TO BEGIN WITH...
"What the heck is that thing?" It is a question that is asked often in regard to today's subject, and the question even led to one fellow's career. We are going to look at a reasonably modern instrument I've recently encountered and a similar, antique instrument that I first encountered around 1963, when I was six years old. The instrument in question is often called a "harmonium," though the terms "pump organ" and "reed organ" are also applied. You'll find out why later. The harmonium has a long history, and we'll start with that. But first, some housekeeping:
Let's deal with a grammatical matter: Technically speaking, in Latin, a word ending in "-ium" would normally be pluralized with "ia" in the nominitive or accusative case. I am going to take the easy way out and refer to the plural of harmonium in the way it is now popularly referred to, as "harmoniums."
Because I know I am dealing with an instrument that is barely known by most guitarists and engineers, I'm going to go into some detail. It's ironic because details on the harmonium are hard to come by, especially gathered in one place, so perhaps this article will serve as a fitting introduction and pull together some of those details as well.
So, off we go...
Courtesy Piano Prodigies
HARMONIUM HISTORY
The first instrument resembling the popular Victorian harmonium of the 1800s was displayed in France in 1810, although there were more removed precursors before. A Frenchman named Alexandre Debain patented the first official Harmonium (and the name, for that matter) in 1842. His device employed the idea of blowing air across free reeds with a pair of bellows. A mechanic who worked with Debain emigrated to the U.S. and modified the design to draw the air across the reeds with suction. Mason & Hamlin of Boston utilized this idea and made the first instruments on the suction principle, and that design spread throughout the United States. American companies referred to their instruments as "pump organs" to keep from violating the Debain "harmonium" name copyright. During the 1800s, the instrument spread throughout the U.S. and Europe and their colonies. Pump organs were quite popular in small churches where a pipe organ wasn't practical and were also popular as parlor instruments for well-to-do families. Many were delivered in ornate, hand-tooled cases. The peak of pump organ popularity came between 1890 and 1910. Around the end of that period, assembly lines began making pianos affordable to middle class families and a changeover began. Many pump organ companies simply converted over to making pianos. That revolution and the appearance of electric organs basically sounded the death knell for the pump organ in the West. Interestingly, much later during World War Two, the U.S. armed forces ordered lightweight, man-portable portable pump organs from the Estey Company for use in church services, in the field. They were painted green for the Army, grey for the Navy, and blue for the Army Air Corps.
Green. Must Be Army.
Meanwhile, back in the 1800s, the portable harmonium, much like the armed service design above, was brought to the Indian sub-continent, probably by missionaries. Interestingly, the European harmonium design was uncomfortable for Indian nationals to play. This was because Indian music was traditionally played while sitting on the floor while the European harmonium was intended to be played while sitting on a stool and pumping the bellows with the feet. Indian craftsmen duly modified and adapted the instrument so that it could be played sitting on the floor. They attached the bellows to the back of the instrument so that you played with one hand and pumped with the other. They also simplified and reduced the size of their version of the harmonium to reduce cost and make it more portable. Genius! The resultant form became extremely popular in Indian devotional music and became the defacto standard for the modern Delhi-style harmonium. In the period between the world wars, the movement toward decolonization and Indian independence grew. Many leaders in the movement decried the harmonium for its undeniable links to colonial influence. Meanwhile, Indian classical musicians were even less enamored of it because of its performance limitations, specifically that it didn't allow the micro-tonalities and slurs used by Indian classical music. Those two streams of thought led to the instrument being banned for a time on India's public radio networks. That apparently didn't stop its popularity amongst the common folk, where it has percolated along and is still quite popular.
But let's head west again, shall we? In more modern times, starting in the 1960s, the West saw a rise of interest in Eastern religions and yoga, partly introduced through the influence of the Beatles. After returning from a spiritual sojourn to India, the Beatles themselves featured various versions of both Eastern and Western harmoniums and other Indian instruments in several of their songs. That, in turn, led to an ironic return of interest in the harmonium in American, but this time in the form of the compact Delhi-style Indian portable harmonium. People got their hands on them and a couple of toy manufacturers even created horrible, tiny plastic versions. Hilarious. However, the serious instrument has become popular in the yoga and kirtan (chant) communities.
HOW DID I GET HERE?
There. I used that sentence in another review. Well, how did I get interested in the harmonium? I'm not into yoga. I don't chant. I'm about as Western as you can get without a cowboy hat. This is how it happened: Around 1905, my great-grandfather's little Methodist church needed an organ for their worship services. Being a well-to-do general contractor, my great-grandfather stepped up and purchased one for the church. He transmitted a telegram to the cable address of the world's largest pump organ manufacturer, Chicago Cottage Organs, to order a Style 96 organ. It was shipped to him via rail to the Southern Railway yard north of Jackson Avenue in Knoxville, TN. It would have been picked up at the freight terminal and transferred to the church by a wagon and team of horses.
The organ served for a number of years until the church grew to the point where it needed a larger auditorium and organ. At that point, the church kindly gave the organ back to the family. When that generation passed, it went to my grandparent's home. Around 1963, at the age of six, I came across this monster in my grandparent's living room. By then the Victorian finish had darkened and it loomed over me as an object of mystery. You can see the color that the finish had darkend to in the pic below, in the lower right-hand corner of the organ. My family would spend Sunday afternoons with my grandparents and I needed something to keep me busy. After I expressed an interest in the organ I was given a cursory tour of the controls and left to play. I fell in love with the growl of the lower notes and the ability to have octaves play together. This was the first musical instrument I ever played. I would fiddle with it endlessly until it drove everyone in the house crazy and I was summarily thrown off it. Everyone except my dear grandmother, that is, as she seemed to understand my fascination with it and my musical inclination. When my grandparents broke up housekeeping, the organ was moved to my parent's house and I tinkered with it there.
The Family's Chicago Cottage Model 96
The upper canopy was usually omitted for chapel organs.
Fast forward to a couple of years ago. When my mother moved into an assisted living facility she offered me the organ and I took it home. It had become a little wheezy so I dreamed of refurbishing it and using it in my recordings. I started doing research and assessing it. When I checked its tuning I discovered that there was a complication lurking within: because it predated the international tuning standard of A4=440 hz, the organ was tuned to A430, meaning that it clashed with all standard modern instruments that followed the A440 standard. It woud be prohibitively expensive to change all the reeds. Nevertheless, I continued to search for further info on pump organs. It was while researching the pump organ that I discovered the portable Indian harmonium, and a lightbulb went off in my mind. And the rest, as they say, was history.
INDIAN HARMONIUMS
To begin our discussion of Indian harmoniums we need to understand that there are two popular styles of basic hand-pumped Indian harmoniums: the Kolkata-style and the Delhi-style. The Kolkata style harmonium is a more complex harmonium than the Delhi-style and is more closely related to the European harmoniums introduced to India in the 1800s. It features a two-piece key system and often has more reed banks, stops, and keys than the Delhi-style. The Kolkata-style can also be purchased with scale-changing mechanisms. They can create a wonderfully complex, full, lush sound, but that comes at the expense of weight, size, cost (often twice that of a Delhi-style), complexity, and portability.
Delhi-Style Travel Harmonium, Courtesy Old Delhi Music
THE DELHI-STYLE HARMONIUM
The second type, the Delhi-style harmonium, is a further-simplified design and will be the subject of this study. It is a dual-reed, horizontal-reed, positive pressure instrument with one-piece keys and two bellows. When I say, dual-reed, I refer to it offering two bank-selectable brass reeds per key. The reeds are mounted horizontally in sounding chambers. The Delhi-style harmonium is operated on positive pressure like the original Debain instrument with the bellows pushing air through the reeds. It is played with foreshortened piano-type keys tuned in the standard Western twelve-tone scale. The larger Delhi-style studio or upright harmoniums offer forty-two keys starting at C2 on the very left of the keyboard and extending for three and a half octaves. The smaller Delhi-style harmoniums start at the same pitch on the left of the keyboard but offer fewer octaves stretching to the right.
There are two basic types of Delhi harmoniums: portable, fold-up harmoniums, and upright, studio harmoniums. The portable harmoniums have the positive feature that they can be collapsed into about half their volume and closed-up into what is basically a wooden suitcase for travel. Most can fit into overhead aircraft bins. However, they pay for that convenience by being more complex, by not resonating as much as the non-portable versions, by not offering as much sustain, and by physically rocking when they are opened due to their latching system. The upright, studio-style harmonium is more resonant and more stable than its portable brethren due to its fixed box. It is also more reliable because there are fewer parts to fail. Importantly, its bigger bellows offer longer sustain and its solid cabinet offers more resonance. The trade-off is that it is relatively big and clumsy and hard to carry through doors and certainly won't fit in an airline overhead bin.
KEY FEATURES OF DELHI HARMONIUMS
If we speak in piano terms, the "key bed" is a box at the top of the harmonium. The front, decorative portion of the keys protrude from the key bed for you to play. A "key slip" or decorative strip covers the front of the keys. The keys are made from one piece of wood, running from the front, decorated portion, to nearly the back wall of the harmonium. They balance across a fulcrum bar under the middle of their span and are held in place by a visible trim bar running across the top of the keys above the fulcrum point to retain them if the instrument is turned over. At the back of each key are a couple of important features: on top of each key is fitted an arched spring wire that, when the key is released, returns the front of the key to the up, "rest" position and the back of the key to the down, "closed" position. Directly below the back end of the key are two holes in the key frame, one for each of the two reeds that reside in two banks and form the sounds of the notes. Lined up with these holes on the underside of the back end of each key are two leather pads that form valve gaskets that close those holes when the key is in the rest or closed position. Unscrew and turn over the box that forms the key bed and it also forms the top half of the two reed chambers, with one reed located across each hole. There are two reed chambers, Male and Bass, each containing one set of reeds for one voice sounded by each key. The reeds are brass tongues that are sized and tuned to sound particular notes. Each reed is secured at one end into an individual cast frame that, in turn, is mounted to the top of its chamber. The two chambers are broken into upper and lower halves that are sealed together by a gasket when the reed chamber is closed and screwed shut.
Key Bed Opened Up, Revealing Upper Halves of Reed Chambers
Male Chamber on Top, Bass Chamber on Bottom
Courtesy Old Delhi Music
CONTROLS
Out front again, a larger harmonium will have several pull knobs mounted on a panel below the keys. These knobs control "stops" and "drones." The large knobs control the stops and the small knobs control the drones. Stops are valves that control the flow of air from the air supply to the reed chambers. When closed, they stop the flow. Drones are un-keyed static notes that allow you to have a bass note running continuously below your melody. Drones are simply another set of individual reeds with knobs out front that actuate them, rather than keys. For them to work, a stop for the bass chamber where they are mounted must first be opened. In a harmonium with selectable stops and drones, the mechanisms of the stops and drones are mounted into the lower portions of the reed chambers. Note: any key on the harmonium can also become a drone. To set up a drone from a key, chose the key and move its tension spring to the side, allowing the key to drop open. Open a stop and pump the bellows and the temporary drone will sound. One thing keyed drones can do that normal drones can't is sound both reed voices at once, if their stops are open.
Controls Across the Front of a Typical Studio Harmonium
Left to Right: Male Voice One, Drone C#, Bass Voice One, Drone D#, Bass Voice Two, Drone G#, Tremolo, Drone A#, Male Voice Two
COUPLERS
Some harmoniums have "couplers." A coupler is a set of rods or wires mounted directly below the keys that, when activated, connect the keys of one octave to the keys of another octave. When the coupler is engaged, pressing down the key at one octave causes the key at another octave to open as well. In a Delhi-style harmonium, the couplers are typically "right action" couplers, ie., when engaged, the key one octave up to the right is coupled to the lower key. The downside of this mechanism is that it makes a bit of mechanical noise whenever a key is pressed or released.
The Hand Bellows, Courtesy Old Delhi Music
AIR FLOW
The Delhi-style harmonium has two sets of bellows. The visible, horizontal hand bellows sits on the back of the instrument. You learn to pump gently by hand to introduce air into the instrument. There is a leather flapper valve mounted behind a visible screen that is located on the external wall of the hand bellows. Through air pressure, the flapper valve automatically flaps closed as you press the bellows back towards the case of the instrument. When the bellows is released, an internal bellows return spring re-opens it. During the return, the leather valve naturally opens again and lets the bellows fill with air. As you gently press the hand bellows, air is moved from it into the vertical, main, buffer or reservoir bellows inside the case.
This main air chest bellows is rigidly mounted to the underside of the lower portion of the reed chambers inside the main cabinet. A set of springs below the floating bottom plate of the main bellows keeps upwards pressure on the moving bottom bellows plate to push the air through whatever stops and drones are selected and sound them. Your pumped air forces the bottom plate of the bellows down and the steady pressure of the springs below the main bellows pushes it up, converting your rhythmic pumping to a smoother, steady air flow. The length of sustain of the instrument is determined by how long it takes for the main bellows to empty, once you stop pumping. Any leaks in the system will shorten the possible sustain of the unit.
So, to summarize, the air path is as follows: You open the stop(s) to allow the air into the reed chambers, key a note, and pump the hand bellows. The air is drawn into the hand bellows on an opening cycle and is then propelled into the main bellows on the subsequent closing cycle. Via the main bellows spring pressure, the air is steadily expressed from the main bellows through the selected stops into the corresponding reed chamber. It then follows the path of least resistance out through the reeds sounding either keyed or drone notes.
Inside Lower Reed Chamber, Courtesy Old Delhi Music
Drone Reeds to the Left and Stop Mechanisms to the Right and Center
ABOUT STOPS
On a full-sized Delhi harmonium there are typically three voices. They are Male, Bass, and Tremolo. There are five stops that activate those voices: Male Voice loud, Male voice quiet, Bass Voice loud, Bass Voice quiet, and Tremolo. The difference between the loud and soft stops is literally only the size of the hole that is opened by each, with the large holes allowing more air through, thus creating a louder sound. The stops allow you to blend Male and Bass voices as you like, and give you some control of your overall loudness and responsiveness of the harmonium as well. The Tremolo stop opens a hole under a flap that is weighted by a wooden block. The flap is pushed up by the forced air flow but is too heavy to be held open, so it drops back down. That cycle is repeated for as long as air is forced through the stop. The result is a rhythmic pulsing of the volume of any selected notes. The Tremolo stop only works with all other stops in the bank closed. Electric guitarists spend hours choosing the wave shape that they will use to open and close the tremolo on their amps or pedals. Because of its primitive, mechanical nature, the harmonium's tremolo is modulated by the closest approximation to a square wave that you can find in a natural wind instrument. It is sort of jagged and rapid and you either love it or hate it. It is a little weird. But never say never, right?
The reason for the alternating stop and drone knobs on the front panel becomes obvious in the above picture of the lower reed chamber: In order to efficiently use space on the bottom plate of the bass chamber floor, the stops and drones are interleaved, with the drone mechanisms near the front and the stop mechanisms near the back. The rods reaching all the way back to the male chamber are located on each end of the harmonium. The drone notes can be different from those listed above, but there's more about that below.
THE JAALI
One more note: a decorative but functional screen called the "jaali" (sounds like "jolly") is fitted above the back of the keys. The Hindi word "Jaali" simply means "window." The jaali has openings that can be gradually closed by sliding a screen section across. At fully, open the harmonium sounds loud and bright. At fully closed, the harmonium sounds quieter and darker. For the harmonium to be at its absolute loudest and brightest, the player can simply remove the whole jaali. It's another little useful tone control offered to the player.
COMPLEXITY
Given all these parts, you can see that there are many possible failure modes in the instrument. For such a simple concept as we follow the air path through one key, when you combine all the keys and all of the stages, it becomes far more complex. To begin with, the instrument's chambers and bellows must be air-tight to provide tone and sustain. The reeds must be tuned to pitch and aligned so that they don't rub against their frames, causing buzzes or muted notes. The keyed valves must close completely when released to be silent and must open when pressed to make sound. There are many places where keys, stops, and drones can rub and not function smoothly. In India where these instruments are made, production lines and factories generally don't exist. Traditionally, harmonium making is a cottage industry. These instruments are put together by individual artisans, often sitting on concrete floors and working with hand tools only. Each instrument is a one-off. In fact, each part is a hand-built, one-off. For repair, replacement parts must be hand-made to fit a particular instrument. There are no finishing booths; artisans just hand-rub finishes onto the instruments in the open workshops. As a result, many harmoniums can look rough to the Western eye. Because harmoniums in India are usually solo instruments, they are often only tuned to internally agree with themselves, not to any other instrument and not to the Western standard of A440. Then, in the changing heat and humidity as they travel across the ocean in non-climate-controlled shipping containers, the combined wooden reed and key frame can shift and distort and cause shifting tuning, malfunctioning reeds, and rubbing keys. The air system can develop leaks. What is needed to have good instruments in the U.S. is a two-part delivery system where one person builds the instrument in India and ships it to another person here in America who adjusts, repairs, and optimizes the instrument to peak performance before it is sold. And guess what? That supply chain has come into being.
Courtesy Old Delhi Music
ENTER OLD DELHI MUSIC
During my research into how to get my hands on a harmonium, one company stood out rather quickly. In 2010 a guy named Nic Dillon decided to take his income tax return and go into the business of importing and selling harmoniums. His contact with the instrument had come through a Music of Asia college course which he and his future wife took. A couple of years later she bought a harmonium to play in a band they were in. Wherever they played, people were fascinated with her instrument, asking, "What the heck is that thing?" After they were married, Nic and his wife ordered a shipment of harmoniums from India to sell. Upon opening the crates, Nic discovered that the instruments ranged from poor to unplayable. Rather than considering it a disaster, he began taking them apart, tuning, and repairing them. He was eventually able to fix and sell them and move on to another batch, and then another, each time improving his skills at bringing the instruments up to a higher standard of playability. As demand stepped up, Nic went into the business full-time. In 2014, he established his own brand, Bhava, a word referring to the origin of things, of making things, and/or existence itself. Being very serious about improving the quality of his harmoniums, Nic began flying to India to meet with his suppliers and the artisans who built the instruments to bring up quality to a standard mpre acceptable in the West.
Despite his efforts, Nic eventually decided that he couldn't get the quality he wanted from the existing Indian supply chain, and that led him to create his own workshop in India and staff it with experienced artisans. He brought in better tools, improved work conditions, and implemented the changes he needed in the building process. Nic decided to pay his staff properly under the Indian pay system so they could get benefits. Starting in 2020, Nic began going through every part in his harmonium models, optimizing and standardizing them. The result has been better operating harmoniums and parts that can be interchanged for repair.
Meanwhile, he began hearing the horror stories of the abuse that cash-only musical instrument artisans worked under. In India there is a pay threshold under which all work is done cash-only. Cash-only workers are denied national healthcare and benefits and are often taken advantage of by the contracting system in their country. Musical instrument building is one of those under-the-threshold businesses. Nic likens his work in improving the lives of his Indian artisans to "bringing a little light into a dark place in the world."
Once his products are shipped to America, his fine-tuning team over here finishes tune-ups and takes care of any issues created in shipping. Voile ! A better, more ethical, and more responsibly-sourced harmonium, and a better life for his workers. I love the concept and the result.
Here are some of the changes Nic has made in his Bhava brand instruments to adapt them to Western use:
His instruments are built to a higher mechanical and aesthetic standard overall than the cottage industry standards in India.
He has eliminated keyboard couplers in his instruments to eliminate the problems and noises associated with them.
His harmoniums come tuned to A440 to blend with other Western instruments.
He has his harmoniums built with the drones pitched at C, D, G, and A, rather than the Indian standard of C#, D#, G#, and A#, to better support Western-style music.
His instruments sport a visual aesthetic that appeals to a Western eye.
Nic has begun using satin polyurethane in his cabinet finishing process for longer life.
The result is a solid, predictable, reliable instrument. By contrast, direct importation can leave you with an instrument that has a variety of problems and no simple way to rectify them. What s more, Nic has posted many instructional videos on maintenance and troubleshooting of harmoniums on his site that demystify the instrument and allow a mechanically-inclined person to handle many maintenance chores that may come along.
MY JOURNEY PART II
My research on the pump organ led me to understand that it needed a tear-down and rebuild that would take several months of work from me. Interestingly, a rebuilt pump organ has nearly no value, except to those who know and want them. In the middle of considering the rebuild I came across the Indian harmoniums. That brought up another possibility: I could possibly let the organ rebuild go for a while and buy a harmonium to use in its stead. I decided to do that. Then came research on harmoniums in general, what harmonium to purchase, and where to get it from. All told, I spent a year studying the instrument and the possibilities.
My decision to go with Old Delhi Music came pretty early-on in the process because of the copious information Nic presented on his site and because of his approach to his business. Besides anything else, his videos showing us the insides of the harmonium resulted in my being absolutely fascinated with the instrument on a mechanical basis. I made phone calls to Nic to ask questions about construction, quality, and application. He was very responsive, returning calls quickly and willingly taking my questions. I came to see the difference between other brands and his as I went along. Yes, his Bhava brand harmoniums were more expensive, but I was intrigued by the combination of his moral, responsible approach and the quality improvements he was creating. I wanted to be part of both.
Once I narrowed my search to the Old Delhi Music Company, I needed to decide what type and what model to go with. With the help of Nic's buyer's guide and phone calls to him, I arrived at the choice easily: I wanted a harmonium with the best sound and the most reliable construction. I would be using the unit in the studio and not traveling with it. Given those criteria, the upright, studio style with the fixed case made the most sense. My next consideration was case wood type. In one of his demos Nic played his three grades of premium studio harmoniums built with pine, cedar, and teak, side-by-side. To my ears, the sound of the cedar model was a clear upgrade from the pine, offering more clarity and resonance. The top-of-the-line teak model seemed more forceful, with a strong upper midrange that made it stand out. However, I was seeking an instrument for ensemble work, and the cedar model seemed like it would naturally blend better with other instruments. On a phone call, Nic independently brought up his observations that matched mine exactly - that the cedar model would blend better in an ensemble. I chose the cedar. At that point we were down to color. The combination of the deep red mahogany-colored finish with the satin brass hardware just looked the classiest to me, so mahogany it was. I finally ordered a harmonium on Saturday, June 15th, via the Old Delhi website and added the Navidium Shipping Protection that offers immediate replacement if there is damage in shipping, without filing with a shipping claim. The Old Delhi site's shipping page predicted three to five days to set up and tune and two to five days to ship, so I settled in for the wait. As I usually do with this sort of purchase, I called on Monday, June 17th, to make sure Nic had everything he needed to proceed. We had a nice long phone chat discussing his philosophy and methods. I received a shipping notice the next day, Tuesday, June 18th. I received the "Out for Delivery" message from UPS on Thursday, June 20th, and it was delivered at noon. Because it was a hot day, I gave the box four hours to acclimate before I opened it.
Bhava Premium Studio-Style Harmonium. Click to Embiggen
FIRST IMPRESSIONS FROM UNBOXING AND NOTES FROM LATER EXPERIENCE
The harmonium was packed well with instrument-specific packing materials and a plastic bag They've done this a couple of times.
The included gig bag is well-built.
The harmonium smells great - the aroma of Indian cedar wafts from it. The olfactory signature is a little different from Western Red Cedar, but it has a warm earthy bouquet all its own. I took it into the studio at work and the aroma quickly filled the control room.
The instrument is indeed classy looking. It is nicely finished with a low-gloss luster and the brushed brass knobs contrast nicely with the red mahogany stain.
Everything operates smoothly and deliberately.
The Bass Voice s A4 is at 439.9 and the Male Voice s A4 is at 439.7. For an instrument whose tuning can vary by temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, and air velocity, and has just traveled 850 miles, that is excellent.
The keys feel pretty much like good, solid synth keys.
The instrument gives an impression of solidity.
The harmonium is amazingly loud and strong when you want it to be. That fact hadn t quite been conveyed on the videos.
There is an especially full, throaty sound on the bottom end keys when both male and bass reeds are selected.
Pressing a key on the left creates sounds on the left and vice versa, with the sound spreading across in front of you. The strength of this effect when at the keyboard was a surprise to me. I figured it would be so, but it really struck me on first playing. It will be fun to mic for recording in stereo.
Sustain is dependent on how many stops and drones you have open and upon the frequency of the key you press. A bass key with one stop only can sustain ten seconds. A high treble key with the male voice only can sustain for more than twenty seconds. I suppose this is due to the size of the reed and how much air it resultantly allows to pass. Intervals (two notes) sustain longer than chords (three or more notes) and can be louder as well. I've notice that many harmonium players use intervals rather than chords, perhaps because they can be mysterious but perhaps also because it helps to even out the pumping and gives longer sustain. When you are playing one note and then add another to create an interval and then another for a chord, you can feel in the hand bellows the resistance from the internal main bellows relax. It becomes easier to pump but the air supply needs to be replenished more often to keep up sustain. It is quite organic in practice.
This is an "all-in" instrument. You can't just flip a switch and hit a key and out comes the music. You have to be completely involved to create anything at all. The sound of the instrument is very much a product of both the pumping hand and the keying hand. The sound is ephemeral - your intensity is reflected by the instrument. The second you let up, it responds. This allows you to add dynamic expression with the left hand. There is a little learning curve.
Courtesy Sound on Sound
RECORDING NOTES
Though the harmonium has only been in house for a few weeks, I've already had a chance to play it in a project - a song cycle of five pieces. I recorded it using a pair of Neumann TLM103 large-diaphragm condenser microphones. The instrument will serve as the "gravy," that essential pad sound that quietly holds a song together, so I wanted a smooth sound that didn't demand undue attention. This mic has a wonderful, flat response across the spectrum without a pronounced high-end or presence peak, and that is exactly what I needed. I also set the harmonium's jaali so that it was about three-quarter's closed to ease back on the overtones a bit. I placed the mics about three feet above the harmonium, right above my head, in a closely-spaced pair, in order to get a stereo image something like I was hearing as I played. The result was a full, mellow, literal rendition that automatically settled into the background of my mixes and glued things together.
CONCLUSIONS
I am thoroughly impressed with the quality, the sound, and the looks of this instrument. After watching videos on the internet of the hand construction methods and conditions in India I had sort of steeled myself for a fairly rustic instrument. It didn't help that I have several Indian-made wooden items as well, and all have the familiar hand-tooled look. However, all the work Nic has put into the Bhava line has yielded a refined instrument that looks and behaves like picky Westerners would prefer and has dropped into my studio kit comfortably. And the sound... that growly, mysterious sound I loved has already enhanced the recordings I am creating for my clients.
Oscar the studio cat at the Pedals of the Chicago Cottage Harmonium
BHAVA STUDIO LIMITED EDITION HARMONIUM
SPECIFICATIONS
- Weight: 21 lbs.
- Dimensions (L x W x H): 24 x 13 x 10.5 inches
- Color: Mahogany
- Finish: Matte
- Hardware Finish: Brushed Brass
- Exterior Construction: Select Cedar (Indian or Himalayan Cedar - Cedrus Deodara)
- Interior Construction: Select Pine
- Box Type: Standard
- Key Construction: One-piece
- Number of Keys: 42
- Reed type: Punjabi-style, Classic
- Reed banks: 2 sets (Bass, Male)
- Reed orientation: Horizontal
- Stops: 5 (Male, Bass, Bass, Tremolo, Male)
- Drones: 4 (C, D, G, A)
- Coupler: None
- Scale changer: None
KEY FEATURES OF DELHI HARMONIUMS
During my research into how to get my hands on a harmonium, one company stood out rather quickly. In 2010 a guy named Nic Dillon decided to take his income tax return and go into the business of importing and selling harmoniums. His contact with the instrument had come through a Music of Asia college course which he and his future wife took. A couple of years later she bought a harmonium to play in a band they were in. Wherever they played, people were fascinated with her instrument, asking, "What the heck is that thing?" After they were married, Nic and his wife ordered a shipment of harmoniums from India to sell. Upon opening the crates, Nic discovered that the instruments ranged from poor to unplayable. Rather than considering it a disaster, he began taking them apart, tuning, and repairing them. He was eventually able to fix and sell them and move on to another batch, and then another, each time improving his skills at bringing the instruments up to a higher standard of playability. As demand stepped up, Nic went into the business full-time. In 2014, he established his own brand, Bhava, a word referring to the origin of things, of making things, and/or existence itself. Being very serious about improving the quality of his harmoniums, Nic began flying to India to meet with his suppliers and the artisans who built the instruments to bring up quality to a standard mpre acceptable in the West.
Once I narrowed my search to the Old Delhi Music Company, I needed to decide what type and what model to go with. With the help of Nic's buyer's guide and phone calls to him, I arrived at the choice easily: I wanted a harmonium with the best sound and the most reliable construction. I would be using the unit in the studio and not traveling with it. Given those criteria, the upright, studio style with the fixed case made the most sense. My next consideration was case wood type. In one of his demos Nic played his three grades of premium studio harmoniums built with pine, cedar, and teak, side-by-side. To my ears, the sound of the cedar model was a clear upgrade from the pine, offering more clarity and resonance. The top-of-the-line teak model seemed more forceful, with a strong upper midrange that made it stand out. However, I was seeking an instrument for ensemble work, and the cedar model seemed like it would naturally blend better with other instruments. On a phone call, Nic independently brought up his observations that matched mine exactly - that the cedar model would blend better in an ensemble. I chose the cedar. At that point we were down to color. The combination of the deep red mahogany-colored finish with the satin brass hardware just looked the classiest to me, so mahogany it was. I finally ordered a harmonium on Saturday, June 15th, via the Old Delhi website and added the Navidium Shipping Protection that offers immediate replacement if there is damage in shipping, without filing with a shipping claim. The Old Delhi site's shipping page predicted three to five days to set up and tune and two to five days to ship, so I settled in for the wait. As I usually do with this sort of purchase, I called on Monday, June 17th, to make sure Nic had everything he needed to proceed. We had a nice long phone chat discussing his philosophy and methods. I received a shipping notice the next day, Tuesday, June 18th. I received the "Out for Delivery" message from UPS on Thursday, June 20th, and it was delivered at noon. Because it was a hot day, I gave the box four hours to acclimate before I opened it.
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