Let’s do a little primer about the tools of the traveling harmonica guy.
This is my harp case — a Fender Mississippi Sax case. I’ve used it for years because it’s sturdy, convenient, looks good (I used a tackle box for a long time, but no amount of bumper-sticker decorating could cover up that fact) and has a removable tray that I really like. There are three types of harmonicas in this case — tremolo harmonicas, chromatic harmonicas and diatonic harmonicas.
The long harmonicas on the far left are tremolo harps. These are Huang Musette tremolos in the keys of C and G, and I own them mostly because they sound good and are cheap. Here’s a good explainer about tremolo harp. I learned how to play one — and learned when it’s appropriate to use the tremolo — by listening to Mickey Raphael, one of my favorite harp players and a longtime member of Willie Nelson’s band.
The harps just to the right of the tremolos (including the large black harp in the center compartment) are chromatic harps. They’re all Hohners and they are not cheap — replacing these four chromatics would cost nearly $500. They play full scales — including all of the sharps and flats, which are skipped on most other harps — but still are popular with blues/roots guys like me because of the unique sound of the chromatic. The button on one end activates the sharp/flat reeds.
To the right of the chromatics are the diatonics — your basic pocket harmonica. I’ve got Hohners, Bushmans, Herings and Lee Oskars scattered in this mess. I used to bring all 12 keys (plus backups) to gigs, but I use some keys so rarely that I no longer bother to bring a C# or an Fb diatonic harp. There are 20 diatonics in here.
Replacing all the harps in this case would set me back nearly a grand. I like to point that out to guitarists who want to kid me about my ‘cheap instrument’. At many gigs, my harps are worth more than the two (or even three) axes a guitarist might bring.
You can see the little pieces of tape stuck near the ends of the harps. Those have key letters written on them. There’s nothing quite like reaching for a harp in the near-darkness and finding out you grabbed the wrong key — when you blow a note. Marking the harps helps prevent that.
Moving on: This is my accessories case. It’s a Rubbermaid roll-up tool bag. In the side pockets, I keep cables and a “wall wart” power supply for my pedals (I typically — but not always — use a delay or reverb pedal with a guitar amp at a gig).
The brown cloth bags in the middle once held bottles of Blanton’s bourbon. Now they contain old bullet-shaped PA microphones, preferred by many harp players for their ability to distort and roll off the high end. You also can see some “shaker eggs” here for hand percussion. More or less invisible in this mess is a Shure SM-57 mic for vocals, a screwdriver with multiple tips for emergency repairs and a little secret weapon: Two rubber doorstops. When I put an amp on the floor, I use the doorstops to point it upward just enough to make it easier for me to hear.
You don’t see my pedals here. They are kept in padded compact camera bags.
When gig time comes around, everything goes into a big duffel bag. I also often bring along a folding dolly — the kind you often see TV crews using to haul gear — so I can roll the heavy stuff from car to gig if needed. Trust me, it’s no fun to haul 60 pounds of amp in one hand, and 40 pounds of gear over another shoulder, for six blocks to a bar when you can’t find a nearby parking space.
