The jew's harp was one of the most popular instruments in the last millennium. The drum is one of the oldest musical instruments, and it was of course also known in Scandinavia, however, there has not been found any drums so far. It is speculated that the drums the Vikings used were something similar to either the Irish bodhran drum or the skin-headed drums used by the Sami people in northern Scandinavia. In Holland it was Peter Kersten who intensified himself in repairing Jew's harps with defection. His concentration on re-making led him to create Jew's harps out of recycled materials. In the meantime he has manufactured several Jew's harps out of stainless steel, reinforcing- and driving-shaft steel. He applied also the steel of lawn rakes and the various metals of saw-blades, spatulas (for baking), doubled-ended spanners and feeler-blades. Jew's harp is indeed an extraordinary musical instrument. Tiny in shape, simple in techniques, it is very powerful and magical in sound production. Sounds ok and fairly easy to play. However, this is not tuned. It lands somewhere between an F and an F# making it unusable to play with other musicians or instruments. The Kohkin is so to say the Katana among the Jew's Harps in our collection. Her precision playability is just amazing. She is wonderfully well balanced - soft and taut at the same time. Additionally this Jew's Harp has a very wide range of harmonics. The reeds vibration last relatively long, but can easily be regulated or stopped. An outstanding yakut khomusist Spiridon Spiridonovich Shishigin was born on the 1-st of August in 1950, in Tabaga village Megino-Кangalasskiy nomad camp. He is a school director in Pokrovsk village. Spiridon Spiridonovich developed his skills of playing khomus since childhood. So he achieved great level of playing, and now he is one of "virtuosos of the world" - the winners of the competition, which took place during the second international congress of khomus music. A member of a board of directors of International center of khomus (jew's harp) music. Let me represent an interview of this great musician. Jew's harps are found just about everywhere in Russia. Bamboo and wooden lamellate types are found in the Pacific, Southeast Asia and in China. The morchang of Rajasthan are manufactured by the blacksmiths and played by men who belong to the communities of snake charmers as well as by a few professional folk musicians. In Northern China the classical form of the Jew's Harp is an iron idioglot lamellate kind. Open your throat. To get the most amplified sound out of the Jew's harp, you must open your throat. It's common to open your throat if you are chugging a liquid. Do this same technique with your throat while playing the Jew's harp. Two unique jew's harps from master Gotovtsev I. N. See more. 2. Closed sounds can be produced by different ways, but the best one is to close your glottis. Closed notes should be played without breathing. Close your vocal fold (cords) and then use air pressure to open your vocal chords and say "A". Same closed technique are used in jew's harp closed sounds. To develop the glottis you can do light coughing, hiccupping, laughing. Anyway the air flow should be stopped somewhere at the top of your throat. To change the pitch you need to change of your mouth cavity, continuing to keep the throat closed. Now we've already established that, compared to a jaw harp, the guitar is lame. But La Beau is right: it is the same principle. You use your mouth as the acoustical chamber for the harp. To hold it in place, you use your teeth or lips, which must be slightly parted to let the reed (or twanger) vibrate. Then, by changing the shape of your mouth, you can create different overtones. A khomusist improviser can exactly repeat the sounds of spring snow drips, fast horses' clatter exciting the participants of the summer holiday Ysyakh, cuckoo informing about the beginning of the anticipated summer, drum rolling of a woodpecker one quiet autumn morning, whistle of the wind walking over the boundless snow tundra space. jew's harp in popular music antique jew's harp for sale best jaw harp
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