I was watching old TV the other day, and low and behold, there was Barney Fife playing harmonica. I can't tell for sure if it really was Don Knotts playing, but it looks like it might be. (He moves up the harp as the melody goes up, etc.) Nothing brilliant, but fun anyway. The episode is about a goat that eats dynamite. Andy calls Barney's harp a 'French Harp'.
STME58, I like that. We used to have a cat that would come out of hiding when she heard singing. Most of the time it was like she wasn't even there. Some people visited for a couple days without even realizing she lived there, but start singing and she thought it was time to be pet. :)
If you have been around animals and instruments much you know that the goat coming into Barney's office to listen to that harp is not that far fetched.
My sister has a cat that seems to love music. I was not too surprised when the cat got up on my lap and sniffed at my hands when I was playing harp, But I was very surprised when the cat put it's nose right up the bell of my trumpet while I was playing!
There are still shows with music, even harp. This is from 2010 "The Office"
I have wondered if folks quick making music because so much good recorded music is availble and is not so portable, but the sucess of stores like Guitar Center indicates otherwise.
Goldbrick, featuring a stealth electric no less! An acoustic guitar that can play electric even when it's not plugged into an amp!
I know one of the big issues playing music in shows is copyright, especially since the rules are changing with TV on demand and episodes on YouTube. I know it took forever to get the rights to make DVDs of WKRP in Cincinnati, and one recent show that featured music, Glee, was constantly causing controversy by not securing copyright permissions. Several times they took under the radar musicians music, or at least their arrangements and used them without permision and then argued, 'Hey, stop complaining, we gave you exposure' (Without that critical component of exposure- including names in the credits!)
I wonder the origin of 'French Harp', since in its modern form harmonica is a German thing. I wonder if perhaps was renamed during the war periods, like Freedom Fries.
I have heard people making the distinction between folk 'harmonica' and blues 'harp'.
I once ran the word harmonica through Google translate for each language and made a list. I have it around here somewhere. It's interesting- Google search is language sensitive, so if you type in the Arabic word for harmonica you get mostly harmonica videos from the Middle East; in Chinese you get Chinese videos. It's a neat way to see what else is out there. There are a lot of great players, blues and otherwise in Asia, and I think one of my favorite was Iranian. There was a guy playing guitar and harp at the same time only he didn't have a rack, so he'd carefully stacked a pile of books on a table and inserted his harp between the pages of one of the top ones to hold it in place. I'm always amazed the ingenuity people use to solve problems.
"French harp" origin is uncertain (last time I checked). The leading theory seems to be that "French" in this context means "exotic/imported/foreign" kind of thing. Goes back to the 19th Century I think. But no harmonicas made in the US back then (right?) ... maybe "French harp" to distinguish it from "jawharp"???
Last Edited by Frank101 on May 14, 2016 4:31 PM
The breadth and depth of the information on Pat Missin's site, linked to by Albey, is amazing. I bought his book, "How to Play Bawu and Hulusi" off his site because the book I got in China from the music store was in Chinese and I could read nothing but the music.
These instruments are obliquely related to the harmonica in that they have a reed and are diatonic. I have not tried them out on the goats yet.