March 29, 2022
Bertram Becher interview
Bertram Becher joins me on episode 58.
Bertram is the Product Manager at Seydel harmonicas. He first landed this dream job when he made a name for himself by creating a software tutorial called The Interactive Blues Harp Workshop.
Bertram tells us about the history of Seydel and how their use of stainless steel reeds led to the creation of the ‘new’ Seydel around 2007. As Product Manager for harmonicas he has a very varied role, including creating web pages, selecting pitches for tunings and helping customers directly with their harmonica needs. And being the harp player in the Boogielicious band, Bertram understands the needs of the gigging harmonica player.
Bertram then talks us through the range of harmonicas offered by Seydel, including the diatonic, chromatics and tremolos, as well as other offerings from the oldest harmonica manufacturer around today.
Links:
Seydel website:
https://www.seydel1847.de
Bertram’s band:
http://www.boogielicious.de
Seydel Artists Page:
https://www.seydel1847.de/Artists/en
Mundharmonica Live festival:
https://mundharmonika-live.de
Seydel Open:
https://www.seydel1847.de/Artists/en/SEYDEL-open
Little W effects pedal:
https://www.pedaltree.de/shop/pedals/little-w.-harmonica-boost/
Videos:
Doug Tate playing at NHL 2003: (I think on an original Renaissance harmonica)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmH8ZKozwlc
Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com
Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB
Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ
Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS
and Blows Me Away Productions: http://www.blowsmeaway.com/
01:02 - Bertram is the Product Manager for Seydel Harmonicas
01:19 - How he got the job, including writing a software tutorial on how to play harmonica called ‘The Interactive Blues Harp Workshop’
01:39 - Bertram was a Biology and Zoology student at the time
01:56 - Visited second festival in Klingenthal where he got to know everything at the Seydel factory
03:14 - Bertram’s studies in biology were useful to the design of harmonicas
03:41 - Seydel is the oldest harmonica manufacturer in the world today and the history of Seydel
04:43 - Seydel were established internationally, including in Australia with the Boomerang model
05:14 - During GDR years a lot of Seydel product was sold in Eastern Europe, so it wasn’t so well known in the West
05:42 - The resurgence in Western markets was driven by Seydel’s aim to produce good quality harmonicas
06:25 - The decision to produce stainless steel reeds
07:35 - Previous steel reeds had been made but they were not stainless, and so rusted
08:41 - Almost all the Seydel range of harmonicas now have stainless steel reeds
09:09 - One of supposed benefits of stainless steel reeds is that they stay in tune longer than brass reeds
10:48 - When stainless reeds go out of tune they do so very quickly, unless brass reeds
11:49 - Why other harmonica manufacturers don’t also use stainless steel reeds
13:13 - We’re in a golden age of harmonica instrumental quality and relationship with other manufacturers
14:44 - What does being a Product Manager for harmonicas involve
16:05 - The Big Six harmonica was an idea Bertram came up with
17:12 - Bertram picked up harmonica age 23, after playing keyboards a youth
17:49 - Bertram’s influences as a young harmonica player
19:35 - Bertram plays in a boogie woogie band called Boogielicious
21:14 - Approach to playing boogie woogie harmonica
23:22 - Harmonicas have been selling well through the pandemic
25:16 - Seydel 1847 diatonic range: wood comb released first for traditional feel, then plastic comb version
27:13 - 1847 Noble diatonic
27:48 - 1847 Lightning
28:41 - Session steel diatonic range
29:41 - Don’t clean your harmonicas too often
30:18 - Seydel built some Renaissance chromatics, originally designed by Douglas Tate
31:53 - Seydel chromatic range, including the Deluxe and Saxony
33:36 - Symphony is latest chromatic from Seydel, which also has a magnetic slide
37:22 - Tremolo harmonicas
39:03 - How octave harmonicas are tuned
39:28 - Seydel sell a harmonica amplifier
41:26 - Gecko harmonica rack
43:04 - Tuning configurator and different tunings offered
45:00 - Will Wilde tuning
46:03 - Seydel endorser scheme
47:54 - How are the endorsers selected?
49:16 - Mundharmonica live is a harmonica festival hosted by Seydel in Klingenthal each September
50:09 - Seydel Open is a competition held at Mundharmonica live
51:33 - 10 minute question
52:35 - What Seydel harmonicas does Bertram use?
53:17 - Overblows
54:09 - Embouchre
54:39 - Chromatic of choice
55:05 - Amplification
56:34 - Any more innovations coming out from Seydel soon?
WEBVTT
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Bertram Bescher joins me on episode 58.
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Bertram is the product manager at Zeidel Harmonicus.
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He first landed this dream job when he made a name for himself by creating a software tutorial called the Interactive Blues Heart Workshop.
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Bertram tells us about the history of Zeidel and how their use of stainless steel reeds led to the creation of the new Zeidel around 2007.
00:00:22.434 --> 00:00:32.045
As product manager for Harmonicas, he has a very varied role, including creating webpages, selecting pitches for tunings, and helping customers directly with their harmonica needs.
00:00:32.466 --> 00:00:38.152
And being the heart player in the Boogalicious band, Bertram understands the needs of the gigging harmonica player.
00:00:38.454 --> 00:00:49.506
Bertram then talks us through the range of harmonicas offered by Zeidel, including the diatonic chromatics and tremolos, as well as other offerings from the oldest harmonica manufacturer around today.
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Music
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Hello Bertram Bescher and welcome to the podcast.
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Hello Neil, I'm happy to be here.
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Thank you very much.
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So Bertram, it's a little bit different today.
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So you are the product manager for Seidel Harmonicas.
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Yes, that's me since I'm with the Seidel factory since more than 15 years already.
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For all those harmonica players, you've got the dream job.
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You're the product manager for Harmonicas.
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So how did you first get this job?
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When I was young, in my students' times, I wrote a book for Learning Harmonica, which actually was a software called the Interactive Bluesub Workshop.
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And this was a CD-ROM that could be put in the computer and you could learn on your computer.
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So this was something really new.
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And this was actually my first published work.
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This was during my biology studies when I was at university.
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I went forward with my biology studies, but because of this book work or the software I work.
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My name was on the schedule in the German harmonica scene, and I was in bands and played a lot of jams during those days.
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Yeah, when I finished my studies with a PhD in zoology, or even earlier, I found that there is a festival in Klingenthal.
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Klingenthal is the city where the Seidl factory is situated.
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I decided to go to this festival in 2002.
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This was actually the second festival they ever made in Klingenthal.
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From then on, I was there every year.
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So I really early learned a lot about the factory itself and the workers there.
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We talked a lot about harmonicas and reeds and reed work and what must be done to improve instruments and so on.
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Due to this relationship to the people in the Seidel factory, they had my name already.
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The factory was overtaken after times were really bad.
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There were two jobs German investors who bought, actually bought the factory.
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And they were looking for a product specialist who has a connection to the harmonica scene.
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They came to me and asked me if I could do the job.
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And this was fine for me because the university job, the current one that I had that days was not so fine.
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So it was easy for me to say, yes, I'm doing that.
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So did they see your qualification in zoology as connected so you could deal with the animal as a harmonica
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player?
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or to analyze harmonica beat responses and so on.
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Yeah, fantastic.
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So Seidel Factory is the oldest harmonica manufacturer in the world, right?
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But it went and it came back again, didn't it?
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So what was the story there?
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Okay, this was after World War II.
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The region where the Seidel Factory is situated became the Soviet Union area.
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So they were overtaken by the Russians, so-called GDR.
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What they did is they put together all the reed makers, so accordions...
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accordion fabric, harmonica section, and so on.
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They put everything together into one.
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And so the name Seidel was gone, but they were still producing at the same place all the time since 1847.
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So there was no interruption.
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And after the fall of the German war in 1989, they were reprivatized.
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And from that day on, it was named Seidel Zürner again.
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I mean, for me, as a, you know, as a harmonica player, I remember Seidel sort of coming back into popularity.
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Or was it always going in Germany and just became more widespread around the world again or in Europe?
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Yeah, they were international already because of the old history.
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You know, they were already strong in Australia, for example.
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Still, the boomerang brand was, the instruments from the boomerang branding was done by Seidel in Klingenthal, Germany.
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It's a funny thing that Orbitz music is still existing in is now dealing with big bands like ACDC and so on.
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They have no music stores anymore.
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It's funny.
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And Seidel was the maker of all the boomerang models in Australia.
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Yeah.
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And during the GDR times, many, many instruments went out of the factory and leave for the East.
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So the Soviet Union and they were not very famous anymore in the Western part of the world.
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The other brands had the chance to do advertising for 40 years in the America and everywhere else, but Seidel did not.
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So for many people, it seemed that there is a new brand being invented.
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But it's a continuous thing, you know.
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So what made this kind of resurgence back into the Western markets?
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It is, as a harmonica maker, you know, in the 1920s or even earlier, the harmonica was such a success for, and there were so many harmonica manufacturers existing in Germany.
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Even in Klingenthal, I have no number, it must have been more than 20 makers or names that you might never heard.
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After World War II, there was only one effect to be a small maker with a really good quality.
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And what helped us was the dream of one of the main engineers at Seidel, namely Karl Puchold.
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His son is now working for Seidel and he is retired already.
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But it was since the GDR times, it was his dream to produce use harmonicas with stainless steel reeds because he was in charge during the GDR times he was in charge for the accordion section as well so he was experienced with both worlds like the brass reeds and the steel reeds and he was dreaming of a harmonica with steel reeds because he is convinced that the steel is the better spring you know and better spring makes a better harmonica and yeah this was this idea with a new Seidel I name it now new Seidel since 2007 or 2007 2006, 2008.
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This period was the time when the stainless steel reeds were invented not, but, you know, changed into harmonica reeds.
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I got my first prototype from Carl when I was at Seidl's for half a year or so.
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And I still have it and it plays great.
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So after this invention, I was convinced that we could have a success in the harmonica world, you know, with this stainless steel reeds.
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Were they the first ever stainless steel produced reeds?
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No, No, no.
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There is so many things invented.
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You can imagine that the success of the harmonica during 1910 to 1920 or earlier, there were so many inventions done.
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And I think they had even lengthwise milled, not stainless steel, but steel reeds.
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The problem was the stainless thing, you know, or the older attempts to make steel reeds were with rusting steel.
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Now we have stainless steel.
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This makes a difference, I think.
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But there were attempts.
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went into production and some were overtaken by other manufacturers and the inventions were put into the drawer.
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never came back, you know.
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Sure, yeah.
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And I remember that very clearly, say, when Seidel came out with the stainless steel reeds.
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That was the big differentiator and, you know, that the reeds would last for a lot longer and, you know, the sound characteristics would be different.
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So, clearly, that's worked for you.
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Most of your harmonicas do have stainless steel reeds, although you do have brass ones as well, don't you?
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So, clearly, you're still happy with the decision that, you know, you're going with the stainless steel reeds as the majority.
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Yes, and during the last 15 years, we changed the full portfolio of the Seidel brand.
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So all the tremolos, all the octa-pharmonicas as well, the chromatic all have now stainless steel reeds.
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There's only one model from the chromatic range left in the key of C and all the others have stainless steel reeds.
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All the other keys, G and low F and so on, everything is stainless steel now.
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In the diatonic range, there are three models left.
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Might be just worth briefly reminding us all again what you believe the advantages of stainless steel reeds over brass reeds are.
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Yeah, I'm a player too.
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And I remember well, when I was a young player with a lot of jams and a lot of loud guitar players in the same band, I broke D harmonicas every 10 days or so.
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So I always had to carry double keys with me in order to sound good.
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Thing is, you know, if the note is there on the brass reed harmonica, the pitch can drop very really slowly.
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So what I hated was to have harmonicas always in my pocket that are out of tune.
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Because, yeah, the brass material is a weaker material where the little cracks that occur when the pitch starts to go down, this little cut goes inside the material really slowly.
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I think this is the reason why you can hear, even on some of the old recordings, that there are so many out-of-tune harmonicas.
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This was in the past, and when...
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When we had these stainless steel wheeled harmonicas, this never happened again.
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For me, it is really like that.
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In the 15 years of being a Seidel representative and a Seidel product manager, I found my band 15 years ago and we have gigs on a regular basis.
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Usually I have about 40, 50 gigs with them during one year.
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And all this time I broke, I think, three or four harmonica reeds.
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This is a complete different thing, you know.
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Even if they break, they go not out of tune before they break.
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They are in tune or they are broken already, you know.
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And this is a little bit more, you know, for me, it's better to have it that way than having harmonicas that are out of tune.
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I absolutely agree with that because the steel reeds do go sometimes absolutely black.
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you say they just kind of go completely don't they so yeah so in a way maybe that's an advantage because they don't sort of you know sort of slowly go out of tune like
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you say yeah it's like that you know if you have the feeling that that a steelweed is a little bit out of tune and if you draw let's say on the five draw and draw hard on it you can hear the pitch falling you know and then and then it's gone and this is how it happens with stainless steel reeds and this same process that can be done in 30 seconds is sometimes on brass reeded harmonicas takes you two weeks or so or even you try to retune it again up and so on and perhaps it is good for one song then but I would never wanted this back you know
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it's probably worth at this point then talking about you know your competition so clearly there are other harmonica manufacturers who don't use stainless steel reeds and not for you to get the strategy, but why do you think that is?
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No, it's always a kind of machinery thing as well.
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You know, we had the chance to reinvent the wheel a little bit, you know, because we were starting from scratch more or less.
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You know, we had the brass reeds, okay, but you can imagine after the Soviet Union times, the machinery and all the techniques that were used to make harmonicas were still 50 years old or whatever, you know, and in order to make a new, you know, start.
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We anyway had to go through all the techniques and make them new, buy new machines and make better tools for cutting, replays or whatever.
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Every step was done new after 2007.
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And this is not the case with other makers.
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So they stick on their old production method and we had the chance to change it.
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It's not a milling, it's more a sanding thing.
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And you need completely different machines in order to make profiles in into stainless steel sheet metal than into brass sheet metal, you know.
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Yeah, so you made a big decision at that point to go down the stainless steel reading.
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It's definitely paid off.
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I think, you know, it's well established that, you know, you make some very good quality harmonicas.
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So I've mentioned a few times on the podcast that I think we're definitely in a golden era of harmonica manufacturing.
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I remember when I was young and I started playing, the quality was much lower and now there's a tremendous array of harmonicas available from yourselves and other manufacturers so you know I think you probably helped push that bar but when you came out with the stainless steel reasoning I think the other manufacturers had to step up then and so so so what's it like with it with the competitors do you do you all talk to each other you know do you do you compare notes you know how is that
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we're friendly together you know it's no problem and you know it kind of contract that you not overtake endorsers for example or whatever you know there's no struggle you know each other and we respect each other for sure we are competitors as you you said I think for players it's great because the quality of all the brands improved in my opinion nearly no sharp etched harmonica models anymore you know or swelling combs are a matter of the past for all brands you know I think this came up with yeah with our idea of making really high quality harmonicas available for harmonica players
00:14:21.928 --> 00:14:48.638
yeah no absolutely you're doing a great job we're all very pleased with it and one thing I wish I'm pleased to see is that there are you know more premium more expensive harmonicas available I think the view used to be I'll make them cheap and you know so that people buy more but I think you know players who are more serious are happy to pay that bit more you know if they're getting much better quality instrument which we are doing these days so it's great yeah so back to your role as product manager then of harmonicas what does that involve
00:14:48.817 --> 00:14:59.708
you know we are such a small team that each of us has to do a lot of things you know there must be a name for my job and this the name is product manager, you know.
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I'm doing the webpage.
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I'm writing the newsletters together with our designer who is taking all the great photographs.
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But in this team, yeah, sometimes there is product development and we check, for example, thicker comms for low harmonicas.
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So then I'm involved again to check everything or to also to define the exact pitches, you know, and if you play octaves and so on, we have to define the exact pitches for all, keys and this is where i come in as a musician Then I have the hotline.
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When somebody calls me, he gets a good answer mostly to his questions.
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It's a job with many, many different things that I have to do.
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Yeah, and are you involved with dreaming up new harmonica designs?
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Because you have quite a varied selection and quite a lot of different approaches to it.
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So is that something you're involved
00:16:04.985 --> 00:16:05.105
with?
00:16:05.125 --> 00:16:10.971
The first thing I think where we took one of my ideas, I think, was the final result is the teamwork.
00:16:11.431 --> 00:16:13.634
But the initial idea for the big six, for example.
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This was during my studies times.
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I cut 10 holes because I found out that only six holes are well out always.
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And I never played during that days.
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I never played in holes seven to 10 so much.
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So I made myself a cut.
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I don't know that the brand I took, but I think there were the Piccolo cover plates I took from the little Hohner one.
00:16:35.917 --> 00:17:08.231
And I took another wooden combed model and glued the edge again on that one to have a six hole harmonica you know and yeah when I came to Seidel this initial idea came back you know and we made a product out of it you know but mostly it's teamwork so we discussed a lot for example during our drives to Bristol with our team it was a long journey in a car and during these journeys you made kind of brainstorming what to do in the next year you know and this worked out very nicely
00:17:08.592 --> 00:17:15.960
yeah no fantastic again it's a dream job for us harmonic players So back to your sort of playing side, but then we'll touch on that a little while.
00:17:15.980 --> 00:17:20.785
So as you say, when you were at university, you were actively playing the harmonica then, yeah?
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You were in bands, as you say.
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So you've been playing from a young age?
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Not so early.
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I played piano for a long time.
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So since I was 15, I was a keyboard player in different kinds of bands, like rock bands or Beatles revival stuff and so on.
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I think I took the harmonica first when I was at university already.
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So in the at the age of 23 or so.
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And then from that moment on, the harmonica became more and more my first instrument.
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What sort of harmonica players were you listening to when you were starting out?
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I think at the very beginning, I tried to figure out many things on myself until I found a guy who played harmonica too.
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And he was a big, big blues guy.
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And he introduced me to Sonny Boy Williams' first, second, Little Walter.
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What I liked a lot is Mark Ford.
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Later on, my hero, kind of hero, is Paul Delay.
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He is one of the most surprising solo players that you can find.
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And I like the playing of Rory Platt, you know, from Canada.
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He's the master of rhythm, you know, and accent and so on.
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He's really punchy.
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Anyway,
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I always try to play by myself and not to sound like anybody else, you know.
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This was never my focus.
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Yeah, I try to surprise myself during my playing and sometimes I'm succeeding.
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And so you're in a band now, it's called Boogalicious.
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Yeah.
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They've had a few albums out.
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I think you've been on a few other albums, haven't you, over the last few releases they've made?
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Yes, I think our trio, last trio album was done in 2018.
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We joined in a piano shop here, in a local piano shop here in my hometown.
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A good friend is running this one.
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It's a It's a Steinway house, you know, they have only Steinways.
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And yeah, he gave us the key and we could record in his rooms.
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And this was really great.
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Yes, there's another album together with Abbie Wallenstein, who's, he's one of the, you know, most famous blues players, guitar and singing in Germany.
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I think it has the blackest white voice ever.
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Yeah, he won the German Blues Award, I think in a nine times in raw so it's crazy
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yeah you did a live album with
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him yes i'm very proud of of this album because it was only two gigs with him and we recorded the full gigs we succeeded in making one album out of it which really sounds like it sounded when we played i always care for making you know recording sound lively not so compressed you know
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It's a boogie-woogie band, isn't it?
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How are you approaching playing boogie-woogie harmonic?
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I'm thinking a little bit bigger, like in Little Big Band, you know?
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Because our drummer is doing a lot of brushwork and our piano player is doing...
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It sounds more full than the usual boogie-woogie stuff.
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And I try to fill it with brass sections, you know?
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At the beginning, it was really hard for me because I came from blues playing and came from pop and rock playing, and it was much slower.
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And they really pushed me hard.
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I had to follow this fast stuff, you know.
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This is really fast.
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And it's not easy to not repeat oneself all the time if you have to play that fast.
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Another difference as well is the trio is made up of piano vocals and a drummer.
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So there's no guitar, which is unusual for the vast majority of people playing in bands.
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And playing with a piano is probably a little bit different, isn't it?
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How do you approach that?
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You play piano yourself.
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I
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enjoyed it a lot not to have a guitar because most of the guitar players that I knew, they were too loud, simply too loud.
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And this was my kind of music.
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Yeah, we could play with a volume that...
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doesn't hurt you know so I just had to find a way to have an amplification system that gives me the punchy Chicago sound with a low volume so because I mostly play with amplified harmonica in order to get punchy sound like a saxophone or like a whatever trumpet or so it's mostly done with an amplifier and a bullet microphone so
00:22:53.611 --> 00:23:10.888
yeah yeah great and you know like you say you've been you're doing well with these guys I think you've been with them what since about two 2008 or so and you know you you've like you say doing 40 50 gigs a year you've toured around europe so um you know been in france netherlands switzerland belgium england portugal so yeah you're doing pretty well with these guys
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yeah yeah this is it's a great band yeah during the crisis now it's it's hard um especially for them because they have no other job they oppose yeah i'm happy to have my job as a product manager and it seems that um that during crisis harmonica's sellings are okay we really okay so I'm really happy not to suffer too much you know
00:23:34.094 --> 00:23:47.268
yeah I think that's one of the things isn't it where people at home a lot over the pandemic they would spend things on hobbies and pastimes more so things like musical instruments I think did quite well didn't they so Seidel did okay through the pandemic
00:23:47.588 --> 00:24:00.782
yeah until now we can't complain you know it's fine and we're keeping on doing new stuff like the alternative chromatic with a non-slider system with a double row mouthpiece and so on.
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And this was a product of 2020, you know.
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You've got some dates of coming up with the Boogalicious band in April and May.
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I'll put a link onto the podcast page.
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People want to come and check you out.
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So is it extra pressure being the product manager for a harmonica manufacturer being the harmonica player or is that help?
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You know, the fine thing is for me as a, yeah, a steady job that my factory, so my boss and I, we agreed on the fact that I never, have to get me holidays for making gigs, you know, because I'm spreading the word live, you know.
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And this is fine for me because I feel no pressure with my family in order not to have enough holidays or whatever.
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You know what I mean.
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And then this is a nice fact.
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Yeah, I think it's a big advantage for for being a touring musician because I also do the artist relations in our factory.
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And so if I talk with people and they talk about their experiences on the road or so, I know what they are talking about, you know.
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It's a busman's holidays would be the English phrase to use there.
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Are you familiar with that one?
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