Hohner Big River Harp MS, Bb harmonica

General

Modern contemporary music is very much influenced by the music of the early last century. Around the 1920s, a new style of music was developed on the Mississippi Delta; the blues. This was often about hard life in America. Workers at that time had to work a lot for meagre wages, so afterwards they got together to make music and share their suffering. The blues was born. A harmonica is indispensable in this style of music. The Hohner Big River Harp MS keeps the sound of that era alive and lets you enjoy the beautiful raw tones that flex easily time and time again.

Hohner harmonica

The renowned German brand is a guarantee of quality. For over 150 years, Hohner has been competing when it comes to professional harmonicas. In Germany, harmonicas are still handmade and checked every day. According to Hohner, only humans are capable of making a good harmonica, as machines have no feeling. A genuine Hohner harmonica can therefore be distinguished from thousands. German solidity, combined with craftsmanship and playing comfort provide the pleasure that many professional harmonica players know as the addiction to the harmonica.

The Big River Harp MS as a cross harp

Harmonicas come in many different tunings. This is important because, well, a harmonica is not that big. This Big River Harp MS, for instance, measures just 10.5 centimetres. Without bending the tones, you can get 20 different tones out of this harmonica. The lowest note is a Bb3 and the highest is a Bb6. So this harmonica has a range of three octaves. If you suck on the second position and blow on the third, you should hear the same tone. You can use this as a reference tone to find out which key you can best play along with with this harmonica. Diatonic harmonicas are used as cross harps, which means that your harmonica is tuned in a different key to the music. The tone you will hear in this experiment, and therefore the key for which this harmonica is best suited, is an F.