrupting myself. I have too many thoughts going on at once. Is it always true that the draw breath is a nine chord? Yes, if you were to play the entire thing but you can avoid those notes and and sort of fool the listener You know and make it not sound like a ninth chord.

Sure, but your range of notes will be a nine Yeah, so it will be so it'll be nine notes. So how many how many notes are on each side? Okay. So the, the blow chord is just three notes over and over and over again. It's like a, like tune, like a bugle. Right. Okay. So it's just like just a major chord going up three octaves.

And then the draw chord is a ninth chord, which is five different notes. And so there's, there's 10 holes. So each side has 10 notes and the, the blow side has, you know, it's all the major chord and then The draw side is, is 10 notes of the minor chord also going up three octaves. Wow. I knew this was going to be interesting.

And you're like, this is so basic. I haven't even got to the good stuff yet. Oh no, it's all interesting to me. How did you, when did you first pick up a harmonica? So I got really into the blues when I first started taking guitar lessons. I was really into you know, like Pink Floyd and the Beatles and like Led Zeppelin, all the classic stuff that you know, people tend to know and, and get them interested in the guitar.

And then when I got into Jimi Hendrix, Jimi Hendrix is really rooted in the blues. And was sort of like changed overnight. I started listening to Jimi Hendrix and then I started listening to Jimi Hendrix's influences like Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy. And just went deep on the blues. So I got really into the blues and.

Maybe about six months later, I bought my first harmonica and I tried to play it. And I gave up pretty quickly, to be honest with you, it's sort of mysterious. There's not you know, it's not like the guitar where you can see what someone's hands are doing. There's a lot of, there's a lot hidden, you know, with the harmonica.

But I was really fortunate to after I, so I, I, I tried to play it once, I gave up for maybe about six months and then I picked it up again. And. Maybe messed around with it for a week and, and gave up again. But then maybe the third time that I picked it up, I found a really great teacher on YouTube.

His name is Adam Gusso, and he has a channel called modern blues harmonica. He's a really great harmonica player. He was a street musician in New York city for a while. And he has these amazing these amazing YouTube lessons that he started publishing in like 2000, 2009, maybe. And that's really how I started to get some of the basic techniques.

And really when you first start playing, there's like to be able to play the blues, there's like one or two techniques, specifically the technique of bending, which is manipulating the pitch of a note. That that can be a little difficult to learn initially, so it's sort of a like a steep, a steep mountain that you climb, you know, you can play some like basic Bob Dylan style harmonica, maybe when you first get it, but then to to start getting those notes on purpose, you got to learn how to bend, which is why I kept giving up.

But but then I learned how to bend through that YouTube channel. And yeah, it was, it was on, it was on from there. And that, that bending quality is really what gives the harmonica. It makes it sound like someone singing, you know, it's, you can be very expressive when you can manipulate the pitch of a note, but vibrato and, and.

You know, sort of make the note curl or make it cry or whatever. That's, that's really what, what grabs people, I think, when they hear a great harmonica player. Yeah. Um, so, okay. So then when, at what point did you start tinkering with the insides and getting like interested in, in building? Yeah. Um, So I, I was trying to play the guitar.

I'll just sort of give my, give my background on how I got there. I was trying to, trying to play the guitar and I was playing the harmonica and people started to know me more as a harmonica player than a guitar player, because there's so many guitar players and not a lot of great harmonica players which I got lucky, you know, that I, that I picked that instrument.

So eventually, when I moved to the State College area in Central PA people started asking me if I knew of the local harmonica legend, Richard Slay, who's became my mentor. And the way that that happened was I, I sort of tracked him down at the, at the farmer's market. It's all very, All very wholesome.

He publishes a weekly newsletter and he, you know, I sort of tracked him down on his website and found his newsletter and he said, he loves playing at the farmer's market, playing for his neighbors and stuff like that. So I was like, I'm going to go, I'm going to go find this guy and see what he's about.

And he was He's just playing in the corner all very unassuming and he was playing the harmonica on the neck rack while he was playing the guitar. And it was like the best harmonica playing that I've ever heard in my life. And, and and he was doing it while he was playing the guitar, which was also.

Blowing my mind to see that in person, you know, so I must have just been staring at him Because he looked at me and pretty much clocked what I was about immediately And he asked if I played the harmonica that was like the first question that he asked me And I said he was like, what are you doing? What what are you doing?

Do you play the harmonica or something? Yeah, sure. I do any and the second question he asked me was well, do you have one with you and sure enough? I did it's one of the benefits of having a you know, a small portable instrument And the third question he asked me is what key is it in? And do you want to play a song?

So he, he had me within about, you know, 30 seconds of talking to me, we were, we were playing music together. And I guess, I guess I, I did well enough that he invited me back to his house for dinner and his, his wife wife and daughters were there and I had a really nice dinner with them. They're all very sweet people.

And I basically told him I, I would love to, to learn from you. And you know, we, we worked out as sort of Mr. Miyagi style apprenticeship situation. And, and Richard Slay is a world renowned harmonica tech. He's, he has a lot of influence on the design of the modern harmonica. He sort of invented a lot of the techniques and tools that people commonly use now to work on their harmonicas.

I'm not, I'm not sure that I would have been drawn towards that or figured it out without his guidance. Sure. I didn't even know that that was possible before that. Usually the, you know, the harmonica is kind of cheap which is awesome. It makes it very accessible to people. But also it's cheap enough that when the harmonica breaks, people tend to just throw it And now in the modern day You know, there's people build some really high quality harmonicas.

And if you spend a lot of money on a high quality harmonica, you don't want to throw it away when it's broken. You want to fix it. So that's, that's sort of the the influence that Richard has had on the, the whole world of the harmonica and. You know, on me personally as well. Wow, that's amazing that you moved to a town where there's a world class, like, world class So lucky.

It's 10 minutes up the road. Sometimes the universe smiles kindly upon us. Yeah. So how, how big of this community of Harmonica players are we talking? Like, how I think the first time I met you, you were either on your way or you had just come back from a convention. That's right. So, like, what, are we talking, like, a couple big names, are we talking lots and lots of names?

How big is this world that you live in here? Well it's tough to say, because there's so many people have a harmonica. Yeah. And so many people dabble in the harmonica, and then a certain number of those people don't. Maybe play it a little more seriously and then And even small, a number of them, you know, have been able to play it professionally and, you know, just so on when you keep narrowing it down.

But what I can say is the conference that I went to, which is called SPA is stands for the society for the. Protection and advancement of the harmonica, which is hilarious. There was, this was in 2022. So you know, still kind of pandemic times. And the, the conference that year was in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

It was just a national conference, although some people traveled internationally. But at that conference, I believe that there was Maybe 300 people. A few, a few hundred people, give or take. I would say two 50 to 400. It's tough to remember exactly. But again, that was during the pandemic times, I know that a lot of people were discouraged from attending for that reason. And obviously in the, you know, the, the amount of people that go to the Harmonica conference is smaller than it's, it's just representative of how big the community is. Well, it's big enough to have a conference, which I didn't know before I met you either. Yeah, totally. Totally. And then, are, you've mentioned at least one brand.

Are there, would you say that there's more harmonicas More harmonica brands or, or individual makers? Like what, what, what are some of the key brands or that people may know or I don't know. I'm just kind of, my, my brain is kind of going along this track of like, who's, who's out there making these?

Sure. There's, there's three large manufacturers of the harmonica right now. One is honer. Mm-Hmm. . I play. Pretty much exclusively honer harmonicas. There's another one, Seidel, which is also a German company. And Seidel was actually the very first harmonica factory, I think in the early 1850s, and then honer started their factory in 1857, I believe.

And that's really the one that took off the, the, the Seidel factory has stuck around. But the, the honer factory is really the sort of like the industry standard. And then in Japan, the company Suzuki makes a really nice harmonica as well. And then there's a number of cheap harmonica manufacturers beyond that, but it's those three companies.

And then now in the modern times, there's a number of like independent harmonica techs. Like my mentor, Richard Slay, and like myself, who they would buy their parts from one of those companies. So Hohner, Seidel, or Suzuki, and then they would, you know, custom build some higher end harmonicas that aren't just mass manufactured.

And then there's been one or two other companies. There's this guy Lee Oscar. He started a harmonica company. I would say that those harmonicas are a little subpar from my experience. Then there was also there was a guy who tried to, I think it was called Harrison Harmonicas. And his company Folded but he was an American based harmonica manufacturer.

Same with Leoptra. Yeah, it's interesting that these three big ones you named, none of them are in the States, and again, I associate this with It's interesting that none of them are based here. Yeah. In the modern times though, there are a lot of really great harmonica players around the world playing a really wide variety of music Irish music.

There's some amazing, amazing harmonica players from India and the Middle East. There's some really great African harmonica players. There's really amazing harmonica players in Japan and China and just all over the world. And then I guess I should also mention the harmonica I play is the diatonic harmonica, but at some point they invented this harmonica called the chromatic harmonica, which is more similar to the accordion with the piano, and that's more for playing like classical music and jazz.

And there's great harmonica players all over the world that play the chromatic harmonica as well. Wow, I've never seen, that would be an interesting concert to see a classical Harmon harmonica player. Yeah. So what would distinguish in your opinion, from like how, if you look at a harmonica, what tells you that it's more of a high quality or high-end harmonica versus less so? Well, the, the best way to tell is to try to play it. It's sorta, it, it's sorta mostly the things that are happening under the hood that make the biggest difference. But the the comb of the harmonica, which is the piece in the middle that's, that's one thing to look for. A nicer harmonica will have like a nicer comb that's sealed or maybe made out of a nicer material, like Richard Slay, he's made combs out of Corian, people will make them out of brass.

But the standard harmonica comb is made out of kind of like a, a pear wood, which is like a pretty, a pretty cheap, lightweight wood, kind of almost similar to balsa wood. And those harmonicas So would that be the thing that the springs are attached to? The comb? No, okay. So the, the the springs, which we'll, we'll call them reeds, which the reeds, they act like springs.

They are attached to the reed plates and the reed plates are attached to the comb. Okay. Yeah. So in P I'm a piano player and in the piano world, the soundboard of the piano is kind of everything that's going to determine the resonance chamber. So is the comb kind of acting as a soundboard, a mini soundboard in the middle?

I imagine it would be similar where the, what does it, does it contribute to the resonance and, and kind of the sound that you get out of it in a similar way? Absolutely. Yeah, it does. It is tough to tell just by eye because really what a lot of the the upgrades made to the harmonica to make a really high end harmonica are about making it very airtight.

And these are like, not quite microscopic leaks. You know, they're like you, you can, it's difficult to see with the naked eye where the harmonic is leaking. You know, there's, we, we use a light and magnification to, to make the harmonica more airtight, which is the thing that makes it more responsive and more resonant.

Interesting. Okay. Okay. So you've got the comb. That's one thing that you look for. Are there other things that you look for as well? Yeah, you know, the most common one is the so the standard marine band, which is the most common harmonica in history, you know, established in the late 1800s by Hohner and still manufactured and sold and, and loved by great harmonica players all around the world today.

That harmonic is put together with nails. So one of the first things that you do, if you're going to try to upgrade one of those harmonicas is take out all the nails and replace them with screws. So that's like a, that's like a tell. If the harmonica has, if it's a Marine band harmonica that has the nails replaced with screws, then you know that somebody has done work on it.

Interesting. And that I assume also makes it airtight. Like that's the purpose of the screws. Is there more airtight? Yeah. Yeah. It allows you to control that a little bit more for sure. Nice. So we've talked about a couple of genres and how design may have changed a little bit. Do you, do you play different harmonicas in different genres or like how much does the genre you're playing influence the harmonica you choose? That's a great question. The the biggest difference is if you're playing the diatonic or the chromatic harmonica.

Sure. But you can play either harmonica in a variety of styles. I. almost exclusively play the diatonic harmonica. And with the diatonic harmonica, I play blues, country music, rock and roll. You can play some jazz music depending on what the melody is. I play Irish music. I play old time fiddle music.

You can play some polkas. There's a bunch of stuff that you can play on the diatonic harmonica. On the chromatic harmonica, that lends itself more to jazz and classical music. Nice. So that's pretty much those two. And then when I, so then when you're styling, it would just be in techniques that you would use.

You've talked about bending. Are there other techniques that, that you use based on whatever you're playing? Sure. Yeah, yeah. There, the, um, there's this technique, it's called tongue blocking, which is you know, you, you might have your mouth open over three or four holes at the same time. And then while you are playing, you will use your tongue to block off some of those notes so you can you can go between playing an individual note and playing a chord.

Or you can sometimes play two notes at once as like a split where your tongue would be in the middle and you're playing one note out of the left side of your mouth and one note out of the right side of your mouth. And, and that technique, it's used in a lot of different styles of music in various ways.

That sounds really hard. Yeah, it's, it's interesting. Nice. So let's talk about go into building a little bit. So you call yourself a harp tech. You also mentioned before we started recording so a luthier is a term that's used for people who build guitars, also violins. Kind of working with wood and you mentioned that's also a term that can be used.

So what's it like to be a harp tech and what does your day look like when you, when you like, what kind of tools do you use? Just what's that like for you? It's it's very interesting. It's a unique experience. Oh, all the tools that I use are basically handmade, customized tools that Richard made, or sometimes we repurpose.

Tools for, you know, to, to specialize them on the harmonica. There might be you know, some modification to the tool to make it more specific to use on the harmonica. I'm picturing, like, dental tools. Like, they're probably very fine. Yeah, yeah, you're, you're spot on with that. Yeah, I definitely wouldn't want people to work on my teats with the Harmonica tools, but I could see that you could mistake them for sure.

Yeah. So if someone brings a project, so do you make custom mostly, or do you like, what do you do if you're making for someone else? Right. So. It, it tends to be at least my preferred way if I'm going to build a harmonica for someone is just to, to build them a new harmonica so that way I know all the work that was done to it and and I'll set myself up to repair that harmonica in the future, you know, which a good, a good harmonica can last quite a long time if the player has good technique.

You know, you might need to get it repaired once every two to five years sometimes they can go longer. It just depends on how much you use it and how hard you play it. Um, but yeah, I would, I would try to build them a harmonica from scratch. And, and mostly the, the process is If it's like a new marine band, I would replace all the nails with screws.

I would flatten everything, which makes it all very airtight. And then I would go to work on the individual reads. So like I said, there's 10 holes on the harmonica and you know, 10. 10 reads for when you blow out and 10 reads for when you draw in. So that's 20 reads in total and each one requires some special attention.

You know, we'll, we'll, we'll look at the shape of the read, how the read is sitting on the replay to make sure that it's airtight and activating equally all along the read. It's basically like a thin strip of metal. So you'll, you'll sort of look at both sides of the read and see how the read is sitting on the replay.

And then at the end you'll tune all the reads. And oftentimes when you get the harmonica from the factory, it'll be. In tune enough to play and, and most people wouldn't notice it being out of tune, but a really nice high end custom harmonica is really crispy and it's tuning and people notice that immediately.

How do you tune that? Do you, do you file away at the, like, what does that look, how do you do that? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So to make the reed go sharp, you remove some metal from the tip of the reed with a, with a jeweler's file. Or another type of file. And to make it go flat, you can either add metal to the tip of the reed with like you know with solder is a common.

Tool, or you can remove some metal from the base of the reed, which would make the spring looser, right? So that would also make that the pitch go flat. Huh? That's interesting again, when reeds so coming from the classical world mostly I know a lot of reeds like like players like oboe and Clarinet those right so I'm picturing like how they The very little that I know about how they tune but they seem, it seems like they're always making new reeds and having to replace them kind of constantly.

Yeah, okay, so that's a, that's a very different type of reed instrument. It's a wood, it's a wooden reed. Right, right. And they manipulate the pitch that they're playing by, with the buttons on their instrument, which, which lengthens or shortens the, the resonant pitch of the instrument. Whereas with the harmonica.

It's an individual read for each note. So it's a little different. Yeah, totally. It sounds very, very totally different. I just am thinking of read like again, my it's a, it's such an interesting way to make sound. It's really kind of a brilliant design. So with all those little parts, I'm actually kind of surprised that they last very long.

It seems like those reads, I guess you have to be very careful about not bumping them to get things out of place. Like, what do you see, what is the most common damage that you see? They're, they're actually pretty sturdy, to be honest with you. And a lot of the work that harmonica tech does is also to sort of settle the harmonica, which is most of the time, you know, I mean, I might spend five to 10 hours working on a harmonica, but I'll do that over the period of two months.

And a lot of it is. You know, I'll do all the initial work, maybe a couple, couple, few hours, and then I'll let the harmonica sit for a couple of weeks and then I'll pick it up. I'll test it again. Everything will certainly have moved and I'll adjust that stuff, put it down and I'll do that like four or five times.

And that's really the thing that keeps the harmonica stable for a longer period of time. Um, uh, the most common damage is like, if if you hold your harmonica too tightly, you can crush the cover plates, which isn't it doesn't always affect the playability of the harmonica, but it does affect the it affects the shape of it.

It's not the biggest deal, but we, when we build a higher end harmonica, we reinforce it. So it's harder to, excuse me, to crush with your hands. Another common one is if the harmonica gets wet that can be damaging. And one of the most common ways to increase the life of your harmonica is after you play it.

You don't want to just close it up in a box you want to, when you, when you get home, you want to let it air out. And that way the, the wooden parts of the harmonica won't absorb that moisture. They'll dry out. And the reeds won't corrode. You know, you, you just want, you don't want any saliva or other liquid to be sitting on the harmonica for an extended period of time.

So what is left that's wood? So we talked about if you're customizing a high end, you replace the comb with like brass or something. And then you mentioned that the, the reeds Are metal and they're strapped to a metal plate or attached to a metal plate. So what what's left? That's wood. Just the comb and honestly, I play mostly wood comb harmonicas, but the combs that I use are Of higher quality wood, and they're better sealed.

Got it. Mm hmm. But you can also use, like, acrylic is another common one for the combs. But yeah, the, the wood, wood combs are still common even in the higher end ones. Okay. Just a nicer quality of wood. Got it. And then on the I'm trying to picture I should have brought mine with me. The, the ones I've seen the the holes is that would in between like what is what is made in between and and how are those shaped is that ever customized like like how big the holes are.

Are for like, if someone's got like a really small mouth or a big mouth, I don't know, it seems like if there's a very big person trying to play this tiny instrument, it could be a problem. Sure. They can vary a little bit, but they're pretty consistent in the size of the holes, the chromatic harmonicas are a little bigger, but the reason that we call it the comb is because it looks like a comb.

I'll put a picture of that in my newsletter. It looks like a comb. When you, when you put reed plates on the other side, then they look like holes or slots, but really. You know, it's a comb, and then when you put when you put the reed plates on, then it looks like they're holes. Sure. Sure. Did that answer your question?

Yes, I think so. So. It's such a mysterious little instrument. It's so funny. It is, yeah. I really love what you said about how it's Uh, it's not, it's, it's like internal, you know, it's not something that you can look at it and figure out how to do it. And I think I do, there's been a couple of times where, you know, I've been inspired by my dad or whatever.

I'll be like, you know, I might try to learn how to play this. And piano is what I grew up on. It's the most visual instrument. It's like, It's so visual. Every note, you can just, what do you want to play? You'll look at it and you play it. Guitar is a little less so, but it's still very visual. Once you know what the chord shapes and the, and the tunings, you can pretty much figure it out.

Harmonica, it's, you would be very interesting to, what, what would you say to someone who's like starting, interested in dabbling, gotten that point where you, you got stuck, maybe got frustrated. set it aside, but it's kind of in the back of their head, like, you know, this is something I'd like to do. Like, what is some advice you would give to someone interested in, in picking it up? There are amazing teachers all over the internet and there's a lot of free lessons on YouTube. If you're, you know, able to, to teach yourself with, you know, some, some how to manuals, that's basically how I did it for a while. But having, having a good teacher can make a difference. And. Through teaching the harmonica, I've definitely you know, there's a lot of like metaphors and explanations that we use for what's going on behind the scenes that, you know, I can, I definitely can help someone make progress quite quickly if, if they're willing to practice.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. I way back in Portland several years ago, I was running a music school up there and we had someone come in wanting lessons and I was like, wow, this is a new one. And I searched in my community and I'm like, I don't, I don't, I don't run in these circles. And also they're, they don't, they weren't online.

I couldn't find anyone for this person. And so I ended up just referring them to YouTube, which It's a great place to start. Obviously, there's a place for person, you know, one on one lessons too, but it's not as common to find them as you, you know, there's a piano or a guitar teacher on every corner, but not so much with harmonica.

Totally. Yeah, I mean, one of the common things is. With the tongue blocking, a lot of people start off excuse me, by lip pursing, which means that you basically make like a fish face to like get the individual isolated notes. And if you're lip pursing and you listen to a great harmonica player, you might wonder, how are they getting all those extra notes?

Yeah. And a lot of it is through tongue blocking, which means that you're you're able to use your tongue and sort of play multiple notes at once. And it's like counter melodies and counter rhythms which, which wouldn't be immediately obvious without someone giving you some insight into the instrument.

Yeah. I'm picturing blues traveler who just goes at the speed of light. Yeah, totally. I think he's, he mostly lip purses. But he, he definitely tongue blocks sometimes. Do you have a vest like he does? No, I don't. It's like a military vest with all the pockets. Yeah. I just got a, I just got a nice, nice suitcase.

Nice. Like a briefcase rather, Well Nate, this has been awesome Is there any final advice or any things that you you'd like to share that we haven't touched on? That you encounter in your day to day about the harmonica specifically. Yeah I mean if someone wants to learn how to play the harmonica the Best thing to do is just keep it on your person at all times It's a small instrument and the more that you have it with you the more often you're gonna play it And that's certainly how I got good at it.

I We'll admit, I practice the harmonica a pretty significant amount behind the wheel on the highway. Yeah. And I, I think that's a pretty common one. You know, practice it waiting for the bus and, you know, when I'm got a couple minutes to spare and you can get good pretty quickly if you just practice for small amounts of time on a regular basis and.

Is the marine band, is that a good starter one? That's the one. Yeah. Yeah. Get a marine band in the key of. A or G. A or G. You heard it here, folks. Well I want to wrap up with a question that, that I ask every guest. What is a recent zeitgeist moment for you? And I'll explain what this means. So This is Zeitgeist Radio.

Zeitgeist means spirit of the times, and it's kind of a word that's like the, the feel of an era or a scene or a location, kind of the, the spirit of, of it can be used in politics or fashion or whatever. I use it in music, and I use a Zeitgeist moment to refer to that moment that we all have had that I don't know of any other word for where.

You're making music or you're listening to music you're somehow involved with music and you just plug in and it's just you feel Connected like all of a sudden something happens and you feel connected to something bigger than yourself Yeah, and so I've started calling that a zeitgeist moment and I I always like to ask every guest because everyone has had this experience Yeah, I'll share one and then I'll ask you about yours.

So my zeitgeist moment that I wanted to share with you is so I grew up in Montana and we'd have these, you know, big bonfire parties. Everyone would get together, play music. My brother's playing guitar or upright bass or whatever. You know, there's some folks singing, I'd be singing. And then you knew the night was getting good.

You knew you'd hit the sweet spot in the night. When my dad had enough beers in him that he felt brave enough to bust out his harmonica. All right. And that was when, he's gotten braver as the years go on, but I remember when I was a teenager, it would be like hours in, and finally he'd kind of like get out his harmonica.

And something about the way he, He plays is so soulful. Like he's not necessarily like, you know, he's not gonna like the technique is he hasn't studied with anybody. He just learned on his own and something about the way he plays is just so magical. And that moment in the night, you see him get out his harmonica.

You're like, Oh, we have arrived. This is where the jam is now. Like, this is what makes the magic is my dad and his harmonica. So. So that's a moment for me. I'd be curious to hear from you. What's a, what's a zeitgeist, either a recent or a memorable zeitgeist moment for you? Well, you know what that, I think that's such a beautiful story.

And, and I, I can, I can really picture what you're describing. I'll, I'll give you a, can I give you two? Absolutely. I'll give you a one that happened a while ago was when I went to that harmonica conference, and it was like, obviously The most amount of harmonica players that I've ever been around at any, any given point in time and just yeah, definitely, you know, created the feeling of being part of something greater and like.

Made the seeing the harmonica community in the flesh meant a lot. And then in a more recent time, just a couple of weeks ago, the band I'm in, ma'am, we had our annual festival the fourth annual burning ma'am in Woodward, Pennsylvania. And you know, there was a bunch of Zeitgeist moments with that.

We sort of try to. Use that as an opportunity to bring together all of the amazing bands and musicians that we meet playing on the road and get them all in one place, which is pretty rare for a bunch of musicians who travel all the time. It's tough to get them in all in the same place at once.

And it's really special when that happens. And there's another great harmonica player there. His name's Brian Heard. He has a band called Daddy Long Legs. And we played a couple of harmonica duets around the campfire. One night, which was pretty special. And it's not often that two people playing the harmonica at the same time sounds not terrible.

And it sounded, I think it sounded pretty good and it was really cool to you know, it, it definitely was, was a special moment. I had, I had a really great time listening to him and, and, and playing harmonica with him as well as all the other great bands. Yeah, that was beautiful. Beautiful festival.

That sounds amazing. Well, Nate, thank you so much for your time and thanks for coming on to Zeitgeist Radio. Yeah, thanks so much for having me.