Hair of the Dog
So I'm at the jam and when I pick up my C harp (the second time in the set), the 1 hole is jammed!! No sound draw or blow. Luckily I packed a spare harp, picked it up and finished. Got home and took the covers off, 'plucked' the reeds on the 1 hole and then when I tried it again, no sound. Looked more carefully and found a hair stuck in the draw reed. After I carefully took it out, all was well again.
Lesson for me - always pack spare harps and don't panic if something goes wrong with the harp you are playing. How the heck did a hair get stuck in there during a set - ? I did brush my teeth so no hair mouth to deal with - not like some mornings ;-)
yea i often get a hair stuck in a reed,and my 1st thought is Oh no a bad reed,but usually its something caught in it,a lot of the time its lip gunk,same problem,I firgur it would be nice to have extras,just for that when i play live,but right now i just have my main 5 LO,but eventully i hope to have extras
My cousin,who is a guitar player always says to me 'are you playing that filthy harp again?' now I see why ha ha
Hair stuck in a reed can happen easily. It happened to me once just before I went onstage at a music school recital and I had to struggle through the solo performance without Draw 1. Yesterday a student came to me with 2 harps that he thought had dead draw reeds. I popped the covers and pulled hairs out of them.
The fix is fairly easy, and the preventative isn't much harder - keep the harp in a clean case or box, not in your pocket or rolling around in a bag with who knows what debris not that I'm particularly good at following my own advice).