The Village of Euxton, Lancashire, England. |
Euxton dot com |
The history of the harmonica.
The history of the harmonica, as we know it today, is an amazing tale which begins in the year 1821. It was then that sixteen-year-old Christian Friedrich Buschmann registered the first European patents for his new musical invention. His so called "aura" was a free-reed instrument consisting of a series of steel reeds arranged together horizontally in small channels. An awkward design, it offered only blow notes arranged chromatically. |
Buschmann described his new instrument to his brother as "a new instrument that is truly remarkable. In its entirety it measures but four inches in diameter...but gives me twenty-one notes, and all the pianissimos and crescendos one could want without a keyboard, harmonies of six tones, and the ability to hold a note as long as one would wish to." |
Initial designs by Buschmann were widely imitated, leading to many modifications and advancements. A Bohemian instrument maker named Richter may have made the most important advancements in early harmonica design. Around 1826, he developed a variation that consisted of ten holes and twenty reeds, with separate blow and draw reed plates mounted on either side of a cedar comb. Richter's tuning, utilizing a diatonic scale, became the standard configuration of what Europeans referred to as the Mundharmonika or mouth organ |
In 1857, the history of the harmonica changed dramatically as German clock maker Matthias Hohner turned to manufacturing harmonicas full-time. With the help of his family and a hired workman, he was able to produce 650 instruments that year. Soon after, he added local workers and developed mass production techniques. |
Young Hohner was an outstanding businessman
and showed his marketing savvy by developing the charactoristic ornate cover plates
bearing the producer's name. |
But, who writes history? |
Index | YarraVille Mouth Organ Club, Melbourne | Purchase links and other | |||
Chromatic | Diatonic | Octave | Tremolo | History | History 2 |
Nostalgia | Play Style | Prayer | Types | Which Key | Euxton |
The Village of Euxton, Lancashire, England. |
Euxton dot com |