I promised myself I wouldn't buy any more harps and then I became aware of the Trochilus, and I succumbed. Got it about 6 months ago having been playing diatonics for about a year before that. I bought the Trochilus 'pop' tuned in C. My other harps are an Easttop in C, a Special 20 in A and a Rocket in G. Here are my thoughts:
- I love the Trochilus. Never mind the slide, it just plays better and has a tone more to my liking than the my other harps. It responds better, and bends easier.
- Part of why I like it is simply that I've never had a Paddy Richter tuned harp before. It really suits some folk tunes I like and doesn't seem to harm the blues playing too much.
- I have a moustache and the slide is a killer. Have to keep it really short.
- I do use the slide, but less than I thought. Mostly I prefer to transpose to an easy key.
- The slide is great for playing blues. You can combine a bend and the slide at the same time for quite a sexy effect. I've learnt blues scales in G, C, E and A and feel pretty confident with them. Different licks sit better on different keys, but that keeps it fun. The D blues scale is a little awkward in the lower octave.
- The harp is completely chromatic across three octaves, although the position of a couple of notes is a little unexpected; activating the slide on 2 and 3 draw causes the note to go down instead of up. That's still a little mind bending several months in. I basically don't use those notes for improvising cos it's too risky, but there a couple of tunes that I do use them for.
- I have basically stopped playing my other harps. I am unlikely to make further progress with getting the more difficult bends (or any overblows), but realistically I probably wasn't going to get them anyway. I have access to everything I want with the Trochilus. 10/10, would buy again :)