Blow a Tune on That Gold Bar

The high-end harmonicas that Phil Sardo has invented come with a hefty price tag – more than $2,000. The 81-year-old Woodland Hills resident won’t says whatever money he makes from sales was not the prime reason why he created the Psardo Chromatic 64 harmonica, one of two models in his new product line. “This is a passion that I have,” Sardo said. “I wanted to make a perfect, fine instrument. I don’t think anything in this world is perfect, but with this harmonica, we have come as close as you are going to get.” The Chromatic 64 – the “Stradivarius of Harmonicas” according to Sardo’s website – is the result of a lifetime of playing the instrument and learning how to improve it. “A Stradivarius has the best tone, and so do we,” Sardo said. “That’s why I do it.” He developed his device as a hobby but took it into production at the behest of friends who were impressed with the results. While there are other fine harmonica makers out there, Sardo’s Sherman Oaks company Philharmonicas makes one that he claims has features not found on other instruments made by well-known names such Suzuki Musical Instrument Corp., in Japan, and Hohner & Co., a German firm that has made harmonicas since the mid-19th Century. Sardo debuted his instrument in August at the annual convention of the Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica. Last month, he exhibited at the National Association of Music Merchants, or NAMM, trade show in Anaheim. Both shows, Sardo said, resulted in a fantastic reaction from players and dealers. Hohner representatives came by Sardo’s booth three times; Suzuki stopped by twice, while numerous professional players showed an interest as well. “They said Stevie Wonder was there but he didn’t come by; he might not have known about it,” Sardo said. The two models of the Chromatic 64, the Gold Bar and the Elite, are made by a company in Canoga Park exclusively for Philharmonicas. Sardo declined to name the company that he contracts with for manufacturing. Manfred Wewers, a harmonica player and historian for the Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica, said the harmonica market has changed as players get very specific about what they want to buy. The demand for improvement and the ability to play these instruments technically better and musically better have created a demand that the harmonicas themselves be finer instruments, said Wewers, who has known Sardo for about 10 years from the society’s annual convention. “That is what Phil is doing with his chromatic, making it a finer instrument than the stock instrument you would get out of the box,” he added. There are two types of people who get into manufacturing harmonicas, Wewers said. The first type are economically driven – trying to make money – which is difficult if you can’t get market share, he explained. The second are people like Sardo who do it out of a passion for the instrument. “He is not going to become a millionaire on this,” Wewers said. “He is serving a specific market that needs something as technically complex and responsive as what he’s trying to build.” Sound Quality Harmonicas come in two formats – diatonic and chromatic. The diatonic harmonica is akin to a piano with only the white keys. A chromatic harmonica adds in half notes and semi-tones. The Chromatic 64 Elite, made from a mix of aluminum and brass, costs $2,195 while the heavier Gold Bar, which is made from all brass and then gold plated, is priced at $2,695. Both come in upholstered boxes. Philharmonicas has sold about 22 of the instruments so far. Serious players of the harmonica do not think that price is too much, Sardo said, adding, “this is a real instrument and you can tell the quality when you look at it and when you hear it.” The harmonicas are custom made from machined parts. The materials come from the United States except for the reeds, which are imported from Germany. The first 100 harmonicas are numbered, a feature that has attracted some collectors to purchase them. Sardo personally inspects and plays each of the instruments before they are shipped to the buyer. “I am not sending out anything that is junk,” Sardo said. He worked over five years to give the Chromatic 64 features not found in other harmonicas. For one, Sardo’s design makes the instrument much more air tight. With other harmonicas, the air blown into the holes causes the notes to come out from the entire instrument; the part known as the comb in the Chromatic 64 forces the air through round-cornered tunnels for the individual holes. “That’s why my harmonica is so good – the air is all controlled,” Sardo said. Another innovation is with the reed plate. Rather than have all the reeds attached to a single plate as in other harmonicas, Sardo has a separate plate for each individual reed. This makes replacement much easier as all it takes is unscrewing the single plate. “It is like changing strings on a guitar,” he said. Other improvements include a mouthpiece that snaps on and a button slide, used to redirect air to a specific reed plate, that fits tight into a groove to prevent air leakage. Rich Goldstein, an attorney in New York who has worked with Sardo to get three U.S. patents for his new harmonicas, said that research into harmonica improvements revealed there has been a lot of change in the technology yet others have not tried to do what Sardo has done. “Surprisingly. it is very innovative and no one has come even close to it,” Goldstein said. Goldstein, who authored the American Bar Association’s “Consumer Guide to Obtaining a Patent,” said that it’s unusual for an individual inventor to come up with harmonica improvements as typically it is the big companies that file for patents. “Usually, the innovations they patent are more incremental steps than a whole new idea like this is,” Goldstein. Musical family Sardo grew up outside Boston in a family with 11 sisters and five brothers. His father had been a professional violinist before starting a family and he grew up in a house where importance was placed on music and playing an instrument. He began playing the harmonica at 10 years old, his first one being a Marine Band by Hohner. “We always played music in my house,” he recalled. “We always had guitars, all kinds of instruments, mostly string instruments.” Sardo came to California in the mid-1950s and opened an interior design business that he has kept going for more than 60 years. Today, his son operates P. Sardo Interiors, which has showrooms in Sherman Oaks and Woodland Hills and a factory in Costa Mesa. “In the Valley if you mention P. Sardo, most people will know what you are talking about,” Sardo said. Semi-retired, Sardo has spent the past year concentrating on the Chromatic 64. He estimates he spent between $200,000 and $300,000 developing the instrument, with much of that investment going toward the patents. There were 30 prototypes made before he settled on the final product. The main marketing strategies are the Philharmonicas website and appearances at trade shows. He has received calls from Asia, Japan and Canada. One distributor contacted him from South America inquiring about an exclusive arrangement, Sardo said. Wewers, from the harmonica preservation society, said for the small entrepreneur it can be a hard road to sales considering the major manufacturers they compete against. But Sardo is focused on a specific and serious part of the harmonica community, and as those players sample his harmonica, word of mouth spreads, he added. “That sometimes does more than the webpages because people are not looking (online),” Wewers said. The next step in getting word out on Philharmonicas is hooking up with professional players and getting sponsorships with them to play Sardo’s instrument. This year, Sardo said he expects to create some buzz for the Chromatic 64. “We had such a fantastic response at NAMM and we picked up 23 or 25 dealers and they want us to set them up so they can sell them,” he said.