48 Fun Facts About The Harmonica

By what other name is the harmonica commonly known?

Mouth organ says what it is, a tiny reed organ blown by mouth; the American South called it a French harp or just a harp, the name blues players still use.

Which Beatle played the harmonica riff that opens 'Love Me Do'?

John Lennon played it, which is why Paul McCartney sings the title line alone: producer George Martin handed it to him in the studio because the harmonica part ran over the vocal.

How many holes does the standard blues harp have?

Ten holes span three octaves, but the lowest one skips two notes of the scale so that the bottom holes sound full chords under a tune.

What do harmonica players call a note sounded by breathing in rather than blowing?

A draw note sounds a second reed tucked into the same hole as the blow reed, which is how a pocket-sized instrument fits in nearly twice as many notes as it has holes.

What is a harmonica reed typically made of?

Brass reeds are riveted at one end over a slot; the free end swings through it, blocking and unblocking the airway, and that chopped stream of air is the note.

Which kind of harmonica reed produces the lower pitch?

Longer, heavier or more flexible reeds swing more slowly, which is why a harmonica's reeds get steadily shorter from its low end to its high end.

What do harmonica players call lowering a note's pitch by reshaping the mouth?

Bending works because the hole's other, normally silent reed joins in and drags the note down, which is what gives blues harmonica its wail.

What is the main body of a harmonica called?

The comb was traditionally carved from wood, which soaks up the moisture of a player's breath, swells and can crack, so makers now seal it or turn to other materials.

What are the one-way valves found in chromatic harmonicas called?

Wind-savers stop breath escaping through the reed that isn't sounding: as you breathe in, suction pulls the flap shut over the idle reed in the same chamber.

How does a chromatic harmonica access the sharps and flats?

A button-activated sliding bar switches the air to a second set of reeds tuned a semitone higher, so the instrument is in effect two harmonicas in one case.

What gives the wavering type of harmonica its warbling sound?

Two reeds per note, slightly out of tune with each other: one is set a shade higher than its twin, and the clash between them makes every note pulse.

Which actor plays the gunslinger known only as Harmonica in Once Upon a Time in the West?

Charles Bronson's drifter never gives a name; he answers questions with a few wailing notes instead, so another outlaw simply starts calling him Harmonica.

What is the simple specialty harmonica that gives singers a reference note called?

A pitch pipe is where the harmonica began: the first European models were little more than rows of these single-note reed pipes joined side by side.

Which jazz player is most associated with overblowing on the blues harp?

Howard Levy's overblows make a hole's normally silent reed sing a note higher than either reed usually gives, filling the gaps in the scale; he took the idea into Béla Fleck's Flecktones.

What is blues harmonica players' slang for playing in second position?

Cross harp means playing in a different key from the one stamped on the instrument, a C harp for a tune in G, so that the bluesiest notes fall on the in-breath.

Which ancient Chinese free-reed instrument was a forerunner of the harmonica?

The sheng is a cluster of bamboo pipes fitted with reeds, and like the harmonica it sounds on both the out-breath and the in-breath, so a player can keep a note going without stopping for air.

Which German teenager is often credited with inventing the harmonica in 1821?

Christian Buschmann was 16, but the claim rests on a family biography written in 1938, with no patent or surviving instrument to back it, and other makers were building much the same thing in the 1820s.

Which Neil Young song, a US number one in 1972, opens with him playing harmonica?

Heart of Gold came out of an injury: a bad back stopped Neil Young standing with an electric guitar, so he sat down with an acoustic one and a harmonica instead.

Which note layout became almost universal on diatonic harmonicas?

Richter tuning is named for a Bohemian maker so obscure that historians can't agree on his first name; his layout sounds a chord wherever you blow, so one player can carry tune and accompaniment.

What was Matthias Hohner's trade before he started making harmonicas in 1857?

Clockmaker Hohner made just 650 harmonicas in his first year, helped by his wife and one employee; within his lifetime the workshop had become the largest harmonica factory in the world.

In which German town did Matthias Hohner found his harmonica company in 1857?

Trossingen had already been making harmonicas for a generation when Hohner opened his workshop there; today the town is home to the German Harmonica Museum.

On which 1973 Billy Joel song does he also play the harmonica?

Piano Man is drawn from life: Joel spent six months playing a Los Angeles piano bar under the name Bill Martin, and its regulars became the song's characters.

What is the model name of the classic German-made 20-reed harmonica introduced in 1896?

The Marine Band still has its reed plates nailed to a wooden body, the traditional way, yet it has been Hohner's best-selling harmonica for generations.

Which US president is said to have carried a harmonica in his pocket?

Abraham Lincoln, in a story Hohner has long told, heard that his debate rival Stephen Douglas was bringing a band, reached into his pocket and said the harmonica would do for him.

Stevie Wonder plays the harmonica solo on which singer's 1983 hit 'I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues'?

Elton John called in Stevie Wonder to lift the ballad with a solo, and a year later Wonder did the same job for Chaka Khan on 'I Feel for You'.

In the 1940s, Finn Magnus's New Jersey factory began making harmonica reeds from which material instead of metal?

Plastic made the whole instrument cheap and sturdy: the Danish immigrant supplied his harmonicas to American troops, then to a generation of children as toys.

Lee Oskar, whose name is on a popular line of harmonicas, played harmonica in which funk band?

War's Danish-born harmonica player, heard on 'Low Rider', started Lee Oskar Harmonicas in 1983; the instruments are built by Tombo in Japan, with reed plates a player can swap when they wear.

What nickname is given to the stubby microphone that blues harmonica players cup in their hands?

The Bullet is small enough to hold against the harmonica inside cupped hands, the trick Little Walter is said to have adopted so that he could be heard over electric guitars.

Which hall of fame inducted bluesman Little Walter in 2008, forty years after his death?

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame honoured him for turning the harmonica from a backing instrument into a lead voice in blues bands; he had died at just 37.

Whose band did Little Walter join in 1948?

Muddy Waters kept him for four years; then Walter's own single 'Juke' became a hit in 1952 and he left to lead a band of his own.

Which Belgian jazz musician turned the chromatic harmonica into a legitimate jazz voice?

Toots Thielemans broke through as a guitarist: an American swing star hired him for a European tour on guitar, not on the harmonica he had played since his teens.

Which children's TV show had a theme tune played on harmonica by a Belgian jazz star?

Sesame Street's credits rolled over his harmonica version of the theme, so generations of children knew his sound, though few outside jazz ever learned his name.

By Larry Adler's account, Gershwin said which work sounded as if written for the harmonica star?

Rhapsody in Blue was the piece in a story Adler often told, yet he couldn't read its score at the time: he learned his pieces by ear from records and didn't read music until his late twenties.

Why did American harmonica star Larry Adler make his home in Britain?

He was blacklisted in the McCarthy era as a suspected communist sympathiser, and it followed him abroad: when Genevieve, a British film he scored, reached America, his name was left off the credits.

Days before Christmas 1965, two Gemini astronauts played which tune on a smuggled harmonica, the first instrument played in space?

Jingle Bells was the punchline of a prank: the crew first radioed that they could see a strange craft whose pilot was wearing a red suit, then Wally Schirra pulled out the harmonica.

Harmonica wizard DeFord Bailey, country music's first Black star, made his name on which radio show?

The Grand Ole Opry got its name on air in 1927 as the announcer introduced Bailey, who then made his harmonica sound like a passing express train in 'Pan American Blues'.

What did Stevie Wonder title his 1968 album of mostly harmonica instrumentals?

Eivets Rednow is Stevie Wonder spelled backwards: Motown first put the alias on his harmonica version of 'Alfie', and when that single sold well a whole album followed under the same disguise.

What accessory lets a guitarist play harmonica at the same time?

A neck rack holds the harmonica at the mouth and leaves both hands free; players have long made their own, bent out of wire or a coat hanger.

Which singer fronts Blues Traveler and plays the harmonica on the band's 1990s hit 'Run-Around'?

John Popper used to walk on stage wearing belts of harmonicas slung like bandoliers, one for every key, so he could swap instruments in mid-song without looking.

In blues slang, the harmonica is nicknamed the 'Mississippi' what?

Saxophone was the comparison once blues players cupped the harmonica against a microphone and turned the amplifier up: the tone grew thick and loud enough to hold its own in a band.

Which Bruce Springsteen song, the opening track of his 1975 third album, begins with just harmonica and piano?

Thunder Road took its name from a Robert Mitchum film that Springsteen had never watched: he saw the poster in a cinema lobby and kept the title.

Which 18th-century inventor built the glass harmonica, an unrelated instrument of spinning glass bowls?

Benjamin Franklin got the idea in England from a performer playing tuned wine glasses, and his own version caught on: Mozart and Beethoven both wrote music for it.

In which prison film does Andy Dufresne give his friend Red a harmonica?

The Shawshank Redemption makes the gift a test of hope: Red, who gave up playing when he went inside, lifts the harmonica to his lips and barely sounds a note.

Which future action-movie star sang and played harmonica on a 1987 Motown album, The Return of Bruno?

Bruce Willis was still the wisecracking detective of TV's Moonlighting when he made it, performing in character as a bluesman alter ego called Bruno.

Rice Miller was billed as Sonny Boy Williamson from 1941 while playing which radio show on KFFA in Helena, Arkansas?

King Biscuit Time made him such a draw that its flour-company sponsor launched Sonny Boy Corn Meal, with a drawing of the harmonica player on every bag.

Which country star's 1965 version of the fiddle tune 'Orange Blossom Special' replaced the fiddle with harmonicas?

Johnny Cash turned the solo into a stage trick: he played it on two harmonicas in different keys, swapping from one to the other in mid-tune.

'Bluesette', a 1960s jazz standard by a Belgian harmonica star, famously has its composer doing what in unison with his guitar?

Whistling along with his own guitar made the tune a hit and its composer a man in demand: the same whistle later sold Old Spice aftershave in television commercials.

Which Saturday Night Live star plays the harmonica as Elwood Blues in The Blues Brothers?

Dan Aykroyd's Elwood walked on stage with a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist and took his harmonica out of it; the band called its first album Briefcase Full of Blues.