Piedmont Blues to Special 20

This is always an interesting discussion.

By way of analogy, I teach ukulele to groups and individuals. I counsel that a beginner spend $75-100 on a good "starter" uke. While one can spend thousands on an instrument made by hand by a luthier in Hawaii (and some folks do, for starters), there are makers who work with manufacturers in China to produce ukes in that lower price range that are perfectly satisfactory when it comes to playability, intonation and tone. (Amanda Palmer plays such an instrument in front of huge audiences. But then, she has a pickup attached with duct tape and runs it through a bevy of effects pedals.) It is always troublesome to me as a teacher when a student (usually a child) shows up with a $20 uke of some unknown brand with no quality control that his or her parent got a "good deal" on at Amazon or some-such. Sadly, it is common that a uke that cheap has all sorts of problems. E.g., a nut set too high to try to compensate for a badly-aligned neck, making it very difficult for the student to finger chords. Or it falls out of tune quickly. Or the set-up, fret placement, etc. makes everything sound out of tune. And as a result the student becomes easily discouraged, and may give up the instrument entirely. And yes, there are families that are really challenged financially (and in some cases I've loaned better instruments to students), but in the cases I've seen, these are primarily parents who might regularly spend $100 each week on restaurant meals.

Of course I learned the hard way with harmonicas. When I started learning six years ago, I bought a C Marine Band to start. And then an A Special 20. I'm fortunate to be able to afford a lot of nice harmonicas, so the collection has some very nice harps in it. But early on I thought it would be a good idea not to risk taking a $50 harmonica on hikes and bike rides. So for travel, I bought an $11 harp (still made by a major manufacturer, though in China). What a mistake! I never actually enjoyed playing it, and knowing that it sure wouldn't help anyone else enjoy playing harmonica, I eventually tossed it. And ever since have figured that if I'm out on a hike and drop one of my $50 harps off a cliff or into a river, that's the price I pay for enjoying playing the instrument outdoors.

The bottom line is that, save for Easttop, which is making some playable harmonicas for a little bit less, someone starting out should figure on spending at least $40 or $50 on a good harp from Hohner, Seydel, Suzuki, Lee Oskar, etc., even if it means scrimping and saving somewhere in the budget. And then if one loses interest in learning harmonica, one at least has an instrument that might might someone else happy, and maybe even bring back some of the purchase price. (I recognize that sterilization isn't an issue with ukes the way it is with harps, but just as no one will ever pay you anything for a used $20 ukulele, you're not going to get much of anything listing on eBay a harmonica that you paid less that $20 for.)