Perceived to be a mandate accessory of any romantic hero, this little wind instrument is lot more than any beginner could actually think. Stop! Close your eyes! Imagine the instrument! Do you picture a man leaning with style and gliding the instrument through his lips as if he is using his lip gloss (Courtesy: Padayappa)? Or a lady holding the mouth organ for her guy whose hands are busy holding her and so just glides his mouth on the harmonica (Courtesy: Paarthen Rasithen)? If this is what you think is all about mouth organ, you better stop reading right here.
The Sound:
For those who have not forgotten their school days, days when we stretched the chocolate wrappers and created sound by blowing through the wrappers, understanding the working principle would be just easy.
The instrument is made of small metal strips of varying sizes. When air is exhaled or inhaled through, the strips vibrate and hence the sound is created. Varying sizes of strips account to various notes (Sruti).
The Music:
Understanding would be easier if you know a little of keyboard. Or have at least seen one.
As you know, to play any song on a keyboard (or Piano) you would need pressing of white keys and black keys as the song demands. Imagine being given a keyboard that has only the white keys (I am not a racist). How would you manage to play a song with one such instrument made out of just the white keys? Well, that’s how a mouth organ works (remember that I am speaking about a typical mouth organ or simply the one a shopkeeper would give you if you ask for one). You could just play CDEFGAB and not their sharps or flats. Or simply, you can’t play all songs on a standard harmonica. For more types of mouth organs refer Harmonica.
As you know, to play any song on a keyboard (or Piano) you would need pressing of white keys and black keys as the song demands. Imagine being given a keyboard that has only the white keys (I am not a racist). How would you manage to play a song with one such instrument made out of just the white keys? Well, that’s how a mouth organ works (remember that I am speaking about a typical mouth organ or simply the one a shopkeeper would give you if you ask for one). You could just play CDEFGAB and not their sharps or flats. Or simply, you can’t play all songs on a standard harmonica. For more types of mouth organs refer Harmonica.
Set to kiss:
The rest of the segment would need music to be in your blood. Don’t curse my demonstrating capabilities if you are musically challenged.
The first task is to hold the harmonica horizontally with the bass sound on to your left and the notes increasingly as you move to your right. Hold it with both your hands with your thumb and fore finger. Let the other fingers just balance as they have more work to do while we learn more.
Now exhale across and find the C note. Every next note would be an alternative exhaling or suction. i.e. C has to be exhaled. D inhaled. E exhaled and so on… A and B though being adjacent, demand exhaling. As there are 7 notes and if A and B are alternated, the next C would end up in suction. Hence the instrument is designed as
C (exhale), D (inhale), E (exhale), f (inhale), G (exhale), A (inhale), B (inhale)
That’s all for today. So next time when you bug your friend to play your favorite song on the mouth organ, or you attempt to woo your girl with a romantic song… remember that not all songs could played on a standard harmonica.
END OF PART 1
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