Lucky 13 Bass Blues Harmonica
$82.00 $60.00
By Brendan Power
”
TWO HARPS IN ONE!
HISTORY
Long Ago (1980) and Far Away (New Zealand) I started making my own custom ‘Stretch Harps’ in 11, 12, 13, 14 and 16 hole sizes, by slicing two normal harps and joining them back together. My 13-hole Stretch Harp was in Richter Extended tuning: normal 10-hole range plus an extra low octave on the left. It wasn’t easy to make, as in those days I had to add a lot of solder to the extra low reeds as well as do the cutting/joining of parts – but the result was worth it: a 4-octave diatonic with the same hole spacing as a normal harp! I became addicted to having that extra bottom-end built in, and nicknamed the harp my ‘Lucky 13’ (see photo down the page).
I later discovered I wasn’t the only one to think of the Richter Extended idea back in the 1980s. Steve Baker did too and, after he became a consultant for Hohner in 1987, tried to persuade them to make a 13-hole harp (as noted in his 1990 book The Harp Handbook). They demurred, but did agree to make his SBS 4-octave model out of the Hohner 365 14-hole harp, released in 1989. Steve is to be commended for being the first to get a 4-octave harp into the market, and the SBS has a nice sound. Unfortunately it also suffers from several drawbacks, reflecting its origin as essentially a re-tuned version of an existing older harmonica: wider hole spacing than standard 10-hole harps, raw pearwood combs that can warp and crack, nailed assembly, limited range of keys, lowest key of only C, a redundant 14th hole, and a bottom cover not deep enough to stop the lowest draw reeds from rattling.
My hand-made 13-hole Stretch Harps had none of those issues. They had screwed construction, non-absorbent combs, standard diatonic 7.5mm hole spacing, and a deeper lower cover (taken from the Hohner 364 model). I also made 13-hole A, G and Bb harps with extended range below the standard keys – not an octave higher as with the SBS. Other players liked them too, and I decided to make a fully-optimised Lucky 13 that anyone could buy.”
