Varieties of harmonicas. Types of harmonicas

You can use an inexpensive, simple instrument, but a harmonica High Quality buy later. With this approach, the matter most often does not come to the point of buying an harmonica, because the performer is completely disappointed in the harmonica after playing a low-quality instrument.

There are several types of harmonicas:

• Diatonic (10 hole);
• Chromatic;
• Tremolo;
• Octaves;
• Bass;
• Chord;
• Various hybrids of these harmonics.

Most often, chord, bass and octave harmonicas are used in harmonica orchestras; they are very difficult to find on sale, so we will not focus on them. Let's instead discuss diatonic, chromatic and tremolo harmonicas.

Harmonica tremolo

They tend to have the two sound reeds slightly out of tune relative to each other on each note. This is what creates the tremolo effect. These harmonicas have only the sounds of the “white piano keys” and do not have any “black keys”. The tremolo can be considered a primitive harmonica; anyone with the slightest ear for music can learn to play it quickly and easily. However, due to the large shortage of missing notes, it is very limited in its capabilities. If you choose a tremolo harmonica, you will only be able to perform simple children's melodies, Russian and Ukrainian native songs and, probably, the anthems of some countries.

Chromatic harmonica

It has all the sounds of the chromatic scale, i.e. with all the “white and black keys of the piano.” Chromatic harmonica is capable of reproducing complex classical works and even jazz music. But at the same time it’s nice to have good musical education, sight read music and play the diatonic harmonica perfectly. Everyone who plays a chromatic harmonica started out on a diatonic harmonica, because you can learn some great techniques (like bends or beautiful vibrato) on a diatonic harmonica without damaging the reeds of the instrument.

It is the most popular harmonica in the world and can play any music in any style. It has a rich and thick sound relative to the harmonics described above. It has all the notes, but, nevertheless, you should master sufficient skills to play this instrument. This harmonica is sometimes called a blues harmonica, but this does not mean that it is intended only for blues compositions. The name is explained by the fact that the diatonic harmonica gained enormous popularity precisely in the era of the formation of blues music, into which, by the way, it fits perfectly.

Harmonica reeds

The material from which the harmonica reeds are made directly affects the durability of the instrument. Hohner and Suzuki traditionally use copper reeds for their harmonicas. Seydel made an innovative breakthrough in this area; it became the first company to make steel reeds for its harmonicas. They are difficult to break and last longer.

Harmonicas have different tones. If you consider yourself to be a beginner harmonica player, then opt for a harmonica in the key of C major. It will be easier and easier for you to master the main techniques and skills. In addition, most of the existing tutorials are written for the harmonica in C major. Once you start learning the harmonica of this key, you will then easily play all the others, higher and lower. keys.

Checking the tool before purchasing

If you purchase a harmonica in a special musical instrument store, be sure to ask for special bellows for harmonicas. With their help, they “blow through” each hole as you inhale and exhale to make sure that all notes are sounded. It is very important to “breathe” each hole separately. This can be quite challenging if you have never played the harmonica before. When checking each hole for inhalation and exhalation, pay special attention to additional sounds in the form of “ringing” that can be found on harmonicas. This means that the reed clings to the harmonica board. In this case, ask for another harmonica. In addition, in low keys (A, G and lower), the reeds may hit the harmonica cover; in principle, this is normal, there is nothing wrong with that. But after going through several harmonics, you will find one that does not ring. On harmonicas in the key of C major there should be no ringing at all, so the best criterion for buying a harmonica in C major is a clear sound on each hole.

Harmonica does not tolerate sudden fluctuations in temperature and dampness. Before playing, it is recommended to heat the harmonica in your palms to temperature human body. For a long life, the harmonica should be carried in a case, played softly and try not to drop it. Periodically, it must be shaken out, removing particles of dirt and accumulated saliva. And then the harmonica will delight you with its sound for a long time.

Develop a sense of rhythm

If you have a natural sense of rhythm, that’s good, but this does not free you from working on the rhythmic pattern of the work. This is where a regular metronome will come to your aid. By the way, metronome analogues can be easily found on the Internet. Having achieved some success, do not stop and continue to master complex species rhythm, learn to determine the size of a musical composition by ear.

Harmonica very compact and convenient to carry with you all the time. You can train in any free minute, you will feel significant progress and in a few months you will not recognize yourself.

Develop musical memory

Once you start learning a melody from notes or tabs, try to break away from them at some point and pay attention to the intonation. Play from memory, putting your soul into this piece. At the same time, you will develop your ear for music, each time memorization will become easier.

Accurate sound and original playing style

High-quality sound and a good sense of rhythm are the main thing for a master! Show your individuality in variations on the theme of the melody, but the sound must be impeccable!

The game of virtuosos is the best textbook for beginner performers. You should always have with you not only a harmonica, but also audio recordings of your favorite melodies and musicians. Listen to them whenever possible.

Play in a group

So, you are already quite good at playing and improvising, and now you are invited to Music band. Playing in a team requires compliance special rules: It is necessary to wait for the moment when you can solo without interrupting other performers. A sign of the skill of a harmonica player who performs in an ensemble lies precisely in the ability to collaborate. If you give others the right to speak, you won't be left behind either.

Hello! Many fans of guitar and guitar music, as well as simply people who are interested in musical instruments, often would like to learn how to play such a wonderful and accessible musical instrument as the harmonica, or simply harmonica.

Well, now I’ll tell you and give you some tips.

Harmonica

Harmonica(colloquial) harmonica) is a reed pneumatic musical instrument, a type of harmonica. Inside the harmonica there are metal plates (reeds) that vibrate in the air stream created by the musician.
The harmonica is most often used in such musical directions, like blues, folk, bluegrass, blues-rock, country, jazz, pop.

There are accordions diatonic And chromatic. Chromatic instruments are more complex instruments with a large number of holes and a button on the side. We, as beginners, are interested in a simpler solution, so our choice will be a diatonic harmonica with 10 holes and always in the key “C” (C). Why? Because it is logical to start learning with the most common tool, which is the basis for any tutorials and video tutorials on the Internet.
I myself have been playing the harmonica for a little over a week. That is, I am practically the same as you - at the very beginning of my journey. However, I will take responsibility and dare to give some advice on choosing.

• We choose plastic harmonicas: the wood will swell from our inept lips and drool;
• We select accordions only from companies Hohner;
• Select accordions in the key “C”;
• Choosing models Blues Band, Big River Harp, Golden Melody, Marine BandSpecial 20;
• We rejoice like children.

How to study

Very simple. All you need is a harmonica, a metronome (link below) and a self-instruction book (links also below). Naturally, patience, perseverance and hard work. The tool, although quite simple, is not so quick to learn.

In order to save you from the tedium of visiting various sites, I want to present you with two self-instruction books: to choose from. They are written in simple and in clear language, are designed for the most beginning musician and very well bring you to the level at which you can play any melody you want.

This is a book "Harmonica. Self-teacher" publisher Smolin K.O. 2000, and the book “Tutorial for playing the harmonica” author Beletskaya M. 2008. The second option has its own audio application with melodies played on a harmonica.

You can download both books from our Yandex.Disk:

Save, print and hang the harmonica fingering chart on your wall. It will help you quickly find your bearings and start playing:

An attentive reader, more or less familiar with musical notation, will notice that this is why a diatonic harmonica is called diatonic, that it does not have half-tone sounds - flats and sharps - but only a simple diatonic series: Do, Re, Mi, Fa... We play it like the white keys of a piano. There are no blacks here.
(Well, by the way, they can also be extracted, but we will learn all this later, after acquiring certain skills).

I hope this one small post helped you in choosing a tool, and if you have already bought it, then helped you in choosing training material :)

By the way: you need to practice with a metronome!

A sense of rhythm, playing in an ensemble, playing with a guitar - all these skills are greatly developed if you study with a metronome. This applies not only harmonica, but also any other instrument. So don't neglect it simple solution, and the efficiency of your classes will be many times higher.

And further: if this material was not enough for you, then there is a good site “All about the harmonica.” Here is the link:

See you soon!

This post was part of Alaborn's project – music training playing instruments, music theory and the basics of harmony, vocal technique. Follow the news on our blog and it will only get better.

***

Dear friends, if you liked or found this article useful, please support our non-profit creative project. Any amount, be it 10 or 100 rubles, will help us develop further and write new articles that will be useful to many people. If you are unable to support the project financially, simply disable your ad blocker - unobtrusive banners help us stay afloat. Thank you!

For any questions, write and add Modenov as a friend in

In this article, we will tell you how to choose and buy a good harmonica that you can learn to play.

Unfortunately, more than 89% of all harmonicas from leading (including German) manufacturers are not suitable for professional game and even more so for training (and this figure does not take into account a single Chinese accordion, of which there are a dime a dozen in our market).

Once you try to learn to play a low-quality instrument, a person forever discourages the desire to master this instrument. And the main manufacturers of harmonicas, unfortunately, with a silent conspiracy, continue to “stamp” low-quality goods, since it is this that brings them the greatest profit. This is why the harmonica remains such a rare instrument and needs to be popularized.

It is professional harmonica players, popularizers of this instrument and enthusiasts who have the main function of informing all beginning harmonica players how to choose and buy a harmonica, which harmonicas should be learned to play, and how not to make a mistake in choosing, because music stores offer such a huge number of harmonicas.

In fact, you can count the number of good harmonicas on your fingers. And we are immediately in this article let's list everything good models harmonicas, which are played by professional harmonica players and which anyone can learn to play.

List of good harmonicas:

By the way, we remind you that if you are just going to study, then you need to purchase one of these harmonics in the key “C major” (this key is designated Latin letter"WITH").

• Easttop T008K
• Hohner Golden Melody
• Hohner Special 20
• Hohner Rocket
• Seydel 1847
• Seydel Session Steel
• Hohner Marine Band Crossover
• Hohner Marine Band Deluxe
• Suzuki Olive
• Suzuki Manji

Many people think that first you can choose and buy a cheap harmonica, a kind of “workhorse”, and then you can buy a harmonica for yourself good quality. But, as a rule, it doesn’t come to the point of buying the latter, since people are completely disappointed in this instrument after playing on a low-quality harmonica.

Register for the free online course "QUICK START"!

Firstly, we want to help you understand the types of harmonicas, since in music stores you probably could see harmonicas of different sizes and types. There are indeed different types of harmonicas: diatonic (10-hole), chromatic, tremolo, octave, bass, chord harmonicas, as well as hybrids of these harmonicas. How do you still choose and buy a harmonica? Octave, bass and chord harmonicas are most often used in harmonica orchestras, and you probably won't find them for sale in your country, so we won't go into them here. Let's talk about diatonic, chromatic and tremolo harmonicas, and how to choose a harmonica.

Tremolo harmonicas.
In such harmonicas, on each note, the two sound reeds are slightly detuned relative to each other, thereby achieving a tremolo effect. On such harmonicas there are sounds only of the “white piano keys” and not a single black key. This harmonica is quite primitive; it is very easy for anyone with even the slightest hearing to learn to play. And at the same time, it is very limited in capabilities due to the large shortage of missing notes. By choosing a tremolo harmonica, you will be able to play only simple children’s melodies; Russian and Ukrainian ones can “lay down” well folk songs, well, and perhaps also the anthems of some countries - and, unfortunately, that’s all.

Chromatic harmonicas – on the contrary, they have all the sounds of the chromatic scale (all white and black piano keys). Chromatic harmonicas can generally play complex classical works, jazz music, but here it is important to have a good musical education, be able to sight read notes and have good training on the diatonic harmonica. Almost all harmonica players who play the chromatic harmonica start with the diatonic harmonica, since some techniques and skills, such as beautiful vibrato, or bends (which theoretically cannot be done on the chromatic harmonica, but in practice are used all the time) can be well honed on this diatonic harmonica without damaging the instrument's reeds.

Diatonic harmonica and how to choose it . The diatonic harmonica is the most popular harmonica in the world. An instrument on which you can play any music, in any style, and the sound of which is very rich and thick when compared with the harmonicas described above. All notes are present, but certain skills must be acquired to play this instrument. This harmonica is also called a blues harmonica, but this does not mean that only blues can be played on it. It just became very popular precisely in the era of active development of blues music, where it fits perfectly. It is diatonic (blues, or ten-hole) harmonicas that we popularize. For us, this is the most beautiful sounding musical instrument in the world!

Secondly, you need to decide for yourself which reeds you want to choose a harmonica with.
The material of the harmonica reeds directly affects the durability of the instrument. While Hohner and Suzuki have traditionally used copper reeds in their harmonicas, Seydel has made an innovative breakthrough in this area and became the first company to make steel reeds for its harmonicas. As a result, they last longer and are difficult to break.

Thirdly, it is important to note that harmonicas come in different tones. and if you are just a beginner harmonica player, then you should choose a harmonica in the key of C major.
Simply put, it will be easiest for you to master the basic techniques and skills; besides, almost all existing tutorials, including our tutorial for the harmonica, are written for the harmonica in “C major”. Having started learning to play the harmonica in this key, it will then be easy for you to play all the others: both higher and lower keys.

The fourth and last point when choosing a harmonica should be checking the instrument. If you buy a harmonica from a musical instrument store, then ask for special bellows for harmonicas. You can “blow” each hole on them, both inhaling and exhaling, making sure that all notes are heard. Unfortunately, music stores rarely carry bellows, so most likely you will have to check the harmonica yourself, and if the store does not have bellows, you cannot be refused. It is important for you to “breathe” each hole individually, which can be very difficult if you have never played the harmonica before. When checking each hole for inhalation and exhalation, pay attention to additional sounds in the form of “ringing” that can be found on harmonicas, which may mean that the reed is clinging to the harmonica board. In this case, ask for another accordion. Also in low keys (A, G and lower), the reeds can hit the lid of the harmonica and also with a characteristic ringing. This happens very often on the Golden Melody harmonica, and in principle it is normal, but try several harmonicas of your chosen model, and you may come across one that does not ring. On harmonicas in the key of C major, there should be no ringing at all, so a clear sound at each hole is the best criterion for buying a harmonica in C major.

We wish you a successful choice and purchase of a harmonica!

Harmonica (harmonica)

The rich world of musical instruments is very diverse. You won’t find any kind of representatives in this kingdom. There are so many of them that it is simply impossible to list them. Indeed, in addition to the internationally recognized ones, each nation has its own musical instruments, which are national symbols and reflect the identity of a particular culture. Musical instruments differ in the method of sound production, timbre coloring and size. The largest and most important, of course, is the organ called His Majesty. It is so huge that it is installed only in large halls. But among musical instruments there is one that looks more like a child's toy and can easily fit in your pocket. The name of this instrument is harmonica or harmonica. It is compact, simple, but at the same time very elegant. Despite small size, this fun instrument is absolutely complete and has an interesting and attractive sound.

From the very beginning amazing story it interested performers and still continues to delight people in different parts of our planet.

The unique sound of the harmonica makes it a member of many ensembles playing in various styles and genres. She is not the main one musical instrument, but her melodic inserts make musical compositions more interesting and vibrant.

History of the harmonica and many interesting facts Read about this musical instrument on our page.

Sound

The harmonica, which belongs to the wind reed musical instruments, has a thick and rich sound that arises under the pressure of an air stream, causing the sound reeds to vibrate. The harmonica does not have a keyboard; the lips and tongue are used to select the hole corresponding to the desired note. Performance requires a certain skill; the beautiful bright sound of the instrument largely depends on the skill of the musician. For example, to perform any melody on a harmonica that has a diatonic scale, you need to master a difficult playing technique called bending.

Photo:

Interesting Facts

• IN different countries harmonica has similar names containing the words lips, mouth or harmonica. In Russia - harmonica, in France - “harmonica a bouche”, in Germany - “Mundharmonika”, in England - “mouth organ”, “harmonica”, “harp” or “French harp”, in Italy - “armonica a bocca” ", in Spain - "armonica".
• A harmonica player is called a harper.
• In the United States of America, the harmonica has cheerful nicknames: pocket piano, Mississippi saxophone, blues harp, happy-go-lucky streetcar, tin sandwich.
• In cinema, the harmonica was first noticed at the end 19th century.
• The first sound recording of a harmonica performance was made in 1920.
• The first harmonica manufacturing company, Hohner, was founded in 1857. Currently it produces about 100 various options this tool. Today, Honer harmonicas are in great demand among performers; at a fairly low price, they have excellent quality and beautiful sound.
• In the 30s, with Hitler coming to power in Germany, the Hohner company received a large order for the supply of harmonicas for the German army, at the rate of one instrument for each soldier.

• During the First World War, the accordion brightened up the rest of the soldiers of the opposing sides. Suppliers supplied tools to both the British and German armies.
• In the German city of Trossingen, under the auspices of the Hohner company, world festivals harmonicas, which arouse interest not only among performers, but also among admirers of the instrument.
• 16th American President Abraham Lincoln, who was fond of playing the harmonica, loved his instrument so much that he constantly carried it in his pocket. Also on the list of presidents who were partial to the harmonica are Calvin Coolidge and Ronald Reagan.
• During the Second World War, due to a shortage of wood and metal that went to the needs of the front, the worker-entrepreneur Haakon Magnus developed a plastic harmonica. It did not have a beautiful sound, but later became a very popular children's toy.
• The largest harmonica ensemble, which was included in the Guinness Book of Records, included 6,131 performers. He performed in Hong Kong in November 2009, performing for 7 minutes musical composition with string orchestra.

• In the United States, the harmonica is so loved that in 1925, the Christmas tree in the White House in Washington was decorated with 50 instruments.
• At one time, a significant contribution to the growing popularity of the harmonica was made by a radio program from New York called the Honer Harmonica Hour, which was intended to teach listeners how to play this instrument.
• Nicky Shane from Santa Barbara (USA) is considered the fastest harmonica player listed in the Guinness Book of Records. In 20 seconds he managed to play 103 notes.
• Harmonica, the first musical instrument to go into space. In 1965, December 16 American astronaut Wally Schirra played the famous Christmas song "Jingle Bells" on a harmonica in space orbit.
• The harmonica is the best-selling musical instrument. By 1887, Honer was producing 1 million harmonicas annually. In 1911 - 8 million per year, in 1986 it produced its billionth instrument.

   

Design

The design of the harmonica is quite simple. The body consists of a top and bottom cover, which are made of wood, molded plastic, Lucite or metal alloys. Under the top cover there is a plate with slots and exhalation tabs. Next is the so-called slotted comb. Under the comb there is another plate, but with inhalation tabs. Everything is closed with a bottom lid. The entire structure is held together with small screws.

Varieties

There are quite a few varieties of harmonicas, but they are all divided into two types, which differ significantly from each other: diatonic and chromatic.

The diatonic harmonica has several subtypes, which have a diatonic system and are made with tuning in different keys.

• Blues is the most popular, although it has the same name; it can be used to perform music in various styles. Usually has 10 holes.
• Tremolo - the harmonica is adjusted during production so that a tremolo effect is created when sound is produced.
• Octave - its peculiarity is that the reeds that should sound simultaneously are tuned to the octave. This gives the instrument greater sound richness and bright timbre color.
• Bass harmonica - the notes of the bass register are played on it.
• Chord - with each exhalation or inhalation, not one note sounds, but a whole chord.

The chromatic harmonica has an appropriate structure, which as a result, compared to a diatonic instrument, gives it a wider repertoire of possibilities. It is larger in size, since its housing actually houses two harmonics. On the side of such a tool there is a button - a switch - a slider, switching which makes it possible to extract halftones. Used in jazz and classical music.

Application and repertoire

Since the beginning of its existence, the harmonica has found application in a wide variety of musical genres. Nowadays, it is rightly called a universal instrument, the sound of which adorns compositions in many musical styles, but mainly in those whose homeland is the American continent. Classical music, jazz, country, bluegrass, chord rock, folk rock, pop, hillbilly, rockabilly, reggae, ethnic music and, undoubtedly, blues is an incomplete list of trends in music where the harmonica has found its worthy use.

It should be noted that since the advent of the chromatic harmonica, the capabilities of the instrument have expanded significantly; transcriptions of works by composers have appeared in its repertoire classical music. Among the authors who wrote specifically for the harmonica, special mention should be made of Ralph Vaughan Williams, Malcolm Arnold, Darius Milhaud, Arthur Benjamin and Jimi Reed.

Performers

The harmonica is an instrument whose popularity has grown very quickly since its inception, constantly
attracted attention talented musicians. Performers appeared in various musical styles who left a noticeable mark on the art of performing the instrument.

• Classic Blues: S.B. Williamson II, H. Wolfe, B.W. Horton, D. Wells, D. Cotton, L. Walter, W. Clark.
• Country blues: D. Bailey, S. Terry, M. Vladimirov, A. Yakhimovich.
• Folk rock: Bob Dylan.
• Modern blues: D. Mayall, J. Milto, D. Portnoy, S. Blue, C. Musselwhite, K. Wilson, S. Harpo, A. Gassou, D. Ricci, C. Janko, R. Piazza, W. Clark , S. Chigrakov
• Rock / Hard rock: D. Popper, B. Springsteen, I. Gillan, M. Dick, M. Jagger, S. Tyler, R. E. Plant, T. Lindemann, V. Shakhrin, V. Kuzmin, A. Stepanenko, B. Grebenshchikov.
• Jazz: H. Levy, F. Yonnet, I. Prenet.
• Irish folk: B. Power.
• Country: C. McCoy.
• Klezmer: D. Rosenblatt.

The harmonica can be described as a compact, pocket-sized musical instrument that brings joy to millions of people around the world. At its core, the harmonica is a Western-style wind organ. Since its invention by Christian Friedrich Ludwig Buschmann in 1821, the instrument has grown in popularity. And after the advent of the Hohner chromatic harmonica, the repertoire that could be performed on such instruments expanded significantly. True, not all fans of the harmonica know that the direct ancestor of their favorite instrument, as well as all other European reed instruments, is the oriental wind organ.

Western and eastern wind organs are classified as reed instruments. However, if you open “ World encyclopedia musical instruments,” then we learn that reeds are only one of the branches of a vast family that are united under common name“aerophones”.

The main feature that determines belonging to this group is the vibration of the air stream inside the body, as a result of which the musical sound. This group includes instruments with holes (recorders), with whistle-type mouthpieces (recorders), with a single reed (clarinets, saxophones), with a double reed (oboe, bassoon), with bowl-shaped mouthpieces (trumpets), as well as manual reed (eastern and western wind organs, concertinas, accordions and harmonicas).

The eastern wind organ first came to Europe from China in the mid-18th century. This instrument consisted of 17 bamboo tubes of various sizes with copper reeds inside, which were attached in a circle to a metal body with a mouthpiece. After studying it, the idea arose to use reeds in the construction of traditional organs. Unfortunately, such experiments did not receive the approval of the general public, and most organ builders abandoned such design solutions in relation to keyboard instruments.

One way or another, the tongues were used in the manufacture of Western wind organ only in the 19th century. The first harmonica was created by the German watchmaker Christian Friedrich Ludwig Buschmann in 1821. The invention, called “aura,” was a metal plate with 15 slots, which were closed with corresponding steel tongues. According to the author, his brainchild was more of a tuning fork than a musical instrument. The notes in it were arranged in chromatic order and were extracted only by exhaling.

In 1825, another German, F. Hotz, began producing wind organs at his factory in Knittlingen. Another native of Germany, Christian Messner, acquired several “auras” made by Bushman and in 1827 began making instruments similar to them. He called his products with the strange word “mundeolins”. Two years later, Englishman Sir Charles Wheatstone patented his model of a pipe organ. In his design, the reeds were controlled by a small push-button keyboard, which the author himself called a “symphonium”.

But the author of the most important design solution for that period of time was a master from Bohemia named Richter. Around 1826, he made a sample accordion with ten holes and twenty reeds (separate for inhalation and exhalation) mounted in a wooden cedar body. Richter's tuning option using the diatonic scale became standard for European instruments, which were called "Mundharmonika" or wind organ.

In 1829, I. V. Glier organized the production of wind organs at his factory in the German city of Klingenthal. In 1855, another German, Christian Weisse, did the same. However, by 1857, a company from Trossingen became the largest mass producer of accordions. At that time it was led by the famous Matthias Hohner. In 1857 alone, with the help of his family members and one hired worker, he managed to produce 650 instruments. Honer was an outstanding businessman. One of his marketing finds was an overlay with the name of the manufacturer. In 1862, Honer brought the harmonica to North America. It was a step that would later lead his company to become a world leader in the production of these instruments. By 1879, Honer was producing 700,000 instruments a year. At the turn of the century, annual output was already 5 million units. Now the company produces more than 90 different models of harmonicas, which allow the performer to freely express himself in any way. musical form, be it classical, jazz, blues, rock or ethnic music. There are statistics that 40 million people play this instrument in the United States, and another 5 million in Canada.

It must be said that the harmonica or wind organ is different languages has a different name. In German it is called “Mundharmonika”, in French – “harmonica a bouche”, in Italian – “armonica a bocca”, in Spanish “armonica”, in English – “harmonica”, “mouth organ”, “ French harp" or "harp".

They say that the harmonica owes its name to a completely different instrument. In 1829, the Viennese master Demian received exclusive rights to produce accordions. Naturally, other masters also produced similar instruments, but under a different name, namely “handharmonika” (hand accordion). Due to a similar principle of operation, the wind organ began to be called “mundharmonika” (harmonica).

Even world wars could not prevent the rapid spread of the accordion throughout the world. German manufacturers produced for various countries special export models: “1’Epatant” and “La Marseillaise” for France, “King George” and “Alliance Harp” for England, “El Centenario” for Mexico and even accordions on chains, for those ethnic groups, whose clothes did not have pockets. During World War I, various organizations supplied German and British soldiers with accordions. There was even such a “Kaiser Wilhelm” model.

The first recordings of the harmonica were made in the USA in the early 1920s, although this instrument was recorded on film in silent films as early as 1894. In the 30s there was a great depression, and in the 40s - the 2nd World War contributed to the resettlement of southerners to the northern states and to West Coast. This process stimulated the spread small instrument throughout the vast United States. At that time, Jazz Gillum and John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson were very popular among black residents of Chicago. At the same time, on the other side of the world in Nuremberg, Larry Adler played for soldiers of the allied armies of the anti-Hitler coalition. To find the Hohner factory, he flew in a small plane, with only a picture of the building on it as a guide!

Everywhere soldiers returned to their homes. There was an upsurge in the black ghettos, which was naturally reflected in the music. Young Southern musicians (Little Walter, Junior Wells, Snooki Pryor) now played harmonica through a microphone and amplifier. This was something new - the “Mississippi saxophone” (as the harmonica was called in American slang) could now perform solo to the accompaniment of an orchestra. In the 50s, rock and roll exploded the patriarchal silence of the then music scene. The harmonica found itself at the forefront of this youth rebellion, which drew inspiration from the black American blues.

This instrument has experienced another birth in a new musical style, and to this day retains its popularity among performers different ages and musical styles.