A keyboard harmonica (see Harmonica (i)) manufactured by Hohner from 1958. It is rectangular and has a beak-like mouthpiece at the upper end. The keys admit air to the free-reed chamber when depressed by the fingers of the right hand. Thus it can produce many chords and clusters that are impossible on the harmonica, but unlike the latter instrument, Melodica reeds sound only when blown (i.e. not on the inbreath). The Melodica is inexpensive and easy to play, and is popular in schools as an alternative to the recorder. The alto Melodica has been used in compositions by David Bedford, Alison Bauld, Anthony Braxton, Rudolf Komorous, Krauze, Peixinho, Bark and others. The instrument has also been played in jazz, reggae and dub. Jean Tinguely incorporated a Melodica in one of his Méta-harmonie sound sculptures.
There are two types of Melodica: the simpler one, made in soprano and alto models, has a keyboard (of two octaves) comprising short rectangular buttons; the ‘Piano Melodica’ has a conventional keyboard of up to three octaves and can be played on a flat surface, with the mouthpiece at the end of an extension tube. In the mid-1960s Hohner produced a three-octave monophonic Electra-Melodica (transposable within nine octaves) in which the pressure of the air blown through a tube mouthpiece is used to control the loudness of an electronic oscillator.
An earlier keyboard harmonica shaped like a saxophone, the ‘cuesnophone’ from the 1920s, was briefly popular in jazz (known as ‘goofus’). Other instruments based on the Melodica include the Yamaha Pianica. For further information see F. Jöde: Die Melodica: drei Aufsätze und ein Vortrag (Trossingen, 1965).
HUGH DAVIES