Easttop Professional Harmonica Blues Key of G 10 Hole 20 Tone Heavy Duty with Case & Cleaning Cloth for Professional Player,Beginner,by Eison-East Top,Black,Great Christmas Gift

The Swan 1040 chromatic harmonica is a solid, quality instrument. I've had this for over a year now and the slide is still quiet and the tone is consistently good.

I was in a bind and needed a harp fast (D). All I use for blues are Lee Oscar. This harp is really impressive at half the cost. If it hold up for a year it will be worth every penny. Pretty sure it will- very sturdy but the sound and reeds are wonderful. Bends everywhere are easy. Buy this.

The chromatic harmonica is the fourth instrument I've learned. I'm not and never have been a professional musician, but I began at age 6 with piano, added clarinet to it about age 9, and played in orchestra and band and as a soloist in both until I graduated from college. When I moved around too much to haul a piano with me, I started classical guitar. When my hands became too arthritic for keyboard and guitar, I gave up both. Last year, I thought about the harmonica. It's small enough to be portable, and maybe I could learn it well enough to be satisfied. That led to another quest, because the diatonic harmonica isn't built for the kind of wide-ranging music I wanted to play.So I bought this little Swan chromatic harmonica and settled down to learn the instrument.It's OK to learn on, but given my musical background, it's not satisfying as a permanent fixture in my life. The lowest register, the first 8 holes, have a fairly decent sound, but the last two screech. Once I've learned how to play it -- breathe, find the notes, play legato as well as staccato, and use the slide to play chromatic scales -- I'll buy the "real" chromatic harp on my wish list. By then I'll know whether I want to give the time to the chromatic harp to learn to play well enough to justify the expense.Until then, this one will do OK as a learner's instrument. To my ear, it's not "Professional Grade."

Pros: Very easy to play, very shiny out of the box. The price is affordable and a great foot in the door for those learning. I just learned bends on it fairly easy. It will do what you want it to do. The sound quality is pretty decent too. Comes with a hard plastic case, and a tray inside with a cleaning rag.Cons: The holes are big and round, letting in a lot of gunk. Plus I find it feels different to play than with rectangular holes. This might be to help a beginner find them easier. I would like to note I just disassembled the slide for maintenance, (easy task) and noticed that 1 of the 2 bumpers were missing from the screws. This concerns me but I can cut a coffee straw down to 7mm as a replacement, then order silicon tubing as a longer term fix.Overall: Would recommend to entry level players who are ready to move up from a diatonic harmonica.

Gift to grandson. He’s delighted.

It's a pretty good harmonica. You don't have to blow or suck to hard on it to get decent audio volume.

Learning to play

Over the years I’ve spent enough money on chromatic harmonicas to make a down payment on small Toyota. If you’ve ever wanted to try a chrom, this is the one to get. You can’t beat this Swan 1040 for the price, and my first impression is that it is comparable to much more expensive Hohner and Suzuki 12 holes in construction quality and tone.I just bought a second one.That said, I don’t think a chromatic is the best choice for ones firs6t harmonica. Compared to a diatonic, this or any other chrom is harder to get a clear one note sound out of. I would start off with a Lee Oskar or any model of Hohner in the key of C. These two brands have exactly the same hole spacing so you can switch between brands and keys and (Oskar) tunings and the muscle memory in your mouth handles the change.

I don't like to make negative reviews, but this harmonica had a lot of work needing to be done to get it working quite well. Even so, due to its design it loses quite a bit of air in both blows and draws. Try as I might, I can't sort the reeds for hole one.. Very woolly. It's not a premium harmonica so I can't expect it to perform like one. It's in tune, but rather breathy.

Great harmonica great tone for the blues and not over priced