Melodica

I'm currently rehearsing for my upcoming west coast tour with Brittain Ashford. I play bass, glockenspiel and melodica with Brittain. On our last tour, I noticed that my melodica wasn't completely in tune. Essentially the melodica is a toy instrument, but it goes back about 60 years. Originally it was manufactured by Hohner, but now some other companies make them too.

Typically a Hohner melodica like mine will run you about $100, but I found mine at the Goodwill for $20 about 4 years ago. I didn't play it much until the last year and I love it. It's laid out like a piano keyboard ... which is why I really never got into it (I was unfamiliar with piano). It turns out that a piano is relatively straight forward. And a melodica is incredibly easy to learn. I'm pretty far from expert at it, but I love using it to add a little color to a song.

Anyhow, my melodica has some pretty sour notes, which I've been avoiding in our live shows. I did a little research today and found a website with instructions for tuning a melodica and another website about dub music that had useful repair tips. Both websites had dissection pictures, which scared me a little. I'm sure I'd lose some parts if I took my melodica apart and I'm not entirely sure that I would be able to tune it. I decided to hold off on cracking it open until after tour.

On our last tour we played our first show with a band called June Madrona from Olympia. June Madrona had this incredibly talented melodica player named Micah who's playing gave me a complex. I recommend checking out some of their music if you have a few minutes and catch the band this August on their tour. You can find their tour dates right here!