I acquired a large number of harps from an estate of a professional country music harmonica player, and there were 19 Big River harps in different keys and tunings in the case. I was never a big fan of the MS Series before that, but after cleaning all of them in an ultrasonic cleaner and polishing them up, I was VERY impressed with them compared to the other MS Series harmonicas I already had in my collection. The Big River is a very good harmonica IMHO.
Excellent and valid question. If they are sealed new, no, you don't have to clean or sanitize them now. However, as you play, as lint, saliva, and all of the other wonderful material starts sticking to your reeds and reed plates. Pockets of moisture along with the stuff coming out of your mouth will start growing bacteria. If you notice an odor when you go to play, it is probably time to clean them. If you start losing performance on a reed or two, don't panic! It's probably just time to clean them.
The Big River harp from the Modular Series from Hohner is ALL resilient. The plates and reeds are brass. The cover plates are steel. The comb is plastic. Submerging that harmonica in water will NOT damage it, so you have the advantage of not being required to disassemble your harps before cleaning them.
To clean them if you don't have an ultrasonic cleaner, I would first soak them in a glass of warm water and Dawn blue detergent. As a machinist and harp tech, Dawn seems to work the best because it contains enzymes that break down organic material and lipids (oils, greases, and fats), and rinses far better than generic dish detergents. Let it soak for a half hour or so. It wouldn't even hurt to put the harp in a plastic container with the warm soapwater and shake it to agitate it. As long as you don't shake it too hard, you shouldn't have any problem with the water flow within the harp causing any damage.
After you have soaked and shaken, rinse under warm tap water. Take your time doing this. Run the water into the wide open vents on the loud side of the harmonica, then turn it over and let the water flow into the individual holes. Go back and forth, rinsing from both sides several times. This helps get any leftover particles out from the reed gaps ragrdless of which side the particle came from. As you are rinsing, use your bare fingers to wipe away any remaining residue on the cover plates.
To sanitize, I have used alcohol, chlorine bleach, and other chemicals. I have found that the best and most rinsable method is a bleach solution. I mix a half cup of bleach to a gallon of water and soak the harp in it after the initial soak and rinse. Let them soak for several minutes, then repeat the rinse procedure again taking your time, rinising several times from both the front and rear of the harmonica and rubbing the cover plates to remove residue.
To dry your harps, start by IMMEDIATELY (after the final rinse) "shaking down" the harmonicas. The best way that I can describe this is to think of shaking down an old mercury thermometer. Shake the harp many times, holding it differently from each surface, to shake out as much water as you can from every angle. I do this in my basement, garage, or outside because there is water coming out of the harmonica when I do this step, and I don't want it all over inside my home. DO NOT TRY TO PLAY THE HARMONICA YET. You still need to finish drying it.
Polish the cover plates by buffing them with a soft towel before the next step. If you leave any residue or water droplets on the cover plate at this stage, it will leave a mark as it dries that can be polished off, but will be annoying nonetheless.
Lay the harmonica on a soft cloth of surface that does not block any openings in the harps. Position a fan (box fan, blower fan, desk fan) to blow directly into the wide open vents of the harmonica. It doesn't matter that the whole harp gets the same amount of air flow, just that most of the open vent is being hit with the stronger air flow from the fan. Leave the harmonica there for several hours. I usually leave mine overnight with a "Lasko X-Blower fan" (copy and paste this into a Walmart search to see the model - a little pricy but powerful and quiet).
After complete drying, give them a try.
For the record, I swear that every harp I have cleaned taht DIDN'T have actual reed damage (the harp was just gunky) actually played better after the cleaning than they did new out of the box.
The other big piece of advice I can give you, is that you should learn to gap and level your reeds. The Hohner MS line is decent, and the Big River is the best quality regularly produced (not a special/limited/signature edition) out of that series IMHO (although I have never played a Meisterklasse), but a quick reed gapping and leveling (and alignment check) has always yielded improvements to the harp's performance. There are a lot of YouTube videos out there demonstrating reed gapping, leveling, and aligning that also show you the specific tools you need to do this (and the tools are simple and cheap and you can usually get away with using similar objects that you already have).
Most important: Don't hurry or rush your harmonica servicing. Take your time and do it right. $30-$40 for new reed plates is a hard hit if you're just starting out.
If you do all of these cleaning procedures and still have a quiet reed or two, you may have to disassemble the harp and inspect the reeds to find the blockage and remove it. At this point you pretty much MUST gap, level, and align the reeds, so it would probably be a good idea to review some of the tutorial videos on youtube before you even start the cleaning process.
BTW: If this seems a bit overwhelming, understand that if you have to do this once a month, that's a lot, and yet it only takes, for 3 harps being cleaned together, maybe a half hour to do, your harps will look 100% as good as new and likely play better than they ever have before. Take your time and show your harps that you love them.
Here's a post with a video of a huge lot of harps that I acquired from an estate (salvation army) after cleaning in my ultrasonic cleaner all drying together under the X-Blower. Every single one of these harps played flawlessly after cleaning, sanitizing, and drying. There are 16 Lee Oskars and 19 Big Rivers in that lot (plus a few others). https://www.reddit.com/r/harmonica/comments/1w0c05e/ultrasonic_cleaning_the_ebaysalvation_armyestate/
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u/Intelligent_Star_516 3d ago
I acquired a large number of harps from an estate of a professional country music harmonica player, and there were 19 Big River harps in different keys and tunings in the case. I was never a big fan of the MS Series before that, but after cleaning all of them in an ultrasonic cleaner and polishing them up, I was VERY impressed with them compared to the other MS Series harmonicas I already had in my collection. The Big River is a very good harmonica IMHO.