Harmonica
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Harmonica
The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica include diatonic, chromatic, tremolo, octave, orchestral, and bass versions. A harmonica is played by using the mouth (lips and tongue) to direct air into or out of one (or more) holes along a mouthpiece. Behind each hole is a chamber containing at least one reed. The most common is the diatonic Richter-tuned with ten air passages and twenty reeds, often called the blues harp. A harmonica reed is a flat, elongated spring typically made of brass, stainless steel, or bronze, which is secured at one end over a slot that serves as an airway. When the free end is made to vibrate by the player's air, it alternately blocks and unblocks the airway to produce sound. Reeds are tuned to individual pitches. Tuning may involve changing a reed’s length ...
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Hohner
Hohner Musikinstrumente GmbH & Co. KG is a German manufacturer of musical instruments, founded in 1857 by Matthias Hohner (1833–1902). The roots of the Hohner firm are in Trossingen, Baden-Württemberg. Since its foundation, and though known for its harmonicas, Hohner has manufactured a wide range of instruments, such as kazoos, accordions, recorder flutes, melodicas, banjos, electric, acoustic, resonator and classical guitars, basses, mandolins and ukuleles (under the brand name ''Lanikai'') From the 1940s through 1990s, the company also manufactured various electric/electronic keyboards. Especially in the 1960s and 1990s, they manufactured a range of innovative and popular electromechanical keyboard instruments; the cembalet, pianet, basset, guitaret, and clavinet. In the 1980s, several Casio synthesizers (such as the Casio HT-3000/Hohner KS61midi and the VZ-1/HS-2) were sold under the Hohner brand. Nowadays, Hohner produces harmonicas, melodicas, accordions and record ...
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List Of Harmonicists
This is a list of musicians that are notable for their harmonica playing skills. Harmonica bands/groups * Borrah Minevitch and his Harmonica Rascals *Morton Fraser's Harmonica Gang *The Harmonica Gentlemen *Jerry Murad's Harmonicats *Johnny Puleo's Harmonica Gang * King's College Harmonica Band * Sväng * The Three Monarchs Blues *Adam Gussow (Satan and Adam) *Alan Glen *Annie Raines * Alan Wilson (Canned Heat) *Big Mama Thornton *Big Walter Horton *Bill Dicey *Billy Bizor *Billy Boy Arnold *Billy Branch * Billy Gibson *Blind Mississippi Morris * Bob Corritore * Bonny B. *Captain Beefheart *Carey Bell *Carlos del Junco *Charlie Musselwhite * Charlie Sayles * Chris Wilson *Corky Siegel *Curtis Salgado *Cyril Davies *Charly Chiarelli *Dan Aykroyd (as Elwood Blues) *Delbert McClinton *Dennis Gruenling *Don Partridge * Dutch Mason *Eddie "Guitar" Burns * Fabio Treves * Garrett Dutton *Gary Primich *George "Harmonica" Smith *George "Mojo" Buford *George Higgs *Golden "Big" Wheeler *G ...
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Tremolo Harmonica
A tremolo harmonica is a type of diatonic harmonica, distinct by having two reeds per note. In a tremolo harmonica, the two reeds are tuned slightly off a reference pitch, one slightly sharp and the other slightly flat. This gives a unique wavering or warbling sound created by the two reeds being not exactly in tune with each other and difference in their subsequent waveforms acting against one another. The degree of beating can be varied depending on the desired effect. Instruments where the beating is faster due to the reeds being farther apart from the reference pitch are called "wet", whereas those where the beating is slower and less noticeable due to the reeds being more closely in tune are called "dry". Tremolo distinction "Tremolo" is most often defined as a periodic change of volume (sometimes incorrectly defined as a change in pitch, strictly vibrato). Most orchestral instruments achieve this effect by repeated playing of a single note. The tremolo harmonica achieves t ...
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Mouth Organ
A mouth organ is any free reed aerophone with one or more air chambers fitted with a free reed. Though it spans many traditions, it is played universally the same way by the musician placing their lips over a chamber or holes in the instrument, and blowing or sucking air to create a sound. Many of the chambers can be played together or each individually. The mouth organ can be found all around the world and is known by many different names and seen in many different traditions. The most notable variations include the harmonica, and Asian free reed wind instruments consisting of a number of bamboo pipes of varying lengths fixed into a wind chest; these include the ''sheng'', ''khaen'', ''lusheng'', ''yu'', ''shō'', and '' saenghwang''. The melodica, consisting of a single tube that is essentially blown through a keyboard, is another variation. Gallery File:Cass-muha-1880.jpg, C. A. Seydel Söhne Harmonica (1880) File:Mouth organ (or symphonium) (c.1830, London) by Charles Wh ...
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Chromatic Harmonica
The chromatic harmonica is a type of harmonica that uses a button-activated sliding bar to redirect air from the hole in the mouthpiece to the selected reed-plate desired. When the button is not pressed, an altered diatonic major scale of the key of the harmonica is available, while depressing the button accesses the same scale a semitone higher in each hole. Thus, the instrument is capable of playing the 12 notes of the Western chromatic scale. The chromatic harmonica can thus be contrasted with a standard harmonica, which can play only the notes in a given musical key. Famously accomplished chromatic harmonica players include classical players Larry Adler, Tommy Reilly (harmonica player), Tommy Reilly, Antonio Serrano (musician), Antonio Serrano, Sigmund Groven, and Willi Burger, jazz players Toots Thielemans, :da:Mathias_Heise, Mathias Heise, Gregoire Maret, Yvonnick Prene, Hendrik Meurkens, and William Galison, and popular musicians Norton Buffalo and Stevie Wonder. Chromatic ...
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Blues Harp
The Richter-tuned harmonica, or 10-hole harmonica (in Asia) or blues harp (in America), is the most widely known type of harmonica. It is a variety of diatonic harmonica, with ten holes which offer the player 19 notes (10 holes times a draw and a blow for each hole minus one repeated note) in a three-octave range. The standard diatonic harmonica is designed to allow a player to play chords and melody in a single key. Because they are only designed to be played in a single key at a time, diatonic harmonicas are available in all keys. Harps labeled G through B start (on hole 1 blow) below middle C, while Harps labeled D through F start above middle C (C4). Here is the layout for a standard diatonic harmonica, labeled C, starting on middle C (C4). :: Although there are three octaves between 1 and 10 "blow", there is only one full major scale available on the harmonica, between holes 4 and 7. The lower holes are designed around the tonic (C major) and dominant (G major) chords ...
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Richter-tuned Harmonica
The Richter-tuned harmonica, or 10-hole harmonica (in Asia) or blues harp (in America), is the most widely known type of harmonica. It is a variety of diatonic harmonica, with ten holes which offer the player 19 notes (10 holes times a draw and a blow for each hole minus one repeated note) in a three-octave range. The standard diatonic harmonica is designed to allow a player to play chords and melody in a single key. Because they are only designed to be played in a single key at a time, diatonic harmonicas are available in all keys. Harps labeled G through B start (on hole 1 blow) below middle C, while Harps labeled D through F start above middle C (C4). Here is the layout for a standard diatonic harmonica, labeled C, starting on middle C (C4). :: Although there are three octaves between 1 and 10 "blow", there is only one full major scale available on the harmonica, between holes 4 and 7. The lower holes are designed around the tonic (C major) and dominant (G major) chords ...
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Suzuki Musical Instrument Corporation
The is a Japanese company that produces a range of musical instruments. History Suzuki was founded in 1953 by Mr. Manji Suzuki. Initially the company manufactured Harmonicas and later developed the Melodion which in 1956 was officially adopted by the Japanese Ministry of Education for use in schools. Authorised Distribution centers are located in the United Kingdom (Suzuki Europe Ltd - owned by Suzuki Japan) and in Western U.S. (distribution center is located in San Diego, California). It has expanded to include a variety of instruments including pianos and band instruments, and purely electronic instruments such as the Tronichord, Omnichord, and QChord Digital Soundcard Guitar. In 1991 Suzuki bought the Hammond Organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ... Co., whic ...
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Melodica
The melodica is a handheld free-reed instrument similar to a pump organ or harmonica. It features a musical keyboard on top, and is played by blowing air through a mouthpiece that fits into a hole in the side of the instrument. The keyboard usually covers two or three octaves. Melodicas are small, lightweight, and portable, and many are designed for children to play. They are popular in music education programs, especially in Asia. The modern form of the instrument was invented by Hohner in the late 1950s, though similar instruments have been known in Italy since the 19th century. Description The mouthpiece can be a short rigid or semi-flexible plastic piece or a long flexible plastic tube (designed to allow the player to either hold the keyboard so the keys can be seen or lay the keyboard horizontally on a flat surface for two-handed playing). A foot pump can also be used as an alternative to breathing into the instrument. Melodica keyboards typically ascend from a low F note. ...
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Aerophone
An aerophone () is a musical instrument that produces sound primarily by causing a body of air to vibrate, without the use of strings or membranes (which are respectively chordophones and membranophones), and without the vibration of the instrument itself adding considerably to the sound (or idiophones). According to Sachs, These may be lips, a mechanical reed, or a sharp edge. Also, an aerophone may be excited by percussive acts, such as the slapping of the keys of a flute or of any other woodwing. A free aerophone lacks the enclosed column of air yet, "cause a series of condensations and rarefications by various means." Overview Aerophones are one of the four main classes of instruments in the original Hornbostel–Sachs system of musical instrument classification, which further classifies aerophones by whether or not the vibrating air is contained within the instrument. The first class (41) includes instruments which, when played, do ''not'' contain the vibrating air. The ...
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Blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African-American culture. The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll, and is characterized by the call-and-response pattern (the blues scale and specific chord progressions) of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes (or "worried notes"), usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch, are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove. Blues as a genre is also characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, and instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times. It was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common current str ...
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Yu (wind Instrument)
The ''Yu'' (; pinyin: yú) is a free reed wind instrument used in ancient China. It is similar to the sheng, with multiple bamboo pipes fixed in a wind chest which may be made out of bamboo, wood, or a gourd. Each pipe contains a free reed, which is also made of bamboo. Whereas the sheng is used to provide simultaneous tones in harmony (in fourths and fifths), the ''yu'' is played in single lines melodically. The instrument was used, often in large numbers, in court orchestras of ancient China (and was also exported to Korea and Japan) but is no longer used. History Although the ''yu'' is now obsolete, it is known to most Chinese speakers through the saying "Làn yú chōng shù" (), meaning "to fill a position without having the necessary qualifications." The saying is derived from the story of Nanguo (), a man who joined the royal court orchestra of King Xuan of Qi (, 319 BC–300 BC), the ruler of the State of Qi (Shandong province) as a ''yu'' player. Although the man ...
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