The Hamonica. | | | Harmonica, Mouth Harp, Blues Harp, Mouth Organ, many names, but the same instrument.
The harmonica is often a little musical instrument that can be in a pocket, but the bass and chord models are much larger.
The sound from the harmonica comes from blowing into the holes in front of the instrument. Small pieces of metal inside the harp (reeds) starts to vibrate and sound appears.
For each hole you can either blow or suck. One tone appears when you suck and another when you blow, this gives you 20 different sounds on a 10 hole model (diatonic blues harp).
The harmonica is especially used for Jazz, country and blues, but is also used in rock and pop. It can easily play alone or with a guitar.
Types of harmonicas.
This type of harmonica or blues harp as many call it, is tuned in one key, e.g. C major. If you want to play in a different key, you will have to change the harp. Often a musician has 7-12 harps in different keys on the stage. This type of harmonica is the most commonly used harmonica in genres such as blues, country and rock.
 A chromatic harp can play all 12 major keys, and the musician can play all keys without having to change the harp. This can be done because the chromatic harmonica always has a button on the side (called a slider) that you can push in front of the holes, thereby changing the air flow into the reeds and make more keys available as well.
This type of harmonica is especially used in jazz, where Toots Thielemans and Grégoire Maret must be regarded as the kings of jazz harmonica music.
A chromatic harmonica can have from 8 to 16 holes on the largest models.
A bass harmonica is very deep in the sound. You only blow into a bass harmonica, you cannot "bend" or shape the sound as well as on a diatonic or chromatic model. It takes a lot of air and good lungs to play on a bass-harmonica.
Right now a Chromatic Bass harmonica from Suzuki S-48B has arrived, which is much easier to play. Check it out! A chord harmonica is a very wide compared to other types of harmonica. These models have a wide range of chords available. Octave harmonica A harmonica with two reeds for each tone tuned at an octave interval. Available in several shapes with different numbers of holes. A tremolo harmonica is also called a western harp. In the USA it is often seen and heard in old western movies around the campfire. Like the octave harp, it has two reeds for each hole, but they are almost identical with an inaudible difference, resulting in the tremolo effect.
Manufacturers such as Suzuki and Hohner are the leading brands on the in harmonica market. | | | | | | | | | | |
