In the Beginning: Oriental Blues:

Historians generally agree that the harmonica’s earliest ancestor was invented in China, but they disagree as to who invented it and when. Some maintain that Emperor Huang Tri came up with the concept for the instrument, the sheng, as early as 4500 B.C.E. Others contend that it was in fact Empress Nyu-kwa who deserves credit for inventing this instrument around 3000 B.C.E. We strongly suspect that the sheng actually was invented for either of these royal personages by one of the Royal Eunuchs. Why? Partly because we just can’t visualize a Chinese emperor or empress toiling away over the Royal Workbench.

Whoever came up with the idea, the sheng was an immediate hit in the royal household and quickly spread throughout China and more distant areas of the Asia. It then began to spread westward with the opening of the trade routes and was being played by Turks and Persians by the sixth century.

The sheng was one of the first free-reed instruments. Its reeds were fixed at one end and free to vibrate at the other. The length of the reed determined the pitch of the tone. Modern-day free-reed instruments include the harmonica, accordion, and the concertina. Each of them has many different freestanding reeds of various lengths to create different pitches. Compare them with a typical fixed-reed instrument, such as a clarinet or saxophone. With these instruments, the reed is fixed within, and vibrates against, a mouthpiece. There is only one reed in the instrument. The pitch of the note is determined by the length of the tube attached to the mouthpiece. Different pitched are created by the opening and closing holes in the tube.

Much like its descendent the harmonica, the sheng was a highly expressive instrument that could be played with great versatility. It could be mellow or shrill, and sheng players used many of the same techniques [modern harmonica players use like] vibratos, bending, and trilling. Unlike the modern harmonica, however, the sheng plays the same notes on both the inhale and exhale.

Europe Adopts (and Adapts) the Free Reed:

Traders reportedly brought shengs back to Europe as early as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but a French missionary, Pere Amiot, is generally credited with getting the free-reed ball rolling in Europe in the late 1770’s. Numerous experiments were undertaken to create free-reed variants of the original sheng. The most notable of these was 16-year-old Christian Buschman’s invention of a musical box consisting of 15 “blow-only” pipes with freestanding reeds. Called an aura, it’s considered the first modern-day harmonica. Buschman secured the patent on this device in 1822, thus earning himself the title “inventor for the harmonica.”

A few years later, a mysterious fellow named Josef Richter invented the vamper. If truth be told, this instrument was much closer to the modern-day harmonica than any of the others: the player could both blow and draw (i.e., breath in) to play different notes, and chords could be played due to a unique ordering of the notes (using the same concept still found on the diatonic harmonicas today). Richter is still the namesake for the most common tuning for the diatonic harmonicas today.

By the 1830’s, these free-reed instruments had become popular enough to be commercially produced in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. A young clockmaker named Matthias Hohner began manufacturing harmonicas in 1857, and he and his family built 650 harmonicas in that first year of production. Hohner was much more than an artisan; he was a very good businessman who soon controlled the harmonica trade in Europe. Yet the greatest contributing factor to his success was nothing so grand. It was the simple act of corresponding with relatives who had emigrated to America. They convinced him to ship a box of harmonicas to them in the early 1860’s, and the harmonica empire was born.

Hohner: Harmonicas for the Huddled Masses:

Hohner’s relative’s got that first box of harmonicas, sold them quickly for 10 cents apiece, and ordered more—many more. The harmonica’s quickly found a market in America and spread both west and south, where it found its roots.

The harmonica actually followed two divergent paths to popularity in American music, two paths that initially were defined by racial lines. However, despite their divergence, musicians from each genre soon began to borrow from the other’s styles. Eventually, any racial distinctions disappeared and the two paths, to a large extent, merged.

Among the European immigrants and their descendents, the harmonica was adopted for a new American folk music that was a combination of Old- and New-World sounds and rhythms. Much of the early American folk music was rooted in the popular music and dance tunes brought to America by European immigrants. Here, it was all mixed together into a melting pot of music, with a touch of American independence, freedom, and attitude added for flavor. The style of play was primarily what we now call straight harp, and the little harmonica became the instrument of choice for cowboys, homesteaders, soldiers, travelers, and everyone else who wanted to carry their music with them but couldn’t sing. It was incorporated into American folk bands and, together with the fiddle and banjo, became a driving force at barn dances, saloons, weddings, festivals, and campfire sing-alongs.

At about this time, African slaves in the South were given their freedom. They had brought from Africa many diverse styles of music characterized by intricate rhythms and notes not found in European music. Africans introduced notes commonly referred to today as “blues notes” and also “falling notes” (a slurring style of singing in which the pitch of notes would drop), which today gives blues, gospel and jazz much of their distinctive flavor. The slaves also brought from Africa a hand-held mouth instrument called a quill that was able to produce the same style of falling tones as the human voice. As the harmonica spread to the South, they soon learned that similar falling tones could be produced on this new instrument. This was one of the first steps in the development of the style of playing known as cross harp, which is the dominant style of play for modern blues and is widely used in rock and country.

In the 1890’s, Hohner began to aggressively market the harmonica in other parts of the world, and by World War I, the British Musicians’ Association was distributing harmonicas to every British soldier on the front. At the same time, every German soldier was being provided a Kaiser Wilhelm model for Christmas.

Harmonicas from Sea to Shining Sea:

Meanwhile, back in America, the popularity of the harmonica continued to grow and branch out into different areas of music. The harmonica’s story in twentieth-century America can be divided into several stages, during which particular styles of music utilizing the harmonica became popular.

The Pre-World War II Era:

The period from 1910 to 1940 is sometimes referred to as the harmonica’s golden age. This period was characterized not only by the continued growth in the harp’s popularity in blues and folk music, but also by the emergence of numerous harmonica bands. They started to spring up around the country in the early 1920’s, mostly as harmonica youth bands complete with uniforms in the style of marching bands. As these young musicians matured, so did their venues. Harmonica bands became a staple of vaudeville and concert halls on the 1930’s, and their repertoires were incredibly diverse, spanning ethic songs, pop tunes, jazz standards, and light classical pieces. The best known of these bands probably was Borrah Minnevitch and the Harmonica Rascals, which was a popular fixture on the stages around the country for 25 years.

At the same time, radio and movies were competing for the attention and dollars of audiences, and the harmonica quickly moved into these media. One of the most popular early radio stars was DeFord Bailey, who played folk and blues (as well as train and animal imitations) for the Grand Ol’ Opry show out of Nashville. In the 1940’s, Sonny Boy Williamson II also gained great popularly with his King Biscuit Flour Hour in which he played the harmonica between plugging sacks of flour.

The other significant pre-war harmonica development was the emergence of the first harmonica soloist focusing on classical music. This was made possible by the invention in 1924 (by Hohner, of course) of the chromatic harmonica. Unlike other harmonicas, which could play all 12 notes in the scale only by using techniques such as bending and overblowing, the chromatic harmonica could play all 12 notes through simply blowing and drawing and pushing a button on the side of the instrument to sharpen or flatten the notes. This development opened up an entirely new world of music to harmonica players. The first to gain notoriety playing this new harmonica was Larry Adler, who performed classical music in concert halls as the featured soloist with some of America's greatest orchestras.

The harmonica world was on a roll.

World War II:

In the last half of the 1930’s, more than 30 million harmonicas had been sold in the United States, but almost all of them had come from the small village of Trossingen in Germany, site of Hohner’s production facilities. America’s entrance into World War II brought the import of these harmonicas, and the harmonica craze, to a screeching halt. With an embargo in effect, harpists now turned their attention to figuring out how to repair what had previously been considered throwaway instruments. In the process of learning how to fix their busted harmonicas, players began to learn how to improve and customize them.

The ‘40’s and ‘50’s:

The end of World War II was good for at least one German company, Hohner, as its huge American market re-embraced the little instrument. New styles of music appeared on the scene, and the harmonica again proved its versatility in becoming an important element of these styles.

It was at this time that the harmonica had its first major hit on a national scale. The Harmonicats’ recording of “Peg O’ My Heart” was the number-one bestselling record of 1947 and went on to sell over 25 million copies. This success (plus the prospect of adding thousands of new dues-paying members) led the American Federation of Musicians to “declare” the harmonica a legitimate instrument and invite harp players to join.

But the most important post-war event, as far as the harmonica was concerned, was conducted with much less fanfare. During a 1951 recording session, Marion “Little Walter” Jacobs amplified his harp by cupping it together with a radio microphone and playing through a guitar amplifier. This produced a dynamic, deep-throated sound that alternated between gritty rawness and a fluid, swooping quality reminiscent of the saxophone as played in jazz and R&B. Suddenly, the harmonica took center stage on the Chicago blues scene. This sound became the standard for blues harp playing and was a major contributing factor in catapulting blues music and blues harpists, such as James Cotton and Junior Wells, onto the national scene.

The ‘60’s:

The 1960’s was a decade of revolution in American society and music. It was during this era that the harmonica once again captured the imagination of the American public, and sales soared. It seemed that, regardless of the style of music, the harp was a featured instrument. The Beatles might have been responsible for instigating this new craze with their 1963 release of “Love Me Do,” featuring John Lennon playing the harmonica (who was tutored by the great Delbert McLinton prior to recording). The “British Invasion” was on, and much of it was harmonica-centric. Ironically, many of the British rockers of the 1960’s drew their inspiration from the rhythms and sounds of the American blues masters, and to a large extent these invaders can be credited with the “discovery” of American blues by mainstream America.

The Harmonica in Today’s Music World:

Although the harmonica’s influence has ebbed and flowed, it’s continued to be an important part of the American and world music scene. Today, approximately 2 million harmonicas are sold each year in the United States alone, with annual worldwide sales exceeding 10 million. There are estimated to be over 40- million people in the United States who have played the harmonica. Hohner itself has produced well over 1 billion harmonicas since its first year when its founder painstakingly built the first 650. No matter how you slice it, the harmonica is the most popular instrument in the world.

Harmonica players not only have been blowing their harps—they’ve also been getting seriously organized. The Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica (SPAH) was founded in Detroit in 1962. It has become the preeminent international organization promoting and supporting the harmonica, complete with quarterly newsletters and an annual newsletter.

The above is an excerpt from The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Playing the Harmonica, Second Edition, by William Melton and Randy Weinstein, 2006. To purchase this very useful reference and instruction book for playing the harp, please visit my Harp Resources page.