home › Fuel system › Harmonica. Harmonica (harmonica): history, video, interesting facts Jazz composition on the harmonica

Harmonica. Harmonica (harmonica): history, video, interesting facts Jazz composition on the harmonica

Tabs for harmonica

"What a wonderful world!" Louis Armstrong sang, and we can't help but agree with him! One of the greatest jazz trumpeters, who had a huge impact on the development and popularization of jazz around the world, recorded the song "What a Wonderful World" at the age of 66. We offer to analyze the harmonica tabs for this work, which has become a jazz standard.

The song about the simple things that make this world beautiful was created in 1967 by producer Bob Thiele and composer George David Weiss, who wrote the lyrics. It is interesting that at first the composition was offered to the popular performer Tony Bennett, but he refused. A smiling and cheerful Louis agreed, making her a classic of the genre.

But many difficulties arose before "What a Wonderful World" found its audience and became a famous worldwide hit, topping the European and American charts.

Initially, ABC producer Larry Newton, with whom Armstrong signed a contract for a new album, interfered with the recording of the song, not believing in its success and demanding more cheerful, groovy compositions, rather than slow ballads. He absolutely did not want to promote the song even when it was already recorded, so only 1000 copies of the single were sold in the USA, and in Europe it was heard many months later, in 1968. In addition, young rock bands like the Beatles were gaining more and more popularity, with whom it was difficult to compete in the music market.

The 60s were not only a new wave in the development of music, but also a wave of political protests and racial riots in America. The Vietnam War, the threat of Jewish pogroms, the segregation of the black population, numerous conflicts divided society and the country really needed hope and optimism.

“Some of you young people said to me: “Hey, dad, what are you talking about, what a wonderful world? And what about all these wars everywhere, you call them beautiful too? ... ”But how about listening to the old dad for a minute? It seems to me that it's not the world that is so bad, but what we do with it and all I want to say is look what a wonderful world it could be if we gave it a chance. Love, kids, love. That's the whole secret." Louis Armstrong said.

The world is beautiful and so are all of us. Regardless of our differences. Louis Armstrong sang about it and believed in it.

"What a Wonderful World" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. In April 2014, the digital version of the song was downloaded over 2,173,000 times. "What a Wonderful World" has been featured in many films and television (most famously after the 1988 film Good Morning Vietnam) and has been performed by many artists in various interpretations (Eva Cassidy, Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, Celine Dion, Sarah Brightman, B.B. King, Engelbert Humperdinck, Kenny G, Nick Cave, Rod Stewart among many others).

Performers

Feb 22

B.B. King

Mikhail Petrovich Sokolov

The harmonica is most often used in such musical styles as blues, folk, bluegrass, blues-rock, country, jazz, pop, various genres of folk music.

A musician playing the harmonica is called a harper.

Harmonica (harmonica)

The rich world of musical instruments is very diverse. What kind of representatives you will not meet in this kingdom. There are so many of them that it is simply impossible to list. Indeed, in addition to the world-renowned 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 way of sound production, timbre coloring and size. The largest and most important, of course, is the organ, which is 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 its small size, this funny instrument is absolutely complete and has an interesting and attractive sound.

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

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

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

Sound

The harmonica, which belongs to wind reed musical instruments, has a thick and rich sound, which occurs under the pressure of an air jet that makes the sound reeds vibrate. The harmonica does not have a keyboard; lips and tongue are used to select the appropriate hole for the desired note. The performance requires a certain skill of skill, the beautiful bright sound of the instrument largely depends on the skill of the musician. For example, for the performance of any melody on the harmonica, which has a diatonic system, it is required to master a difficult playing technique, which is called a bend.

Photo:

Interesting Facts

In different countries, the harmonica has similar names, which include 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 performer is called a harper.
In the United States, the harmonica has hilarious nicknames: the pocket piano, the Mississippi saxophone, the blues harp, the carefree streetcar, the pewter sandwich.
In cinema, the harmonica was first seen at the end of 19th century.
The first sound recording of a harmonica performance was made in 1920.

Hohner, the first harmonica manufacturer, was founded in 1857. At the present time, she makes about 100 different versions of this instrument. Hohner's harmonicas are very much in demand among performers today; at a fairly low price, they have excellent quality and beautiful sound.
In the 1930s, when Hitler came to power in Germany, the Hohner firm received a large order for the supply of harmonicas for the German army, at the rate of an instrument for each soldier.
During the 1st World War, the harmonica brightened up the rest of the soldiers of the opposite 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 harmonica festivals are held, which are of interest not only to performers, but also to admirers of the instrument.
The 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 not indifferent to the harmonica were Calvin Coolidge and Ronald Reagan.
During the Second World War, due to the 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 got into the Guinness Book of Records, included 6131 performers. He performed in Hong Kong in November 2009, performing a musical composition with a string orchestra for 7 minutes.

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 broadcast from New York called "Hohner's Harmonica Hour", which was intended to teach listeners how to play this instrument.
The fastest harmonica player listed in the Guinness Book of Records is Nicky Shane from Santa Barbara (USA). In 20 seconds, he managed to play 103 notes.
Harmonica, the first musical instrument to travel in space. On December 16, 1965, American astronaut Wally Schirra performed the famous Christmas song "Jingle Bells" on the harmonica in space orbit.
The harmonica is the best-selling musical instrument. By 1887 Hohner was producing 1 million harmonicas annually. In 1911 - 8 million a year, in 1986 she produced her billionth instrument.

Design

The design of the harmonica is quite simple. The case consists of a top and bottom cover, which are made of wood, molded plastic, lucite or metal alloys. Under the top cover is a plate with slots and tongues for exhalation. Next is the so-called comb with slots. Under the comb is another plate, but with tongues for inhalation. Everything is closed with a bottom cover. The whole structure is fastened with small screws.

Varieties

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

The diatonic harmonica has several subspecies that have a diatonic structure and are made with tuning in different keys.

Blues - the most popular, although it has such a name on it, you can play music in various styles. Usually has 10 holes.
Tremolo - the harmonica is tuned during production so that when the sound is extracted, a tremolo effect is created.
Octave - its peculiarity is that the reeds that should sound at the same time are tuned into an octave. This gives the instrument greater sound saturation and bright timbre color.
Bass harmonica - bass notes are played on it.
Chord - with each exhalation or inhalation, not one note, but a whole chord sounds.

The chromatic harmonica has an appropriate tuning, which, as a result, in comparison with the diatonic instrument, gives it wider repertoire possibilities. It is larger in size, since its body actually contains two harmonics. On the side of such a tool there is a button - a switch - a slider, switching of 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 been used in a wide variety of musical genres. At the present time, 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, of course, blues - this is an incomplete list of areas in music where the harmonica has found a worthy application.

It should be noted that since the appearance of the chromatic harmonica, the capabilities of the instrument have expanded significantly, and arrangements of works by classical music composers have appeared in its repertoire. Among the authors who composed 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 rapidly since its inception, constantly

attracted the attention of talented musicians. In various musical directions, performers appeared who left a noticeable mark on the art of playing 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. Gassow, D. Ricci, K. Gianco, 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.

Story

The history of the harmonica began a long time ago, from the time when in ancient China, around the 3rd or 2nd century BC, a reed wind musical organ, the sheng, was invented. The tool, which was a body with bamboo or reed tubes attached in a circle with copper tongues inside, was considered sacred by the Chinese and was used in religious ceremonies. It is not exactly known when and how the instrument came to Europe, but in the twenties of the nineteenth century, a talented sixteen-year-old German, a piano and organ repair and tuning master, Christian Bushman, decided to come up with a tuning fork mechanism that would help him in his work, taking as a basis the design principle Chinese organ. The inventor placed sound reeds in chromatic order in the channels of a metal plate, thus obtaining a new musical instrument, which he patented in 1821 under the name "Aura".

The invention of H. Bushman quickly attracted close attention. Soon, two German entrepreneurs F. Hotz and Christian Messner, independently of each other, purchased H. Bushmann's instruments and began their production, making some changes to the design. The musical instrument received a new name - Mundaeoline.

And a little later in England, Charles Wheatstone received a patent for a model instrument called the "symphony", in which the reeds were controlled using a small push-button keyboard.

A lot of musical masters, who showed great interest in the wind organ, improved the instrument in their own way, introducing their own solutions into the device. However, the most important design variant, which later became the standard for European instruments and was called "Mundharmonika", was the instrument of the Czech master Josef Richter. D. Richter's version had 10 holes with 20 reeds tuned diatonically and fixed on two separate plates, which were installed in a cedar wood case. The production of harmonicas was gaining momentum, entrepreneurs one after another created firms for their manufacture. However, the watchmaker from Trossingham, Matthias Hohner, turned out to be the most successful and enterprising in this business. He began making harmonicas in 1857 at his home, and in the first year he made and sold over 600 instruments. Hohner's business grew at a staggering rate and within a short time he became a leader in the harmonica industry. Being an enterprising businessman, M. Hohner, as a marketing ploy, installed plates with his name on the instruments. With such a distinctive mark and beautiful sound quality, Hohner's harmonicas were easily recognizable and in good demand.

In the second half of the 19th century, the instrument crossed the Atlantic Ocean and, due to the growth of the emigrant population from Germany, firmly settled on the American continent. In the United States, adults and children were fond of playing the harmonica. She even participated in the civil war between the North and the South. Moreover, the soldiers of both opposing sides did not deny themselves the pleasure of playing music on the instrument during the hours of rest from battles. The popularity of the harmonica grew very quickly, as evidenced by the manuals for learning to play the instrument released by music publishers in the 80s of the 19th century. Harmonics were widely available and the craze for playing them reached its peak, which later led to the fact that the instrument played an important role in the emergence of blues music, and then became an indispensable participant in various musical styles.

The harmonica is a truly unique instrument. She has always been at the forefront. Having survived more than one war, falling under shelling and bombing, reminding the soldiers of their home, the harmonica raised their morale. In youth cultural riots, she has always been in the vanguard and was reborn in new musical styles. And now it is very popular among performers of various genres and music lovers of different ages.

Video: listen to the harmonica

The harmonica is nowadays one of the most widespread musical instruments, which is in great demand. Today you can buy a harmonica not only in specialized stores, but also in online stores, by the way, the latter option is gaining more and more popularity among many Internet users from year to year, because it differs in that you, without leaving your home, you can place your purchase in a matter of minutes, and with home delivery. However, it is necessary to choose a harmonica with all seriousness, because a person who once tried to learn how to play a low-quality instrument will lose the desire to master the harmonica for a long time, and possibly forever.

Technique for playing the harmonica

By the way, if you want to learn how to play this instrument, then you will need to master the three main techniques for setting the tongue and lips, namely: whistle, u-lock and tongue-lock.

It is worth noting that novice harmonists try to play one note with the whistle technique, because it is not so difficult to learn it. However, this technique is limiting. In order to start playing with this technique, you need to purse your lips in the same way as you do when whistling. Then take the harmonica to the lips, while maintaining their position, and then try to focus the lips on some hole in the instrument. And only then through the selected hole it is necessary to direct the air flow.

As for the U-blocking technique, for this you need to “roll” your tongue into a U. In this case, the left and right sides of the tongue should block the outer holes.

But in the third technique, in order to isolate the hole from sound reproduction, it is necessary to use the tongue and lips. It is worth adding that this technique is considered the most popular among experienced harmonists, because with its help you can easily change from note to chord.

Thus, if you decide to learn how to play the harmonica, you need to be smart about choosing one or another technique so that it can really help you. However, in addition to choosing the appropriate technique, you will need to choose the most optimal and suitable type of this tool for yourself.

Types of harmonica

So, first of all, you will need to decide on the type of harmonica. To date, the following types are distinguished: chromatic, diatonic, chord, bass, octave harmonicas, as well as tremolo and their hybrids. Of these, bass, chord and octave harmonicas are most commonly used in harmonica orchestras.

As for tremolo harmonicas, the tremolo effect is achieved in them due to the fact that on each note of such an instrument relative to each other, two sound reeds are slightly out of tune. In addition, harmonicas of this kind only have the sounds of white piano keys, so there is not a single key that is identical to a black piano key. This harmonica is very simple, for this reason, anyone who has at least the slightest hearing can learn to play it. However, due to the lack of missing notes, it is very limited in its capabilities.

But their chromatic counterparts, on the contrary, have all the sounds of the chromatic scale, that is, they have both white and black piano keys. You can play both complex classical pieces and jazz music on such harmonicas, but here you need to have a good musical education, i.e. you must be able to perfectly read notes from a sheet of music and, moreover, have a fairly good preparation for playing diatonic harmonica.

It is the diatonic harmonica that is the most popular and in demand in our time. It can play almost any music, and in any style. The sound in comparison with the above types of harmonica is very thick and rich. In addition, the diatonic harmonica contains all the notes, however, to play it, you must have certain skills. In another way, it is also called blues, but this does not mean that only blues can be performed on it.

Popular in category: