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Hohner's first harmonicas?
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Tom585
21 posts
Mar 08, 2017
7:19 PM
Does anyone know what kind(s) of harmonicas Hohner made when they first started in 1857 and shortly after? Were they making Richter-tuned 10 hole diatonics?
nacoran
9393 posts
Mar 08, 2017
8:36 PM
That's an interesting question. Pat Missin goes into the history of harmonicas quite a bit, but it is mostly 'what influenced people to make a harmonica' and then a jump to the 1896 period forward.

http://www.patmissin.com/history/history.html
http://www.patmissin.com/ffaq/q38.html

As great as his site is, the navigation/layout seem to be stuck in the early days of the internet! :)

David Payne knows quite a bit about the history of harmonica, but I don't know where he went off to. He used to post here regularly.

Winslow would probably know more about early harp too.

This site says Richter made the modern diatonic in 1825, but the article seems sloppy, including saying the harmonica was invented in China. (The sheng was invented in China, which is an ancestor of the harmonica, but that's like saying the synthesizer was invented in Italy because that's where the piano was invented.)

http://harmonicatunes.com/harmonica-history/

The legends I've heard either trace back to Richter or Buschman... actually, this article seems to get some of the later stuff right, so maybe it's right on the earlier stuff? Citations needed...

http://danielandtheharmonica.com/harp-history.htm




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WinslowYerxa
1265 posts
Mar 08, 2017
11:36 PM
The stuff about Richter can't be traced - every lead evaporates. Both Pat Missin and Martin Haeffner have done considerable research on this and come up emptyhanded.

The Buschmann claim rests solely on a claim he made in a letter, describing something that is not really a harmonica. Joe Filisko mention having seen Buschmann's drawings and that the device depicted is hardly what we think of as a harmonica.

By the way, Missin deals with both these subjects at his website.

Richter: http://www.patmissin.com/ffaq/q37.html

Buschmann: http://www.patmissin.com/ffaq/q1.html (This page also gives a lot of early citations of harmonica-like inventions)

A good deal of the 19th and 20th century history of German harmonica manufacturers is available in the book Harmonica Makers of Germany and Austria by Martin Haeffner and Lars Lindenmueller.

I have an American instruction book from the 1870s that shows harmonicas with the Richter name on them, but the tuning scheme differs a bit from modern diatonic tuning in both the bottom and the top octaves.

I'm afraid that the early history is largely obscure. Hohner has a large company archive but it's unwieldy and difficult to access even by Hohner employees.

Why does no-one talk about Wilhelm Thie?

===========
Winslow

Check out my blog and other goodies at winslowyerxa.com
Harmonica For Dummies, Second Edition with tons of new stuff
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Last Edited by WinslowYerxa on Mar 12, 2017 8:45 AM
tmf714
3005 posts
Mar 09, 2017
6:06 AM
Great article here-

http://artistworks.com/blog/history-harmonica-part-1
tmf714
3006 posts
Mar 09, 2017
6:07 AM
There are two distinct types of free reed instruments. The type that is used in a harmonica can be described as heteroglottal - meaning the reed is attached to a separately-made reedplate. The other type of free reed instruments are idioglottal - the tongue of the reed is cut out of the reedplate which surrounds it.

For centuries, free reed wind instruments in various sizes and forms spread throughout South East Asia to the Phillippines and Thailand, and then later to Korea and Japan. It was not until the 18th century though that any free reed instruments made its way to Europe by travelers who brought them over from Asia.

harmonica history auraThe first known harmonicas to be produced in Europe were by a young German instrument maker named Christian Frederich Buschmann in 1820. He called it “Aura” (shown on the right) - it had a metal reed and you could only produce blow notes.

Five years later in 1825, a breakthrough occured: Joseph Richter developed the first modern diatonic harmonica with both blow notes and draw notes. Then things really got interesting...

harmonica history - richter

harmonica history - matthias hohner

Several bright minds over the course of European history contributed to the evolution of the harmonica, but it was Matthias Hohner, a clockmaker and successful businessman, who really revolutionized the manufacturing of harmonicas and made it readily available to the public (shown on the right).

Although his name is synonymous with the instrument, Matthias Hohner was not the first to manufacture harmonicas. He wasn't even a good harmonica player himself. As is often the case, he was simply a great businessman in the right place at the right time. He started his business in 1857, about 30 years after the first harmonica manufacturer which was in Vienna, Austria. He quickly bought out his competitors and started exporting the first Hohner harmonicas to the United States in 1862, just 5 years after opening. By the time his four sons took over for him, the company had grown to produce over 4 million harmonicas each year and was employing over 1,000 workers.

Hohner’s success made the harmonica much more popular and readily available to a new audience. In addition, Hohner made various improvements to the instrument which were crucial for the integration of the harmonica in many musical genres.

harmonica history - hohner factory

In 1896, the now classic Marine Band harmonica was introduced. Due to its tonal possibilities, it became one of the main instruments for playing blues and country music.



The Hohner company’s innovations did not stop there however. In 1910, they introduced the chromatic harmonica, enabling the player to perform music of all keys on one instrument.



As we’ll see later, an ambitious musician named Howard Levy would discover an unprecedented way to play diatonic harmonica... a way to reach all the notes of the scale, in any key using a process called overblowing.

Click here for Part 2 of... The History of Harmonica!
WinslowYerxa
1266 posts
Mar 09, 2017
7:39 AM
@tmf714 - Are you pasting from a website? The "click here" type of prompts seem to suggest that. If so, where are you quoting from?
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Winslow

Check out my blog and other goodies at winslowyerxa.com
Harmonica For Dummies, Second Edition with tons of new stuff
Join us in 2017 for SPAH in Tulsa!
tmf714
3007 posts
Mar 09, 2017
7:57 AM
Yes-it's from Artist Works Online-Howard is a regular there,as well as some other fantastic musicians-

Last Edited by tmf714 on Mar 09, 2017 7:57 AM
WinslowYerxa
1267 posts
Mar 09, 2017
9:38 AM
Thanks. And now I see I missed that above your quote. Unfortunately some of this is the same old repetition of lore that turns out to be impossible to substantiate. The stuff about Richter can't be documented, for instance. And Buschmann's claim is pretty thin. Also, I'm still looking for a source for that 1862 date for Hohner. Their own records seem to indicate 1868, per Hartmut Berghoff, who wrote a 600-plus page book on Hohner using their own archives.
===========
Winslow

Check out my blog and other goodies at winslowyerxa.com
Harmonica For Dummies, Second Edition with tons of new stuff
Join us in 2017 for SPAH in Tulsa!a
Tom585
22 posts
Mar 09, 2017
8:24 PM
In the most recent SPAH Harmonica Happenings, Joe Filisko says Richter's harmonica was in or before 1857. (I don't have the magazine with me so I'm not quoting exactly.) I thought that might be related to the start of Hohner.
OldGeezer
33 posts
Mar 11, 2017
2:31 PM
Old Hohners are hard to find for some reason. The oldest ones I know of are in "John Whiteman's Harmonica Anthology" (Google it). There are two really old Hohners from probably the 1870s buried in there. The first one is a 'Concert' harmonica. I forgot the model name of the other, but it's quite a ways further back.

It's also very possible that the earliest Hohners were nameless. That seems to have been quite common in the 70s and earlier.

I have a few instrument catalogs from the 1870s. None of them have Hohners listed. The earliest catalog I have that does list several Hohners is the 1884 Holcomb catalog.

John has a lot of great old harps listed from all the different makers, including a lot from Thie. It's well worth the look if you like old harmonicas.

Winslow, in your earliest reply you said that you have an instruction manual form 1870 or so. How can I get a copy?

Best,
Paul N.
Tonawanda, NY
WinslowYerxa
1268 posts
Mar 12, 2017
1:17 AM
@Tom585 - Filisko's HH article is a reprint of something he wrote about 20 years ago and reflects the state of understanding of harmonica history at that time. Some of of that information is outdated, as research since that time has brought new information to light that has changed the state of our understanding.

The date 1857 is the founding date of Hohner. He makes the statement that the RIchter system was invented "no later than 1857." This may be because Hohner started making harmonicas in that year, but we don't actually know what kind of harmonicas Hohner was making at that time. For a better understand of how very little we actually know about Richter, check out Pat Missin's essay on the subject at: http://www.patmissin.com/ffaq/q37.html

@OldGeezer - I found my copy by chance on eBay some years ago. It's Ryan's True Harmonica Instructor, published by the John Church Co., Cincinnati, Ohio. Checking the book, its copyright date is 1886, later than I remembered. Of its 48 pages, the first 11 following the title sheet are a generic primer on music theory and notation, the next 4 are harmonica instruction, and the remaining 23 pages are given to melodies in standard notation and a one-page index of tunes. It actually shows the current note layout for diatonics. The information about other note layouts comes, I think from another book I have in photocopy that I should dig up.
===========
Winslow
Check out my blog and other goodies at winslowyerxa.com
Harmonica For Dummies, Second Edition with tons of new stuff
Join us in 2017 for SPAH in Tulsa!

Last Edited by WinslowYerxa on Mar 12, 2017 8:46 AM
WinslowYerxa
1269 posts
Mar 12, 2017
2:38 PM
By the way, you can read and download a copy of
Ryan's True Harmonica Instructor here.
===========
Winslow

Check out my blog and other goodies at winslowyerxa.com
Harmonica For Dummies, Second Edition with tons of new stuff
Join us in 2017 for SPAH in Tulsa!

Last Edited by WinslowYerxa on Mar 12, 2017 2:39 PM
OldGeezer
34 posts
Mar 12, 2017
3:23 PM
Thanks, Winslow.

Best regards,
Paul N.
Tom585
23 posts
Mar 14, 2017
11:39 AM
Winslow,

I appreciate that you, and others, are researching the harmonica by looking for supported evidence. I teach a college class called "The Harmonica and the Blues" and finding harmonica history that I feel I can trust is a bit of a challenge.

Here's my academic question:

Are we sure there was a Richter?
OldGeezer
35 posts
Mar 14, 2017
5:27 PM
I'm sure that there was a person named Richter, but he had nothing to do with the way the notes are laid out. If I remember correctly, when the first concertina came out around 1845 it was using the so-called Richter system. So, it wasn't anything new. I think it was made by a German who was living in England.

I'll have to see if I can find where I put that information.

Regards,
Paul N.
OldGeezer
36 posts
Mar 14, 2017
5:57 PM
Anglo Concertina - Concertina.com
www.concertina.com/anglo/

Go there and scroll way down until you find the article about the first English language tutor for concertias from 1846.

Last Edited by OldGeezer on Mar 14, 2017 5:59 PM
OldGeezer
37 posts
Mar 15, 2017
5:47 AM
Anglo Concertina - Concertina.com
www?.concertina.com/anglo/
Documents in the Concertina Library about Anglo concertinas, including complete instruction books, new arrangements of ...

Google Anglo Concertina. Then scroll down to this one and click on it. Once there scroll down the list of articles until you get to the one about the first English language concertina tutor from 1846. There is also another article concerning one in German from 1835-40.
OldGeezer
38 posts
Mar 15, 2017
5:51 AM
I should have added to find the 10 button fingering charts in each article. The note layout is the same.
OldGeezer
39 posts
Mar 15, 2017
6:30 AM
An Annotated Catalogue of Historic European Free-Reed lnstruments from my Private Collection

Go to www.Concertina.com and find this. It's by Stephen Chalmers. There's a lot of neat stuff here, but scroll down to fig.8 - the Viennese Accordion ca.1835. It's fingering layout is the same as a harmonica.
MP
3426 posts
Mar 17, 2017
3:59 PM
I have enough trouble guessing the dates of versions my Hohner mouse ear diatonics. That's because it's impossible. I also own an early Hohner chromatic (1925?). It has the spring on the outside and the tuning is set up like the Koch model. Oh, it had rotted leather strips for wind savers.
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Have good day. M.A.P.
.

Last Edited by MP on Mar 17, 2017 4:01 PM
WinslowYerxa
1272 posts
Mar 17, 2017
4:16 PM
@MP - The outside spring was favored by old-timers and even some modern players. Leather valves are still found on many accordions but have been completely replaced by plastic on harmonicas; not sure when they switched.I've taken apart pre-war 270s with the star that had plastic valves, but they may have been retrofitted.

The diatonic-style tuning on 10-hole chromatics was used at least through the 1930s; I've seen instruction books from that period that show that layout still in use - for solo tuning you had to get a 12- or 16-hole model.
===========
Winslow

Check out my blog and other goodies at winslowyerxa.com
Harmonica For Dummies, Second Edition with tons of new stuff
Join us in 2017 for SPAH in Tulsa!

Last Edited by WinslowYerxa on Mar 17, 2017 4:17 PM
Tom585
25 posts
Mar 18, 2017
7:42 AM
I appreciate all of the historical information. It is not as simple as it is made out to be in many documents about the harmonica. In an effort to tell a direct and clear story of the development of the harmonica, I have misrepresented Richter to some extent. I will adjust!


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