Spring vibrations

Leonard Cohen on the cover of Harp Magazine.

The Man from Canada is touring. A great songwriter, he is one of the few to use the jaw harp in several of his songs and just for that, he gets all my respect. Truth is, I love his songs anyway ever since I heard Suzanne way back when I was a teenager in France. Suzanne viensje t'emmène, écouter les sirènes... Do catch him live but meanwhile, fans can listen to a live show he had at the Beacon Theatre in NYC on NPR. Yeay Leonard, yeay NPR!

Until April 11th, the Lyric Theatre in Oklahoma City, OK presents two daily shows of "Woody Sez", a tribute to the words, music, & spirit of Woody Guthrie. Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie was born in 1912 in Okemah, Oklahoma. He is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised work. Renowned Broadway performer, storyteller, and guitar theatre legend David Lutken (Inherit The Wind, Ring of Fire, The Civil War) stars in the title role, and accomplished actor-musicians Darcie Deaville, Helen Russell, and Andy Teirstein join in to portray the many people who make up the fabric of Guthrie's amazing story. The four accompany themselves on over 15 different instruments, ranging from guitar and fiddle to jaw harp and dulcimer. Performances are Thursdays at 7:30pm, Fridays at 8:00pm, Saturdays at 2:00pm & 8:00pm. For tickets: www.LyricTheatreOKC.com.

And now... (drum roll)


Gina Gershon

I was reading how after a 48 year absence, Bye Bye Birdie is returning to Broadway this fall. Presented by Roundabout Theatre Company, this production is headlined by John Stamos, Gina Gershon and Bill Irwin. I was curious about the beautiful and talented Gina and had to read her bio. Gina is definitely hot! She played the jaw harp on "I Can't Decide" on the Scissor Sisters' release Ta-Dah. She also played the j- harp on the song "I Do It For Your Love," Paul Simon's collaboration with Herbie Hancock on his album Possibilities as well as other musicians such as Rufus Wainwright and Christian McBride. GINA! Let's get together and play some jaw harp! Or at least send a picture or video of you playing your jaw harp... : )

Traveling east from New York City, I recently came across an article in the Mongol News Media Group's website about "An Adventure with Mongolia's Reindeer People." Among other things, it interestingly describes a shaman going into a trance induced by playing his jaw harp and very possibly enhanced by the seven shots of vodka he downed.

Last year I introduced you to a jaw harp Punk from Vienna, Austria, Ing. LOOP (pronounce: Engineer LOOP.) He posted a demo video of a spontaneous jaw harp jam session he and an uncredited friend did in the Steffl Dom in Vienna. Ing. LOOP knows how to have fun.

Leave it to the one and only Vladiswar Nadishana to always push the envelope with news ideas and instruments. This time he brings us a traditional instrument of the Kuzhebar people of Southern Siberia. He calls it a Ghost Catcher and it can best be described as a two-stringed jaw harp. Play it with a stick and it sounds like a berimbau. Based on the video I believe the Ghost Catcher is chromatic. In any case, it sounds very cool. I can just imagine adding a little distortion and/or looping and you've got yourself out of this world soundscapes. Vladiswar demonstrates different playing techniques on this interesting instrument and you can buy your very own here.

Somebody brought my attention to a special listing on eBay: Johnny Cash's jaw harp! This seller out of Tennessee is listing several items that were previously owned by Johnny & June Carter Cash. She says they were made available to her by Peggy Knight, beloved friend and traveling companion of June and Johnny. Here's the description of the item:

This item belonged to Johnny Cash and Peggy said that it is one that he gave to Mother Maybelle. Peggy calls it a juice harp and an Ebayer said it is a Jews Harp. Supposedly you can make music with it or someone can, I personally wouldn't know where to start. It has green paint on parts of it, no writing that I can find and measures 3 inches long and the middle part has a curl on the end. I don't have any idea as to the age of this piece. All items will come with a Certificate of Authenticity from Peggy.

The lucky buyer is Demis CousCous, a musician, songwriter and producer out of the UK. I wish I had Johnny Cash's jaw harp!



Speaking of Tennessee. I read an interesting article about the musicians of the Smoky Mountains. It does mention that the jaw harp was part of the instruments used. But we all knew that! Here's a taste of what the musix may have sounded like, courtesy of Sheesham and Lotus.



On the subject of jaw harps for sale, Wang Li is offering an interesting one. He says it is made by an old craftsman in Northern China, that it has a very nice sound, and that this craftsman's j-harps are very rare. Wang Li is also open to trade so check out the item called G-C2 Kouxian.

Staying in France a bit longer (Wang Li lives in Paris), here are two funny Messieurs playing a two-sided guimbarde. Not exactly Laurel and Hardy but funny anyway. There's a part where the gentleman on the left yells at the other "Darn it! You're pinging! It's not THAT complicated!" LOL! Embedding is disabled so here's the link.

A while back I added a link To Veskimo's Journal. It is a great blog with always interesting articles. He recently posted his trial at making a vargan based on a Japanese model. Check out his article with step-by-step photos here.

To end this post, here's a new release from Norway.



Just released by the Geir Lysne Ensemble is a CD called The Grieg Code. There's some beautiful, moody as well as rhythmic music on the album. This CD is classified as Jazz but it is also quite experimental in the soundscapes it creates. The website offers several samples to get your appetite going. Listen to Kaa featuring Terje Isungset on the jaw harp along with a plethora of talented musicians including no less than Terje Rypdal.

That's it, folks! Until next time... Keep it real and good vibrations to all.

Winter 2007

Greetings to all J-harpers in this winter season! Let's get warmed up and start with a Winter Waltz...



Here's an overview of what's happening in our boinging world.

I want to bring to your attention a group from Norway called Trio Mediæval. Working in a similar vein of early music as Anonymous 4, here's a trio of female vocalists plus a male drummer/j-harper. Watch and listen to a clip here. They're on tour right now so buy a ticket, put on your warm coats, bring your j-harps to play along (discreetly!) and enjoy.


Photo: Asa M. Mikkelsen

Speaking of traditional music, although more contemporary to us, Dust-to-Digital has released a neat new compilation of field recordings by Art Rosebaum, an amateur of Old Time music. Some tracks feature our beloved instrument. The label also offers among other CDs a collection of Tuva throat recordings. Audio samples and more info at their website.



Some lucky j-harpers got to recently attend the first International Jew's Harp Festival in Leipzig, Germany. There's a nice slide show here and a few video clips featuring Nadishana.

There was another J-harp festival in Kecskemét, Hungary in September of 2007. Here's a clip of Aron Szilagyi playing an electrifying piece at the Third Hungarian Jew's Harp Festival. Filmed by Luca Recupero of iPERCUSSONICI fame.



More video clips of the festival here.

The North American Jew's Harp festival was held in Bay City, Oregon on Aug. 2-5, 2007. Here are several clips of the event.

Be sure to let me know about future events so I can post them here and at the Jaw Harp Group on yahoo.

As gift-giving season is arriving, you may want to consider an unusual J-harp from Wang Li. It is the smallest jew's harp in the world, produced by an ethnic group in northern China. You can play either by plucking or blowing. Here's a demonstration:



Peruse his website, he has other unique J-harps, some made by Chinese Masters.

You may also want to consider other sources for your purchases such as Jonny Cope, based in the UK. Jonny's passionate about jaw harps, a nice man and a proud dad. He sells other instruments such as Tibetan singing bowls, flutes, didgeridoos and more.

Another nice person to deal with is Mark at Mouth Music in the U.S. He has full chromatic sets that I've been eyeing for a while.

I leave you with this very cute animation of Mr. Jew's Harp's adventures. It's very much in the spirit of the season.

Take care of yourselves and others, and keep a-boingoing!

Meet the Jaw harp

This is a blog about the Jaw harp, an ancient instrument called by many names all over the world. Called Guimbarde in France, Scacciapensieri in Italy, Maultrommel in Germany and Austria, Trump in various forms and spellings is used today in Europe, such as Mondtrom in Dutch and Tromp in Flemish. Harp is used in Scandinavian countries, such as Norway, Munnharpa, Denmark, Mundharpe and Finland, Huuliharpu. Doromb can be found in Hungary, with Drymba in Ukraine and Drombulja in Croatia. As we go further east we have variations on Komys, Kupus, and Khomus in northern and eastern Asia, while Morchang, Morsing, Dan Moi and Gengong can be found in India, Vietnam and Indonesia. The Jaw harp is an international instrument that is likely to have originated in Asia and travelled to Europe, arriving sometime around the 13th century. Here's an excerpt from an article from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

The Jew's harp, jaw harp, or mouth harp is thought to be one of the oldest musical instruments in the world; a musician apparently playing it can be seen in a Chinese drawing from the 3rd century BCE . It is also sometimes called a Jew's trump or juice harp, among other names, and has no particular connection with Judaism.

The instrument is a lamellaphone, which is in the category of plucked idiophones and consists of two types: idioglot, where the vibrating reed or tongue of the instrument is cut from a single piece of wood, bamboo, bone or thin flat metal, such as brass, and hetroglot, where there is a cast or bent metal frame to which is fixed a separate, flexible metal reed.

Since trances are facilitated by droning sounds, the Jew's harp has been associated with magic and has been a common instrument in shamanic rituals.

A few adepts still play the instrument and it is used in various genres. Here's an example of Primitive Techno:



Here's some hard rocking Blues-Rock:



Some down home Country-Folk:



And some more traditional style of playing:



Here's a gem of classic folk music from Mike Seeger.
Listen to this wonderful song called Did You Ever See the Devil, Uncle Joe?

And of course, Jack Elliot of Birtley, UK.

Listen to a short clip from Genticorum, a trio from Québéc that incorporates the dynamism of today's North American and European folk cultures in their music.

This is an interesting beatboxing piece from Danibal who lives in the Netherlands. In France, Jeanjean is doing something in the same genre.



Check out an interesting use of the Jaw harp on a song called Morning Wonder by The Earlies, a UK band.

In a different vein, Jacob Max Nasim's Psychedelic Jew's Harp project is a trippy venture into totally live, electro-acoustic, psychedelic grooves.

Here's a funny, Borat-sounding clip by George Andriyanov of Bugotak which explains how to play a Jaw harp. I assume the birdie at the beginning is a Siberian form of greeting:



He also does some interesting throat singing along with his harp playing. Here's his take on Come together by the Beatles.

Here, Norwegian musical director and composer Terje Isungset demonstrates some of the melodies and rhythms he plays with his Jaw harp.

Daddy Dirk demonstrates how to play the Ozark Jaw harp:



This is Hank Plow, a poet and musician cowboy from Gila Bend, AZ giving an introduction to the Jaw harp:



The Asian harps sound slightly different than the ones more familiar to us. Here's a clip demonstrating playing a bamboo harp:



Here's a performance on a Chinese Hoho by Vladiswar Nadishana:



Another performance on a Taiwanese Lubu, a multi-reed harp:



Here's an interesting video showing the fabrication of a harp by a Hmong Monk from beginning to end:



This is probably good enough to start. I invite all of you interested in this neat instrument to join and participate to the new group I started.

Happy boinging!