111671224

I developed from the intense interests in free-reeds which arose in Europe in the early 19th century. While free-reeds had been fairly common throughout East Asia for centuries and known in Europe for some time before this period, around 1820 there was a virtual eruption of new free-reed designs in Europe and North America. While a young Friederich Ludwig Buschmann is often cited as the inventor of the harmonica in 1821, it was almost certainly a case of simultaneous development amongst several inventors working independently with mouth-blown free-reed instruments appearing in the United States, the United Kingdom and on the continent at roughly the same time. In 1825, Richter tuning was developed, while in 1857, Matthias Hohner, a clockmaker, purchased one of Buschmann's harmonicas and became the first person to mass-produce it. Sometime by the 1850s, the diatonic harmonica had more or less found its modern form and the other diatonic types followed soon thereafter (the various tremolo and octave harmonicas). By the late 19th century, harmonica production was big business and had evolved from a handcraft into mass-production with figures well into the millions, a status which continues to this day. New designs continued to be developed in the 20th century including the chromatic harmonica (first made by Hohner in 1924), the bass harmonica, the chord harmonica and others. Even in the 21st century radical new designs such as the Suzuki Overdrive and Hohner XB-40 continue to be brought to market.The harmonica's massive success is attributable to many factors. First, it is a fairly easy instrument to begin to play some simple songs. Of, course, some talent is necessary to play. The diatonic harmonicas were designed primarily for the playing of German and other European folk musics and are extremely successful for that. However, probably unintentionally the basic design and tuning was extremely adaptable to other types of music such as the blues, country, old-time and similar. Second, the majority of harmonicas are quite small--often small enough to unobtrusively fit in a pocket. Third, harmonicas are cheap - amongst the most inexpensive of musical instruments available while not being intended as a toy. Fourth, harmonicas are fairly easy to manufacture and their simple construction allowed for industrial level production without sacrificing the quality of a hand-crafted instrument, unlike most string instruments or other wind instruments. For these reasons the harmonica was a success almost from the very start of production, and while the center of the harmonica business has shifted from Germany the output of the various harmonica manufacturers is still very high indeed. Major companies are now found in Germany (Seydel, Hohner - once the dominant manufacturer in the world, producing some 20 million harmonicas alone in 1920 when German manufacturing totaled over 50 million harmonicas), Japan (Suzuki, Tombo, Yamaha), China (Huang, Leo Shi, Suzuki, Hohner) and Brasil (Hering). Ironically, as the demand for higher quality instruments which respond to more demanding performance techniques has increased, there has been a resurgence in the world of hand-crafted harmonicas which cater to those wanting the absolute best without the compromises inherent in mass manufacturing.