The Facts

• Being a free-reed wind instrument, the harmonica is played by blowing in or sucking air out of the chambers by situating the lips over either individual or multiple holes. Inside each chamber (holes) are reeds. A chamber can have one or more reeds, based on the type of harmonica being played. The reeds are either made of brass or bronze and are only secured on one end so that the other end is very loose. When the air travels over the loose end and vibrates the reed, the appropriate note is played.
  
  

History of

• Harmonicas popped up in a time when free-reed instruments were at a global peak. Some claim that no one person can be credited with inventing the harmonica since similar objects were all being developed in America, Europe and the United Kingdom at the same time. It is cited that a German instrument maker named Christian Friederich Ludwig Bushmann created the harmonica in 1821 because of a letter he wrote in 1828 about the new instrument that he had created. But it's uncertain who first created the instrument.
  The harmonica started showing up in exhibition shows and Vienna shops in the early 1820s. It was at an exhibition show that German businessmen Meisel and Langhammer saw the invention and started producing hundreds of them in 1827. It wasn't long before there were other harmonica distributors. By 1855, C.A. Seydel Sohne, Christian Messner & Co, and Wurtt were the three major companies manufacturing harmonicas.
  The instruments made their way to mass production in 1857. A clockmaker named Matthias Hohner created a machine that would mass-produce them using a wooden comb. He became a major distributor to the United States in 1868 with the help of relatives who had emigrated there. Harmonicas became quickly popular to the music-loving Americans. Fans like Abraham Lincoln, Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid and many soldiers fighting in the Civil War were known to carry and play the instrument.
  
  

Evolution

• After the first shipment arrived in the United States around 1868, harmonicas and the way they were played evolved. The first type of harmonica developed was known as a diatonic harmonica, which means that it was designed to pay only one key. Soon, other types like chromatic (with a button-activated sliding bar) and tremolo (two reeds per note) were developed to give the player a more diverse range of notes.
  
  In the 1950s, many African-Americans started to migrate toward the North and took their southern music along with them. In cities like Chicago, Detroit and St. Louis, a new sound was rising. It was named "the blues," and many blues musicians used the harmonica as their instrument of choice. One musician, Sonny Boy Williamsom II, was well known and credited as creating the harmonica technique called the "cross-harp."
  
  Marion "Little Walter" Jacobs was known as the most influential harmonica player of all time. He was the first to start playing the harmonica near a microphone and cupping his hands around the instruments. This playing technique caused the air around the instrument to tighten and give off a power sound that is similar to a saxophone. Many harmonica players of today still use this technique.
  
  By the 1960s and 1970s, the decrease of the harmonica in blues music was solely based on the rise in the lead electric guitar. Still today, the harmonica is found in many music genres around the world.
  
  

Size

• Each reed in the chambers is pre-tuned to individual keynotes. The pre-determined tunes are based on the size of the reed. Low sounds are made from long reeds. For sounds of a higher pitch, shorter reeds are used. The reed can be reprogrammed by strong air being blown in or drawn out of the chamber.
  
  Sizes of the harmonica depend on the type of harmonica it is. Different types of harmonicas are diatonic, bass, orchestral, tremolo and chromatic. Diatonic tends to be smaller, carrying only one tune. The orchestral is usually the larger type.
  
  

Benefits

• Playing the harmonica has been known to have medical benefits. The strong inhaling and exhaling that is required for playing the harmonica has been known to build a stronger diaphragm. In fact, harmonica playing has been compared to the breathing exercise giving to COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) patients by pulmonary specialists for rehabilitation. Harmonicas have been incorporated into pulmonary rehabilitation centers all over the word. Because of this, the playing of instruments is heavily recommended as a source of exercise.