harmonica

Harmonica derives from Latin harmonica, the feminine of harmonicus ('relating to harmony'), from Greek ἁρμονική (harmonikē), derived from ἁρμονία (harmonía, 'a fitting together, agreement, concord'). The Greek harmonía comes from ἁρμόζω (harmózō, 'to fit together, to join'), from a root related to ἁρμός (harmós, 'joint, connection'). The word thus names a fitting-together — of parts, of sounds, of pitches vibrating in mathematical relationship. The term harmonica was applied to various instruments before settling on the small mouth-blown free-reed instrument that became its exclusive modern referent; Benjamin Franklin used 'armonica' for his glass harmonica (a keyboard instrument using rotating glass bowls) in 1762.

The modern mouth harmonica — the instrument called 'harmonica' in American English and 'mouth organ' in British English — was invented in 1821 by Christian Friedrich Ludwig Buschmann in Berlin, who called his version the Mundäoline. Simultaneously, a Bohemian instrument maker named Richter developed the standard diatonic tuning still used today, in which a single row of holes plays two scales — one on the blow, one on the draw — allowing chord clusters and scales with simple breath direction. Within decades, manufacturers in Trossingen, Germany (particularly Matthias Hohner, who began production in 1857) were manufacturing harmonicas at industrial scale and exporting them globally.

The harmonica's global penetration was extraordinarily rapid. Matthias Hohner sent harmonicas to relatives who had emigrated to America, and by the 1870s the instrument had arrived in the Mississippi Delta and Appalachian mountains where it encountered the musical traditions that would transform it: African American blues, white country music, and their many hybrid forms. The harmonica's portability and cheapness — and crucially, the technique of 'bending' notes by altering mouth shape and airflow to produce pitches between the instrument's fixed notes — made it the expressive instrument of choice for musicians who could not afford pianos or guitars. Blues harmonica players like Sonny Boy Williamson, Little Walter, and Sonny Terry developed a vocabulary of bends, wails, and growls that had nothing to do with harmonic concord.

The same instrument that German craftsmen designed for parlor music became the voice of Delta blues and American folk music. Bob Dylan played harmonica on his first album in 1962; the instrument became inseparable from his image and from the folk revival it represented. In blues, harmonica players learned to play in the 'cross harp' position — playing in a different key than the instrument's nominal key — to access a different set of available bends and to align the instrument's natural scale with the blues scale. This was not playing the harmonica correctly; it was playing it expressively, discovering that the constraints of the instrument's design could be turned into vehicles for emotional intensity. The name promised harmony; the blues found something rawer.