Hi I've been looking to start playing harmonica as a hobby as it is portable.

Typically they recommend Hohner Special 20 C as they are of good quality for beginners but the price range on online stores are around RM200 and I don't think I'm ready to spend that much.

Are there any places that sell below RM 100 or what other decent harmonicas would you guys suggest and why? Budget would be RM50 to RM100.

P.S: I'm really really fresh and new to the world of music so it would be helpful to use layman terms!

Woh Fatt Music on Jalan Tun Tan Siew Sin (formerly known as Jalan Silang) sells SX Blues harmonicas which are essentially Hohner knock-offs - made in China, cheap and cheerful (well within your budget), quality is so-so (sound/intonation acceptable for beginners dabbling in harmonica). Also sold on Shopee too...

Bear in mind that the metal “chrome” plating, on most cheap harmonicas are usually not RoHS compliant, however I don’t think that you mind about future cancer risks and heavy metal poisoning, right? After all, cheap stuff is always better (YOLO).

Thanks for the advice, but I'd probably skip noncompliant one sia, sounds scary the way you mentioned it. Don't want to play play with my mouth 😆

you can buy used ones...but you have to sanitise them thoroughly first

If you are just wanting to experiment into 10 hole blues harmonica world, then for RM35 you can buy Hohner Happy Color harps for kids. Entirely plastic except the aluminium reeds.
No chrome plating fear since it's in fancy plastic toy ABS body. Taste better than metallic spoon

But don't underestimate the toyish look.They can do all the harmonica stuffs even bending some sweet gritty notes if you catch the sweet spot. Sounds lame imo but definitely better sounding than the cheapo 20 hole harmonicas from popular bookstore haha

Though learning with it is a bit of hit or miss and requires some maintenance before being able to perform properly. I had to disassemble mine and align properly before being able to get every notes sounding proper. As a starter it shouldn't be a problem.


Once you feel like you're gonna enjoy then invest straight into RM200+ starters and collect every key

Wow, that's nice to hear. How long have you been learning harmonica?

I've also surveyed and found that suzuki folk master is probably the midrange Ringgit Malaysia one that I can afford now, what do you think of it? There's also China's brand on a higher range RM90+ like east top T800k. It's rather hard for me to judge based on youtube videos on the reviews of harmonica as I never tried them before.

Is Suzuki same level as Hohner in Harmonicas?

I didn't really learn much honestly. Self taught and met some peeps who is willing to share knowledge. It was around 2014 that time when a dude from my college willing to sanitize his harp collection for me to try out. And I gave up this hobby on 2016 haha. Changed instrument to bass instead.

Suzuki is quite ok path to start and easy to play but from what I heard you cannot really do maintenance on it other than external washing. Just be careful when unscrewing to cleanup. Or rinse your mouth before playing haha.
Whether this is some rumor or actual news I don't know. I just follow the rumor and avoided it. But I see shopee suzuki harps are very reasonably priced so that kinda tempt me to buy again.

Again, if we're talking budget below RM200 range harmonica, just my opinion le... They all perform somewhat similar. All can do standard notes easily be it single note or triple, mid to very difficult on bending notes based on random characteristics of the harmonica build. And each harmonica kinda needs you to relearn their characteristics.

Harmonica purchase really is like a lottery gamble. You can't try before you buy due to hygienic reasons. If can find a person to share definitely helps. Just go ahead and try cheap first. If you can do everything on the cheapo harps, once you try the expensive ones it'll feel majestic.

Suzuki has their low and high ranges. The only Suzuki I tried is the SUB20 due to it's claims of "ultra bend" and it indeed is very nice to bend. But then the expensive hohner marine series oso quite nice to bend so.......

Wow, really really thankful for your insight here 🙇‍♂️🙇‍♂️🙇‍♂️🙇‍♂️, its been hard to find any resource regarding malaysian opinion ob harmonica regarding purchasing and stuff as foreigners opinion on youtube generally stems around the same model which are cheap for their currency.

I've gotten a better idea now, would go and survey an affordable ones one last time and give harmonica practice a shot 😁

Hi,

Can you guys recommend a place to lear harmonica for beginner ( PJ /KL area) ?
Thank you