Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Harmonica |
HarmonicaNoun1. A small rectangular free-reed instrument having a row of free reeds set back in air holes and played by blowing into the desired hole. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "harmonica" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1831. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Fine Arts | Small instrument generally rectangular in shape and made of metal and wood, which produces sound by means of vibrating reeds. Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
A harmonica is a free reed musical wind instrument (also known, among other things, as a mouth organ, french harp or "Mississippi saxophone"), having multiple, variably-tuned brass or bronze reedss, each secured at one end over an airway slot of like dimension into which it can freely vibrate, thus repeatedly interrupting an airstream to produce sound.
Unlike most free-reed instruments (e.g., reed organs, accordions and melodicas), the mouth harmonica lacks a keyboard. Instead, lips and tongue are used to select one or a few of the several holes arranged usually linearly on a mouthpiece. Each hole communicates with but one, two or a few reeds. Because a reed mounted above slot is made to vibrate more easily by air from above, reeds accessed by a mouthpiece hole often may be selected further by choice of breath direction (blowing, drawing).
Some harmonicas also include a button-actuated slide that, when depressed, further redirects the air.
The harmonica is commonly used in blues and folk music, but also in jazz, classical music, country music, rock and roll and pop music.
See Pan pipes.
Parts of the Harmonica
The harmonica consists of a "comb" made of wood or plastic which creates the holes into which a player blows or draws to make distinct tones. The metallic blow and draw reedplates are screwed onto either side of the comb. Over the reedplates, there is a metal or plastic cover which projects the sound out of the open back. Chromatic harmonicas also have a button-activated slide.
Harmonica types
The Diatonic Harmonica
The diatonic harmonica is most likely what you think of when you think of a "harmonica." It has 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. Here is a standard diatonic harmonica's layout in the key of C:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ------------------- blow: |C|E|G|C|E|G|C|E|G|C| draw: |D|G|B|D|F|A|B|D|F|A| -------------------Note that 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, allowing a player to play chords underneath a melody by blocking or unblocking the lower holes with the tongue.
In addition to the 19 notes readily available on the harmonica, players can play other notes by adjusting their embouchure and forcing the reed to resonate at a different pitch. This technique is typically called "bending" and allows to a player all the notes on the scale as well as pitches in between. "Bending" creates the glissandos characteristic of much blues and country harmonica playing. The physics of bending are quite complex, but amount to this: a player can bend a note down toward the pitch of the lower-tuned reed in that hole. In other words, on holes 1 through 6, the draw notes can be bent and on holes 7 through 10 the blow notes can be bent.
Howard Levy developed another technique in the 1970s that allows players to force a reed to vibrate faster, resulting in a higher pitch. This technique is called overblowing or overdrawing and is much less frequently used. For the few who master this technique, the diatonic harmonica can function as a fully chromatic instrument.
List of Modern Overblow Masters:
- Howard Levy
- Chris Michalek
- Joe Filisko
- Michael Peloquin
- Rosco Selley
- George Brooks
- Larry Eisenberg
- Sandy Weltman
- Greg Szlapczynski
The Chromatic Harmonica
The chromatic harmonica has a button-operated slide that allows the player to change the pitch of any given hole. This means that each hole has 4 pitches rather than 2. The slide typically shifts the pitch of any given note by a half step. The note layout on a chromatic is traditionally the same as the note layout on holes 4-7 of the diatonic harmonica, and is repeated over its length. Chromatic harmonicas are usually 12 or 16 holes long.
Because it is a fully chromatic instrument, the chromatic harmonica is the instrument of choice in jazz and classical music. In traditional harmonica bands, the chromatic harmonica plays the lead part.
The Bass Harmonica
Please add some text if you know something of the bass harmonica. Lengthy description at: http://www.bassharp.com/bh_101.htm
The Chord Harmonica
Please add some text here if you know something of the chord harmonica.
The Echo Harmonica
Echo harmonicas have two reeds per note, one of the reeds slightly out of tune. This produces a tremolo effect.
Please add some text here if you know something about the echo harmonica.
Toy Harmonicas
Please add some text here if you know something about the toy harmonica.
History and related instruments
The unrelated glass harmonica is a musical instrument formed of a nested set of graduated glass cups mounted sideways on an axle and partially immersed in water, and played by touching the rotating cups with wetted fingers, causing them to vibrate.
Harmonica community
There is an active harmonica community on the internet and in real life, with conferences, cruises and everything. SPAH (Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica) is one society with a particularly amusing acronym. [1] A harmonica list-serv is hosted at this web site with searchable archives.
Some famous harmonicists
Harmonica Bands
- The Harmonicats
- Borrah Minevitch Harmonica Rascals
Blues Players
- Tom Ball
- Carey Bell
- Billy Branch
- Paul Butterfield
- William Clarke
- James Cotton
- Paul deLay, notable for chromatic playing as well as diatonic
- Rick Estrin
- Joe Filisko
- http://www.harmonicajohn.com, Plays drums and harmonica simultaneosly
- Michael Peloquin, versatile player of many styles rooted in the blues
- James Harman
- Mark Hummell
- John Mayall of the Bluesbreakers
- Delbert McClinton, taught John Lennon how to play harp
- Charlie Musselwhite
- Rod Piazza
- Gary Primich
- Snooky Pryor
- Jimmy Reed
- Peter Madcat Ruth
- Curtis Salgado
- Corky Siegel of the Siegel-Schwall Blues Band
- George Harmonica Smith
- Sonny Terry
- Sugar Blue, known for high speed playing.
- Little Walter, great pioneer in amplified blues harmonica, Muddy Waters' first harmonica player.
- Junior Wells, played with Muddy Waters
- Mark Wenner
- Sonny Boy Williamson I
- Sonny Boy Williamson II
- Kim Wilson of the Fabulous Thunderbirds
Rock and roll
- Bob Dylan
- Mick Jagger
- John Lennon
- Huey Lewis
- Alanis Morissette
- John Popper, perhaps the most famous living harmonica player, known for his fast playing.
- Lee Oskar of War
- John Sebastian of the Lovin' Spoonful, son of a classical harmonica player
Rhythm and Blues
- Stevie Wonder
Country music
- Phil PT Gazell
- Buddy Greene
- Kirk Jellyroll Johnson
- Charlie McCoy
- Terry McMillan
- Mickey Raphael
- Wayne Raney, known for his "talking harmonica"
Jazz
- George Brooks -- Diatonic
- William Galison-- Chromatic
- Max Geldray of the Goon Show.
- Ron Kalina-- Chromatic
- Don Les-- Diatonic & Bass
- Howard Levy--Diatonic
- Chris Michalek--Diatonic
- Michael Polesky--Chromatic
- Jean "Toots" Thielemans--Chromatic
- Les Thompson
- Sandy Weltman
Classical music
- Larry Adler
- Robert Bonfiglio
- Tommy Morgan the guy you have heard but don't know
- Tommy Reilly
- John Sebastian, father of the rock musician
- Douglas Tate
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Harmonica."
| The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted. | |||
| Entry | Source | Expression | Field |
HARMONICA | English | Harmonised access & retrieval for music-oriented networked information concerted action | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |||
Synonyms: HarmonicaSynonyms: harp (n), mouth harp (n), mouth organ (n). (additional references) |
Crosswords: Harmonica |
| Non-English Usage: "Harmonica" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. Dutch (harmonica), French (harmonica, mouthorgan). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | To bring along my harmonica. (The Sound of Music; writing credit: Richard Rodgers; Oscar Hammerstein II) Because it's Hitler's harmonica. You can't play Hitler's harmonica (Rat Race; writing credit: Andy Breckman) Hey, Harmonica. When they do you in, pray it's somebody who knows where to shoot (C'era una volta il West; writing credit: Dario Argento; Bernardo Bertolucci) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Borrah Minnevitch and His Harmonica School (1942) Tom Turkey and His Harmonica Humdingers (1940) Harmonica Crossing (2000) I Have a Harmonica (1992) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books | |||
Periodicals |
| ||
Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
| ||
High Tech |
| ||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | A salty dog if I ever saw one plays the harmonica on a warm Kodiak day. Credit: Fisheries. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |
| "Harmonica" by Roger Mexico Commentary: "Macro shot of harmonica with a note chord." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| Play | Caption |
 | Chicago blues style piece with amplified harmonica as melody instrument. |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Grapes of Wrath | Steinbeck, John | These three in the evening, harmonica and fiddle and guitar |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Harmonica" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Harmonica" is used about 45 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 45 | 50,900 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expression using "harmonica": glass harmonica. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "harmonica": harmonica-playing. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "harmonica"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | harmonikë (harmonic, mouth organ), saze dore. (various references) | |
Arabic | هارمونيكا آلة نفخ موسيقية, هارمونيكا. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | устна хармоника (mouth organ, syrinx), гласкорд. (various references) | |
Chamorro | bibek. (various references) | |
Chinese | 口琴. (various references) | |
Czech | harmonika. (various references) | |
Danish | mundharmonika (mouth organ). (various references) | |
Dutch | mondharmonika (mouth organ), accordeon (accordion). (various references) | |
Esperanto | harmoniko. (various references) | |
Farsi | سازدهنی , الت موسیقی شبیه سنتور. (various references) | |
Finnish | huuliharppu (mouth-organ), sointuoppi (harmonics). (various references) | |
French | harmonica. (various references) | |
German | harmonika (accordion), mundharmonika (mouth organ). (various references) | |
Greek | φυσαρμόνικα (accordion, concertina). (various references) | |
Hebrew | מפוחית פה (jew's harp, mouth organ), מפוחית (concertina). (various references) | |
Hungarian | szájharmonika (mouth organ). (various references) | |
Indonesian | harmonika, genggong. (various references) | |
Italian | armonica a bocca (mouth organ), armonica (harmonic, harmonic component, harmonic of a periodic quantity, mouth organ, overtone). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 手風琴 (accordion). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | ハーモニカ (mouth organ), てふうきん (accordion). (various references) | |
Korean | 하모니카. (various references) | |
Manx | harmoan. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | armonicahay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | harmnica, harmónica de boca (mouth organ), harmônica (accordion, mouth organ, reedpipe), gaita de boca (mouth organ). (various references) | |
Romanian | muzicuţã (gab, mouth organ), armonicã (accordion, reed organ). (various references) | |
Russian | гармоника (accordion, harmonic, jew's harp). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | harmonika (accordion). (various references) | |
Spanish | armónica (harmonical, mouth organ). (various references) | |
Swedish | harmonika. (various references) | |
Turkish | mızıka (band, mouth organ), armonika (mouth organ), armoníka. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | гармонія (accord, accordance, cadence, chord, concord, consonance, harmonic, harmony, rhythm, unison), акордеон (accordion). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | kèn acmônica (mouth-organ). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "harmonica": harmonically, harmonicas. (additional references) | |
Words containing "harmonica": enharmonically. (additional references) | |
| |
"Harmonica" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: armonic, armonico, harmonci, harmoni, harmonia, hasmonean, Hermodice. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "harmonica" (pronounced hÄrmÄ"niku) |
| 5 | -Ä" n i k u | Veronica. |
| 4 | -n i k u | Tunica. |
| 3 | -i k u | Angelica, arabica, Erica, erotica, replica, silica, swastika. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-c-h-i-m-n-o-r" | |
-1 letter: armonica, chairman, harmonic, macaroni, marocain, omniarch. | |
-2 letters: acromia, mahonia, manioca, minorca, monarch, nomarch, ocarina. | |
-3 letters: acinar, airman, anarch, anchor, anomic, archon, arnica, caiman, camion, carina, carman, chimar, choana, chroma, crania, harmin, inarch, macron, maniac, manioc, marina, micron, mohair, rancho. | |
-4 letters: acari, acorn, amain, amino, amnia, amnic, amnio, anima, aroma, cairn, carom, chain, chair, charm. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-c-h-i-m-n-o-r" | |
+1 letter: anamorphic, chairwoman, cochairman, harmonicas, machinator, maraschino, monarchial. | |
+2 letters: anachronism, machinators, maraschinos, monarchical. | |
+3 letters: anachronisms, camphorating, cochairwoman, harmonically, panchromatic. | |
+4 letters: achromatizing, aeromechanics, cholangiogram, cinematograph, monarchically, rhabdomancies. | |
+5 letters: antimonarchist, cholangiograms, cinematographs, cinematography, enharmonically, hydrodynamical, monosaccharide, noncharismatic, phantasmagoric. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Images: Digital Art | 9. Sounds 10. Quotations: Fiction 11. Usage Frequency 12. Expressions | 13. Expressions: Internet 14. Translations: Modern 15. Abbreviations 16. Acronyms | 17. Derivations 18. Rhymes 19. Anagrams 20. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
