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80-514: The mouthpiece can be a short rigid or semi-flexible plastic piece or a long flexible plastic tube (designed to allow the player to either hold the keyboard so the keys can be seen or lay the keyboard horizontally on a flat surface for two-handed playing). A foot pump can also be used as an alternative to breathing into the instrument. Melodica keyboards typically ascend from a low F note. Keyboards often have 32 or 37 keys, though instruments may have as few as 13 or as many as 45 keys. Larger models include

160-462: A pipe organ would be too large or expensive; in the funeral- in-absentia scene from Mark Twain 's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer , the protagonist narrates that the church procured a "melodeum" (a conflation, likely intended by Twain for satirical effect , of the names "melodeon" and "harmonium") for the occasion. Harmoniums generally weigh less than similar sized pianos and are not easily damaged in transport, thus they were also popular throughout

240-480: A business trip to Boston he saw an "elbow organ" or lap organ ("rocking melodeon") built by James Bazin. Seeing the potential of this small REED ORGAN, he commenced manufacturing them in 1836 or 1837 – both the button (melodeon) and the conventional keyboard type; Video of "rocking melodeon" By 1840, there were 40 melodeon builders in America. "Melodeons were inexpensive, easy to move, and required

320-720: A copy of this machine came to Paris very shortly after 1780. Georg Joseph Vogler put all his effort to get this new type of organ pipes in use in church organs so he started with changing organs in Rotterdam (1790), London (1790), Frankfurt (1791), Stockholm (1791), Paris (1796), Berlin (1800), Prague (1802), Vienna (1804), Salzburg Munich (1805), – up to 30 documented rebuilds of organs with new free reed type organ pipes. He also held lessons at universities and did all to promote this new type of reeds, not only in German-speaking regions of Europe. The actual work

400-455: A cycle of vibration. One side of the reed frame is omitted from the images for clarity; in reality, the frame completely encloses the reed. Airflow over one side of the reed (labeled “AR”) creates a region of low pressure on that side (see the Bernoulli's principle article for details), causing the reed to flex towards the low-pressure side. The reed frame is constructed so that the flexing of

480-528: A dozen stops and other mechanisms such as couplers . Expensive harmoniums were often built to resemble pipe organs, with ranks of fake pipes attached to the top of the instrument. Small numbers of harmoniums were built with two manuals (keyboards). Some were even built with pedal keyboards, which required the use of an assistant to run the bellows or, for some of the later models, an electrical pump. These larger instruments were mainly intended for home use, such as allowing organists to practise on an instrument on

560-474: A greater number of stops and other features. By this time, harmoniums had reached high levels of mechanical complexity, not only through the demand for instruments with a greater tonal range, but also due to patent laws (especially in North America). It was common for manufacturers to patent the action mechanism used on their instruments, thus requiring any new manufacturer to develop their own version; as

640-531: A harmonium on "The Garden" from his 2000 solo album Open the Door . Greg Weeks and Tori Amos have both used the instrument on their recordings and live performances. The Damned singer Dave Vanian bought a harmonium for £49 and used it to compose "Curtain Call", the 17-minute closing track from their 1980 double LP The Black Album . In 1990, Depeche Mode used a harmonium on a version of their song " Enjoy

720-586: A harmonium. Many other artists soon employed the instrument in their music, including; Pink Floyd on the title song " Chapter 24 " of their first album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn in 1967 , Elton John on his 1973 album Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player , 1976's Blue Moves , the 1978 album A Single Man , and 1995's Made in England . German singer Nico was closely associated with

800-512: A minimum of upkeep. These features were so attractive that by 1840 there were forty melodeon builders in the United States, with an annual product of $ 646,975, but reports listed only twenty pipe organ builders, with an annual product of $ 324,750 [13,p.132]" Cyrill Demian 's (see below) patent of 1829 however states that the reeds in his instrument "were known for more than 200 years as Regale, Zungen, Schnarrwerk, in organs." He compares

880-595: A museum in Munich. In the United States , organ builder William M. Goodrich is often claimed to have invented the free reed. He tells that he worked in 1810 to 1812 with Johann Nepomuk Mälzel 's Pan Harmonicon that was sent to Boston and then exhibited in several towns. Mälzel had a very good relationship to Vogler while in Europe so his Pan Harmonicon used free reeds. It is not known with certainty whether Mälzel

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960-513: A pedal harmonium borrowed from lyricist Peter Sinfield on the title track of the progressive rock band's 1971 album Islands . More recently Roger Hodgson from Supertramp used his harmonium on many of the group's songs including "Two of Us" from Crisis? What Crisis? , "Fool's Overture" from Even in the Quietest Moments... , the title track to their 1979 album Breakfast in America and "Lord Is It Mine". Hodgson also used

1040-430: A reed organ with pressure bellows is referred to as a harmonium, whereas in continental Europe, any reed organ is called a harmonium regardless of whether it has pressure or suction bellows. As reed organs with pressure bellows were more difficult to produce and therefore more expensive, North American and British reed organs and melodeons generally use suction bellows and operate on vacuum. Reed organ frequencies depend on

1120-482: A single TRS 1/4" jack output . As early as 1968, Hohner sold a "Professional" model of its Melodica with a built-in pickup. Melodicas range in price from under US$ 20 for a simple, plastic instrument to several thousand dollars for a rare, custom-made or antique model. The melodica was first used as a serious musical instrument in the 1960s by composers such as Steve Reich , in his piece titled Melodica (1966). Brazilian multi-instrumentalist Hermeto Pascoal developed

1200-553: A technique consisting of singing while playing the melodica, resulting in a wide tonal and harmonic palette. Jamaican dub and reggae musician Augustus Pablo popularized it in the 1970s, and his son Addis Pablo takes after him in the same genres. The American musician Jon Batiste was often seen playing a melodica on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert . Funk keyboardist Bernie Worrell played melodica on multiple recordings in Bootsy Collins 's discography. The instrument

1280-456: A wider range of tones, and the cabinets of those intended for churches and affluent homes were often excellent pieces of furniture. Several million reed organs and melodeons were made in the US and Canada between the 1850s and the 1920s, some of which were exported. The Cable Company , Estey Organ , and Mason & Hamlin were popular manufacturers. Alongside the furniture-sized instruments of

1360-455: A year. By 1866, over 50,000 instruments were being produced yearly by Tula and neighbouring villages, and by 1874 the yearly production rate was over 700,000. By the 1860s, Novgorod , Vyatka and Saratov Governorates also had significant accordion production. By the 1880s, the list included Oryol , Ryazan , Moscow , Tver , Vologda , Kostroma , Nizhny Novgorod , Simbirsk and others, and many of these places created their own varieties of

1440-582: Is a type of organ using free-reeds that generates sound as air flows past the free-reeds, the vibrating pieces of thin metal in a frame. Specific types of pump organs include the harmonium using pressure system, suction reed organ using vacuum system, and the Indian harmonium ; the historical types include the Kunstharmonium  [ de ] and the American reed organ ; the earliest types include

1520-661: Is also associated with the Inti Raymi festival in Otavalo , Ecuador. Melodicas are classified primarily by the range of the instrument. Melodicas with different ranges have slightly different shapes. The melodica is known by various names, often at the whim of the manufacturer. Melodion ( Suzuki ), Triola (Seydel), Melodika (Apollo), Melodia (Diana), Pianica ( Yamaha ), Melodihorn ( Samick ), Melodyhorn (Angel), Diamonica (Bontempi), Pianetta (Guerrini), face piano , and Clavietta (Borel/Beuscher) are just some of

1600-476: Is claimed for Mr. James H. Bazin, an ingenious musician and mechanic, of Canton, Mass. […] However,[…] as will be observed […] Mr. Bazin was not the man. The account referred to contains the following :— " Late in the year of 1821, some young men from a neighboring town, brought a small, round, brass pipe, with the letter A marked on it, and a piece of thin brass screwed on one side; which brass appeared to have been made to vibrate through an opening about one-half

1680-475: Is held in both hands whereas a reed organ is usually positioned on the floor in a wooden casing (which might make it mistakable for a piano at the very first glimpse). Reed organs are operated either with pressure or with suction bellows. Pressure bellows permit a wider range to modify the volume, depending on whether the pedaling of the bellows is faster or slower. In North America and the United Kingdom,

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1760-433: Is number: 412.13 (a member of interruptive free aerophones). Free reed instruments are contrasted with non-free or enclosed reed instruments, where the timbre is fully or partially dependent on the shape of the instrument body, Hornbostel–Sachs number: 42 ( flute , reed , and brass ). The following illustrations depict the type of reed typical of harmonicas , pitch pipes , accordions , and reed organs as it goes through

1840-537: Is off stage. When he conducted it in Weimar on 21 February 1855, it was played by Franz Liszt (Bloom, p. 474, n. 3). A mechanic who had worked in the factory of Alexandre in Paris emigrated to the United States and conceived the idea of a suction bellows, instead of the ordinary bellows that forced the air outward through the reeds. Beginning in 1885, the firm of Mason & Hamlin , of Boston made their instruments with

1920-418: Is particularly sensitive to inaccuracies of intonation. And as its vibrators also admit of a delicate and durable tuning, it appeared to me peculiarly suitable for experiments on a more perfect system of tones." Using two manuals and two differently tuned stop sets, he was able to simultaneously compare Pythagorean to just and to equal-tempered tunings and observe the degrees of inharmonicity inherent to

2000-450: Is the Jew's harp , an instrument known to many cultures throughout the world, and by many names (e.g., k'uang in ancient China). In this instrument, the main sound producer is the vibrating reed tongue itself, rather than the air flow. Among the ancient instruments, the khene of Laos , the shēng of China and the later shō version of Japan have survived to modern times. The sheng

2080-412: The ancestor of pump organs began as the types of pipe organs ( positive , portative ) using the resonance-pipes powered by the bellows ( i.e. pumped pipe organs). In the 17th century on the small reed-pipe organs called regal , these reed-pipes were replaced by the beating- reeds , and its form is closer to the later rocking melodeon , the early small pump organs or the early accordions. In

2160-568: The church organ , which may be played on a harmonium as well, because they have a small enough range and use fewer stops. For example, Bach 's Fantasia in C major for organ BWV 570 is suitable for a four-octave harmonium. Other examples include: Harmoniums have been used in western popular music since at least the 1960s. John Lennon played a Mannborg harmonium on the Beatles ' hit single " We Can Work It Out ", released in December 1965, and

2240-631: The physharmonica and the seraphine (for details, see Types ). The idea for the free reed was derived from the Chinese sheng through Russia after 1750, and the first Western free-reed instrument was made in 1780 in Denmark. More portable than pipe organs , free-reed organs were widely used in smaller churches and in private homes in the 19th century, but their volume and tonal range were limited. They generally had one or sometimes two manuals , with pedal-boards being rare. The finer pump organs had

2320-441: The pitch of the musical note produced. Of secondary importance to the pitch are the physical dimensions of the chamber in which the reed is fitted, and of the air flow. As an exception, the pitch of the Chinese bawu and hulusi are determined by fingering recorder-like tone holes along the instrument body. Various free reed instruments appear to have been invented since antiquity. The most likely precursor to free reed aerophones

2400-536: The 1990s the Hindu and Sikh-based devotional music known as kirtan , a 7th–8th century Indian music, popularly emerged in the West. The harmonium is often played as the lead instrument by kirtan artists; notably Jai Uttal who was nominated for a Grammy award for new-age music in 2004, Snatam Kaur , and Krishna Das who was nominated for a Grammy award for new age music in 2012. The Indian harmonium , also known as

2480-544: The 19th and 20th centuries, the Indian harmonium became integral to Indian music, widely used in devotional genres such as qawwali, ghazal, kirtan, and bhajan. Its lightweight design, portability, and ease of learning contributed to its widespread adoption among Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims for devotional purposes. Notably, it also found popularity in the Western yoga subculture, thanks to figures like Krishna Das and Jai Uttal. In

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2560-471: The 20th century, the harmonium faced controversy in Indian classical music due to technical limitations such as the inability to produce slurs , gamaka , and meend . Despite this, it became the instrument of choice for North Indian classical vocal genres, supported by its ease of learning and suitability for group singing. The harmonium's fixed pitches and limitations led to its ban from All India Radio from 1940 to 1971. However, it continued to be favored in

2640-609: The Hammond Pro 44 or the Ballone Burini Eolina P45, with 44 and 45 keys respectively. As a free reed instrument , the melodica produces sound by pushing air past individual reeds corresponding to each playable note. When a key is pressed, it opens a valve blocking its corresponding reed, allowing air to pass through it. The sound of each vibrating reed reverberates in the shell of the instrument, which may be made of plastic, timber or metal. Players can control

2720-680: The Pan Harmonnicon in New York and other cities. He […] traveled with the instrument from September 1811 until June 1812." 1823 Pan Harmonicun copied; In March, 1823, Mr. Goodrich undertook to complete, with the assistance of others, a Pan Harmonicon, in imitation of that of Maelzel. Mr. Savage, the proprietor of a Museum in Boylston Hall, had kept the latter for some time on exhibition in his Museum, and had made considerable progress in constructing one like it. After his death, it

2800-477: The Silence ". The Divine Comedy used a harmonium on "Neptune's Daughter" from their 1994 album Promenade . Sara Bareilles used the harmonium on her 2012 song "Once Upon Another Time". Motion Picture Soundtrack , the closing track to Radiohead 's 2000 album Kid A , makes heavy use of a harmonium pedal organ in a stark contrast to many other tracks on the album that are almost entirely electronic. During

2880-473: The Soviet Union ranged between 597,307 and 921,674 instruments, while the yearly production of piano accordions ranged between 7,124 and 120,313 instruments (averaging around 50,000). Additionally, there are other free-reed instruments, such as the well-known and versatile harmonica (one of the smallest free reeds). The harmonium , or pump-organ, has numerous forms, including the orthotonophonium and

2960-440: The Western yoga and kirtan sub-cultures . During the first half of the 18th century, a free-reed mouth organ called a sheng was brought to Russia. That instrument received attention due to its use by Johann Wilde . The instrument's free-reed was unknown in Europe at the time, and the concept quickly spread from Russia across Europe. Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein (1723–1795), professor of physiology at Copenhagen ,

3040-466: The Western and Indian harmoniums and the reed organ. In 1875, Hermann von Helmholtz published his seminal book, On the Sensations of Tone , in which he used the harmonium extensively to test different tuning systems: "Among musical instruments, the harmonium, on account of its uniformly sustained tone, the piercing character of its quality of tone, and its tolerably distinct combinational tones ,

3120-406: The advantage of providing clear overtones that enabled the reliable counting of beats by two listeners, one per note. However, Rayleigh acknowledged that maintaining constant pressure in the bellows is difficult and fluctuation of the pitch often occurs as a result. In the generation of its tones, a reed organ is similar to an accordion or concertina , but not in its installation, as an accordion

3200-537: The band used the instrument on other songs recorded during the sessions for their Rubber Soul album. They also used the instrument on the famous "final chord" of " A Day in the Life ", and on the song " Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! ", both released on the 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band . The group's hit single " Hello, Goodbye " and the track " Your Mother Should Know " were both written using

3280-476: The bands met, and it became natural for the bands to include a harmonium in their setup. A typical folk band then—particularly in Western Finland—consisted of violin(s), double bass and harmonium. There was a practical limitation that prevented playing harmonium and accordion in the same band: harmoniums were tuned to 438 Hz, while accordions were tuned to 442 Hz. Some key harmonium players in

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3360-416: The blowing pressure; the fundamental frequency decreases with medium pressure compared to low pressure, but it increases again at high pressures by several hertz for the bass notes measured. American reed organ measurements showed a sinusoidal oscillation with sharp pressure transitions when the reed bends above and below its frame. The fundamental itself is nearly the mechanical resonance frequency of

3440-475: The colonies of the European powers in this period not only because it was easier to ship the instrument out to where it was needed, but it was also easier to transport overland in areas where good-quality roads and railways may have been non-existent. An added attraction of the harmonium in tropical regions was that the instrument held its tune regardless of heat and humidity, unlike the piano. This "export" market

3520-441: The different temperaments . He subdivided the octave to 28 tones, to be able to perform modulations of 12 minor and 17 major keys in just intonation without going into harsh dissonance that is present with the standard octave division in this tuning. This arrangement was difficult to play on. Additional modified or novel instruments were used for experimental and educational purposes; notably, Bosanquet 's Generalized keyboard

3600-403: The earlier regal . A harmonium-like instrument was exhibited by Gabriel-Joseph Grenié (1756–1837) in 1810. He called it an orgue expressif (expressive organ), because his instrument was capable of greater expression, as well as of producing a crescendo and diminuendo . Alexandre Debain improved Grenié's instrument and gave it the name harmonium when he patented his version in 1840. There

3680-414: The electronic organ in the mid-1930s spelled the end of the harmonium's success in the West, although its popularity as a household instrument had already declined in the 1920s as musical tastes changed . The Hammond organ could imitate the tonal quality and range of a pipe organ while retaining the compact dimensions and cost-effectiveness of the harmonium as well as reducing maintenance needs and allowing

3760-465: The hand harmonium or vaja, is a small and portable hand-pumped reed organ that gained popularity in the Indian subcontinent. It arrived in India during the mid-19th century, potentially introduced by missionaries or traders. Adapted by Indian craftsmen, the harmonium was modified to be played on the floor, in alignment with the traditional Indian music style, and to be more compact and portable. Throughout

3840-425: The harmonium is riveted from a metal frame and is subjected to airflow, which is pumped from the bellows through the reservoir, pushing the reed and bringing it to self-exciting oscillation and to sound production in the direction of airflow. This particular aerodynamics is nonlinear in that the maximum displacement amplitude in which the reed can vibrate is limited by fluctuations in damping forces , so that

3920-413: The harmonium, using it as her main instrument, during the late 60s and 70s, on albums such as The Marble Index , Desertshore and The End... . Donovan employed the harmonium on his 1968 album The Hurdy Gurdy Man where he played it in droning accompaniment on the song "Peregrine", and where it was also played on his song "Poor Cow" by John Cameron . Robert Fripp of King Crimson played

4000-406: The instrument's volume with air pressure. Unlike most wind instruments, the melodica can play multiple notes simultaneously, limited only by the amount of air available. An external microphone can be used to amplify the instrument or record its sound. Hammond's Pro-44 melodion and Pro 24-B bass melodion each have built-in dynamic microphones which can be connected to a PA system or recording device via

4080-514: The instrument. The first chromatic piano-like accordions in Russia were built in 1871 by Nikolay Ivanovich Beloborodov. In 1907, St. Petersburg master accordion maker V. S. Sterlingov created a chromatic button accordion for the player Ya. F. Orlandskiy-Titarenko featuring 52 melody keys and 72 chords of the Stradella bass system . Orlandskiy-Titarenko called his new instrument the bayan (after

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4160-439: The late 1800s, the instrument was significantly popular across parts of South America , notably Argentina and Uruguay ; compared to the standard concertina, which was and is widely utilised in various genres of folk and traditional music, the bandoneon's original intended use was to only be played for Christian devotional or religious ceremonies, such as masses (liturgy), weddings, and other related holy or sacred events. In

4240-523: The legendary bard Boyan ), and it was the ancestor of the modern instrument with that name. However, its layout on the melody side was different from the layout of the modern bayan. The modern bayan's B-system layout (or "Moscow system") became more popular than the early instrument's "Leningrad system" (which was more similar to the Khromka garmon ) around 1930–35. Between 1953 and 1968, the yearly production of button accordions ( garmons and bayans ) in

4320-475: The length of the pipe, but which had been broken off near the screw. They had borrowed this pipe from a singing-master in Boston, and wished to have Mr. Bazin repair it, […] We have a legend, in which it is asserted that the free reed was the invention of a German shoemaker [Maelzel], who, captivated with the sweet sounds produced by it,[…], From 1833, Prescott built similar instruments. In 1831 Prescott […]. On

4400-501: The new rise of Nordic folk have been Timo Alakotila and Milla Viljamaa . In the Netherlands, the introduction of the harmonium triggered a boom in religious house music. Its organ-like sound quality allowed Reformed families to sing psalms and hymns at home. A lot of new hymns were composed expressly for voice and harmonium, notably those by Johannes de Heer . The harmonium repertoire includes many pieces written originally for

4480-623: The number of manufacturers grew, this led to some instruments having hugely complex arrays of levers, cranks, rods and shafts, which made replacement with an electronic instrument even more attractive. The last mass-producer of harmoniums in North America was the Estey company, which ceased manufacture in the mid-1950s; a couple of Italian companies continued into the 1970s. As the existing stock of instruments aged and spare parts became hard to find, more and more were either scrapped or sold. It

4560-539: The overwhelming power and strong accents of wind instruments". Harmonium compositions are available by European and American composers of classical music. It was also used often in the folk music of the Appalachians and South of the United States. Harmoniums played a significant part in the new rise of Nordic folk music, especially in Finland. In the late 1970s, a harmonium could be found in most schools where

4640-405: The peti or samvadini (the Indian floor harmonium, used often as accompaniment in Indian classical music performances). The martinshorn hails from Germany, while the melodica has seen many applications across numerous styles of music, including reggae and Caribbean music. The bandoneon (Spanish: bandoneón ), a slightly larger concertina, was named by German inventor Heinrich Band ; by

4720-467: The reed obstructs the airflow, which reduces or eliminates the low-pressure region and allows the reed to flex back. Each time the reed passes through the frame, it interrupts air flow. These rapid, periodic interruptions of the air flow create the audible vibrations perceived by the listener. In a free-reed instrument, it is generally the physical characteristics of the reed itself, such as mass, length, cross-sectional area, and stiffness, which determine

4800-412: The reed. The overtones of the instrument are harmonics of the fundamental, rather than inharmonic, although a weak inharmonic overtone (6.27 f ) was reported too. The fundamental frequency comes from a transverse mode , whereas weaker higher transverse and torsional modes were measured too. Any torsional modes are excited because of a slight asymmetry in the reed's construction. During attack, it

4880-481: The reeds used by him with beating reeds. The earliest history of the accordion in Russia is poorly documented. Nevertheless, according to Russian researchers, the earliest known simple accordions were made in Tula, Russia by Timofey Vorontsov from 1820, and Ivan Sizov from 1830. By the late 1840s, the instrument was already very widespread; together the factories of the two masters were producing 10,000 instruments

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4960-462: The reformed classical music of the early 20th century. The harmonium is popular to the present day, an important instrument in many genres of Indian , Pakistani , and Bangladeshi music . For example, it is a staple of vocal North Indian classical music and Sufi Muslim Qawwali concerts. In the view points of preservation of cultural properties, maintenance and restoration, the pump organs are often categorized into several types. Historically

5040-510: The related woodwind instruments , a vibrating reed is used to set a column of air in vibration within the instrument. In such instruments, the pitch is primarily determined by the effective length of that column of air. Although the Chinese sheng , Japanese sho and Laotian khene have pipes, the pipes do not determine the pitch. In these instruments, the pipes serve as resonating chambers. Reed organ Hand-pumped: Regal , Indian harmonium , accordion The pump organ or reed organ

5120-431: The resultant sound pressure is rather constant. Additionally, there is a threshold pumping pressure, below which the reed vibration is minimal. Within those two thresholds, there is an exponential growth and decay in time of reed amplitudes . The harmonium was considered by Curt Sachs to be an important instrument for music of Romanticism (1750s–1900), which "vibrated between two poles of expression" and "required

5200-497: The same time in Paris in 1807. From there, Mälzel went to Regensburg and Vienna, where he constructed a new Panharmonicon and the mechanischer Trompeter ; after that he went on tour again to Paris, London and other places; maybe he went for the first time to Boston and New York as well, but up to now we don't know of any notice in a newspaper about it. Friedrich Kaufmann, a clock maker, went back home to Dresden and copied Mälzel's machines. The mechanischer Trompeter still can be seen in

5280-413: The scale of a pipe organ, but without the physical size or volume of such an instrument. For missionaries, chaplains in the armed forces, travelling evangelist etc., reed organs that folded up into a container the size of a very large suitcase or small trunk were made; these had a short keyboard and few stops, but they were more than adequate for keeping hymn singers more or less on pitch. The invention of

5360-575: The sides of the pipes inspired the organ builder Kirsnick to fit similar reeds into portable organs. In 1780 Kirsnick moved to Saint Petersburg improved these new organ pipes to an adjustable pitch with a hook. Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein also built his speaking machine in Copenhagen and he was in contact with Kirsnick. Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein got an award for the machine in Petersburg but he never moved to Petersburg. His machine or

5440-561: The suction bellows, and this method of construction soon superseded all others in America. The term melodeon was applied to concert saloons in the Victorian American West because of the use of the reed instrument. The word became a common designation of that type of resort that offered entertainment to men. Harmoniums reached the height of their popularity in the West in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They were especially popular in small churches and chapels where

5520-513: The variants. When a recording technician unfamiliar with the melodica called it a "hooter", the band the Hooters took that as their name. Free reed aerophone A free reed aerophone is a musical instrument that produces sound as air flows past a vibrating reed in a frame. Air pressure is typically generated by breath or with a bellows . In the Hornbostel–Sachs system, it

5600-490: The west, smaller designs exist. The portable, hand-pumped Indian harmonium, adapted by Indians from Western designs like the guide-chant in the 19th century, soon became a major instrument on the Indian Subcontinent . The Indian harmonium is widely used by Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims for devotional genres like qawwali , ghazal , kirtan and bhajan . They are also commonly used in Indian classical music and in

5680-748: Was concurrent development of similar instruments. Jacob Alexandre and his son Édouard introduced the orgue mélodium in 1844. Hector Berlioz included it in his Grand traité d'instrumentation et d'orchestration modernes , published in Paris by Schoenberger, [1843?] or [1844?], in an «Instruments nouveaux» section on pp. 290–92, and in the 1856 reprint, found on pp. 472–77 in Peter Bloom's critical edition published by Bärenreiter, Vol.24, in Kassel and New York, 2003. Berlioz also wrote about it in several subsequent journals (Bloom, p.472, nn. 1 & 2). He used it in 1 work: L'enfance du Christ, Part 1, scene vi, where it

5760-423: Was constructed in 1873 for use with a 53-tone scale . In practice, that harmonium was constructed with 84 keys, for convenience of fingering . Another famous reed organ that was evaluated was built by Poole . Lord Rayleigh also used the harmonium to devise a method for indirectly measuring frequency accurately, using approximated known equal temperament intervals and their overtone beats . The harmonium had

5840-523: Was credited with the first free-reed instrument made in the Western world, after winning the annual prize in 1780 from the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg. According to Curt Sachs , Kratzenstein suggested that the instrument be made, but that the first organ with free reeds was made by Abbé Georg Joseph Vogler in Darmstadt . The harmonium's design incorporates free reeds and derives from

5920-489: Was determined to complete it. Mr. Goodrich was employed, and it was finished in May, 1824. From November, 1824, till sometime in 1825, he was chiefly employed in the exhibition of this instrument; There is a story that in 1821 James H. Bazin repaired a free reed pipe and used this type of reeds for constructing, in 1836, the "lap organ". In an article in " The Musical World and Times " […] the invention of this class of instruments

6000-456: Was done by different organ builders, and very many people were involved, so it is nearly impossible that any organ builder in Europe did not know about free reeds after 1800. In the two years from 1802 to 1804 in Vienna, he spent time with Johann Nepomuk Mälzel and Mälzel changed the type of reeds used in his Panharmonicon to free reed pipes . Vogler, Maelzel and Friedrich Kaufmann were then at

6080-516: Was not uncommon for harmoniums to be "modernised" by having electric blowers fitted, often very unsympathetically. The majority of Western style harmoniums today are in the hands of enthusiasts, but the Indian harmonium remains popular in South Asia. Modern electronic keyboards can emulate the sound of the pump organ. The acoustical effects described below are a result of the free-reed mechanism. Therefore, they are essentially identical for

6160-546: Was personally in America around 1811. What is clear is that he arrived New York on February 7, 1826, which might have been either his first or his second visit to the New World. He also visited Boston around that time. "In June 1811 a curious instrument called a Pan Harmonicon was brought to Boston. It was invented by Maelzel, whose name is usually linked with the Metronome. William Goodrich was employed to set up and exhibit

6240-435: Was shown that the reed produces most strongly the fundamental, along with a second transverse or torsional mode, which are transient. Radiation patterns and coupling effects between the sound box and the reeds on the timbre appear not to have been studied to date. The unusual reed-vibration physics have a direct effect on harmonium playing, as the control of its dynamics in playing is restricted and subtle. The free reed of

6320-449: Was sufficiently lucrative for manufacturers to produce harmoniums with cases impregnated with chemicals to prevent woodworm and other damaging organisms found in the tropics. At the peak of the instruments' Western popularity around 1900, a wide variety of styles of harmoniums were being produced. These ranged from simple models with plain cases and only four or five stops (if any at all), up to large instruments with ornate cases, up to

6400-651: Was traditionally made with bamboo pipes, and was first mentioned in the Shi Jing (11th to 7th centuries BC) of the Zhou Dynasty (c. 1050–256 BC). A free reed organ was invented in the Arab world in the 13th century, while the German Heinrich Traxdorf (fl. 15th century) of Nuremberg built one around 1460 AD. In Copenhagen, one of these instruments with brass pipes and free reeds in-caved into

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