The Seydel Crisis

Occasionally I find myself in a musical rut where I’m playing the same tired old riffs I’ve been playing since as far back as I can remember.  (Granted, I have a rather poor memory when it comes to these things, but that is beside the point.)  It would seem that I am in one of those ruts now.  Blah.  It’s a terrible feeling, really.  I want to play, but then when I go out to play I don’t like what I’m playing.  It has been quite a while since I really liked one of my harmonica walks.  At least a month or two.

I used to cure my player’s block by going out and buying a new harmonica.  There is something brilliantly soothing and invigorating, both, about shopping for and buying a new harp.  But, alas, I have run into something of a first world problem lately: that is, I have discovered Seydel harmonicas and refuse to buy anything else… BUT no one in Toronto sells these beautiful instruments!  The only way I can get one is to order it online and wait for it to be shipped to me.  Sure, I could order one and have it sometime in the next week or two, but the transaction lacks the gratification of the physical purchase.  I know.  Lame excuse.  But I tend to suffer buyer’s remorse while internet shopping and am unable to complete purchases because I talk myself out of them while going trough the checkout process.  It seems that the time necessary to enter my credit card and shipping info is just a bit longer than the time it takes me to convince myself I don’t really need to spend the money on a new [whatever it is I’m buying].  I’m much more fulfilled by a music store than an online store, anyway.  Even though I’ve never bought a harmonica from a person who plays the harmonica.  (Where are all the fricken harmonica players out there, anyway?)

But I digress.  Back to my original problem… no one in Toronto sells Seydels!  Argh!  Every time I go into a music store I ask if they carry Seydels, even though I know they don’t.  I figure that if I say the name enough times they will begin to magically appear on shelves.  Like a Beetlejuice thing.  I frequently go to the website and enter my purchase into my cart but cannot bring myself to actually follow through with it.  There may be other issues at issue here.  It also may have something to do with the price tag of what I want to buy.  The down side of falling in love with a slightly expensive harmonica is that none of the other cheaper harps really satisfy you any more.

I was warned when I first started getting serious about this instrument and they were right: it really is like a drug.

Photo credit goes to mdcpov.org.  Thanks!