Harmoniumहार्मोनियम

The harmonium is a keyboard free-reed instrument. Pressing a key lets air reach a thin brass or steel tongue, which vibrates and sounds while the key is held and the bellows supply air. Alexandre Debain patented it in Paris in 1840.

You can learn the harmonium with KalaSudha online and in workshops, and beginners start at Foundation level. Foundation begins with even bellows pressure from the left hand, which keeps each note from wavering, while the right hand stays free for the keys. We teach children as well as adults: ask us about a starting age and about a harmonium size for a younger learner.

Going back to the harmonium after a long break, you start again where you left off. Our courses are set out in levels, and your teacher first hears where you stand.

A student harmonium and a professional harmonium differ most in the reeds: how many sets they carry, and how evenly each reed speaks. A single set sounds harsh, while better instruments carry two to four sets and an octave coupler. Mid-range and concert instruments add more stops. Tokyo University of the Arts holds a harmonium from Kolkata whose large stops set timbre and volume, while its small stops sound the drone.

KalaSudha sells entry-level harmoniums by Indian makers and concert harmoniums from Kolkata makers, with mid-range models in between that add better reeds and a scale changer. Ask us for a quote, or for a harmonium made to order.

KalaSudha sells the harmonium to buyers outside India, by quote or made to order, and we deliver worldwide. We pack each harmonium for international shipping; ask us about cases and insurance.

We service and repair any harmonium in any country, wherever you bought it, and spare parts come from us too. For help with your harmonium after the sale, use the chat on any page or email [email protected]. Ask us also about gift vouchers or class sets for schools, and about a flight case if you travel with your instrument.

A good gift for someone learning an Indian classical instrument suits the instrument they play and the stage they have reached, so ask their teacher if you are unsure. An instrument of their own, or a better one, also makes a gift: KalaSudha sells every instrument by quote or made to order. For something smaller, ask us for a case, or for strings and spare parts to suit their instrument.

Lessons make a gift as well. KalaSudha teaches online and in workshops, and beginners start at Foundation level: see our courses.

Ask us about gift vouchers.

A harmonium reed's pitch is changed by removing metal from its tongue: scraping near the root flattens the note, and scraping near the tip sharpens it. Broader tongues give a bolder tone but slower speech. The Indian harmonium keyboard is fixed to the 12 equal-tempered semitones, a tuning adopted in Bengal so that music could be transposed.

Bhaiya Ganpat Rao, who died in 1924, is credited with popularising the harmonium in classical circles, and Bhaskarrao Bakhle, Abdul Karim Khan and Gauhar Jan then used it for accompaniment. Govindrao Tembe (1881 to 1955) became known for harmonium solos. Among singers, Amir Khan and Bade Ghulam Ali Khan preferred harmonium to sarangi accompaniment.

A scale changer on a harmonium moves the keyboard sideways relative to the reeds, so the player can change key while keeping the same fingering. Banglapedia lists scale-change harmoniums as a type, alongside coupler, box, single-bellows, double-bellows and English-bellows models. It suits the Indian harmonium, whose keyboard is fixed to the 12 equal-tempered semitones.

The harmonium plays in equal temperament: in Bengal its scale was changed to an equally tempered one so players could change key. Early critics, among them Rabindranath Tagore, Ananda Coomaraswamy and A. H. Fox Strangways, objected to that tempered tuning, Joep Bor records. H. Keatley Moore built a harmonium tuned to 22 shrutis in London. It was used in scale research but could not compete commercially, and it was off the market by 1928.

All India Radio banned the harmonium from its national network music broadcasts from 1 March 1940. Joep Bor links the ban to an effort to preserve the sarangi, which the harmonium was replacing as the accompanist of Hindustani singers. In October 1970 All India Radio held a seminar on harmonium use and partly lifted the ban for classical and light-classical broadcasts.

Reed organs, the family of the harmonium, reached India in the 19th century with missionaries or traders, and Calcutta was their first centre of popularity. Dwijendranath Tagore played a harmonium in the 1860s in his private theatre at Jorasanko, Calcutta. Bengali manuals followed soon after: Sourindramohan Tagore's Harmonium Sutra in 1874 and Krishnadhan Banerjee's Harmonium Shiksha in 1899.

The harmonium gradually replaced the sarangi in Hindustani vocal accompaniment, first as the second sarangi and then for bowed instruments generally, as good sarangi accompanists became harder to find. Joep Bor records the reasons given: it was easy to play and master, carried no social stigma, held steady notes and needed no retuning between items. Singers also wished to avoid rivalry with sarangi players.

You can book a harmonium player through KalaSudha for a concert, event or recording. A harmonium player can accompany a khayal or thumri singer, or devotional singing such as bhajan and kirtan. Ask us through our page to book Indian classical musicians, and hear our artists in KalaSudha's recordings and concert videos.

Yes, as an accompanist: the harmonium is the default accompanying instrument of Hindustani classical, semi-classical and devotional music. Its steady, sustained tone blends with the voice and carries in large rooms, so many singers took it up in place of the sarangi.

Its limit is pitch. Its 12 equal-tempered keys cannot glide or shade microtones. In 1940 All India Radio dropped it from national broadcasts, holding that its fixed pitches would dull listeners' ears to shruti. A partial lift in 1970 brought it back, and today it accompanies khayal, thumri, ghazal, qawwali, bhajan and kirtan.