The Chromonica is a truly classic model of chromatic harmonica – made by the Hohner Company of Germany, it has been around for several years, and looking at pictures of chromatic harmonica players over the decades past, you can see the Chromonica in the hands of several famous players, such as Stevie Wonder and Toots Thielemans. Most often in these pictures they are playing Hohner’s Super Chromonica, the 12 hole version of the chromonica, model #270.
Stevie Wonder is famous for his pop/funk style of playing the chromatic, a choppy, slurring style that he created and that a lot of players aspire to imitate.
Toots Thielemans style on the other hand is much smoother, a legato jazz style that fits beautifully with traditional jazz accompaniment.
The Chromonica harmonica has a wooden comb, which means that the middle part of the instrument, the basic body of the instrument, is made of wood. Quite often these days, the comb of the harmonica is made of plastic .
There are varying schools of thought about whether it’s better to have a wooden comb or a plastic comb – they definitely have their pluses and minuses. Wood, as you can imagine, reacts to humidity and swells and shrinks accordingly, a little bit. Plastic combs on the other hand don’t have this problem but may not have the beautiful tone that wood has.
However, the Chromonica has been in production for several decades, and is still a really great instrument. It is not Hohner’s “top of the line” anymore, but it is a good reliable instrument that you can get a “classic” sound with, and if taken care of, the Chromonica harmonica can last and be one of your favorite instruments.
The Chromonica comes in various sizes: the 12 hole and the 16 hole models. The 16 hole chromonica has an extra lower octave on the left side of the harmonica, which can be fun, but on the other hand the 12 hole harmonica tends to fit in your hands much better, is lighter, and is easier to hold cupped to a microphone if that is the way you play.
Chromatic harmonicas are designed to play every complete scale in any key — major, minor, pentatonic, blues, etc. — all on one instrument. Nevertheless, they can be bought in various keys – the most common by far is the key of C.
A chromatic harmonica theoretically can play in any key because it has as part of its mechanism the ability to play all 12 notes of the “Western” (standard do-re-mi) scale, so that by using the button slide on the side of the chromonica you can build your various scales. But as you can imagine, the various keys start in various places on the scale of western music, such as G typically starting lower than the C scale harmonica.
The c scale-tuned harmonica is midrange, and also is very easy to understand music theory-wise, so that if you were using the chromatic harmonica (a Chromonica in this case) to build scales for whatever song you are playing, it is easy to start with the basic “blank slate” (no sharps or flats) of the key of C harmonica, and build it up from there.
An example of this would be if you were playing a key of C Chromonica in the key of D, then you would use the button slide to give you the C sharp and the F sharp in the scale of the key of D to play your C chromonica in the key of D.
In summary, Hohner’s Chromonica harmonica is a classic chromatic harmonica that has quite a lot of history behind it, has a beautiful tone, and is reliable. It is a midrange model Hohner harmonica and is a great place to start playing the chromatic harmonica.
By: Matthew Shelton
HP- Tell us something about yourself.
CD- I’m a Mumbai goan looking forward to being a Goa goan very soon. I’ve reached two important milestones in my career. One is, after decades of playing everyone elses music i’ve development a style of my own and the biggest compliment I get these days is when someone recognizes my bassplaying on some tune they heard somewhere, they call up to confirm and..voila! The other milestone is probably every musicians dream, to produce music out of my own studio. A dream that will come true for me within this year when I setup my own state of the art studio in Sangolda. I’ve also setup an organisation called Jazz Goa with the help of fellow musicians and jazz enthusiasts in Goa.
HP- What drew you towards jazz?
CD- Jazz is a huge word, it should be spelt jjjaaaazzzzz! Seriously though, I think jazz is the most open, alive and evolving form of music that allows a musician to be him/herself. Most other forms of music demands a musician to follow trends and tradition or create stuff that’s currently hip. Whereas a jazz musician goes about his business listening, assimilating and finally innovating with yet another genre of jazz! We now have dixiland-jazz, swing-jazz, bebop-jazz, funk-jazz, rock-jazz, pop-jazz, fusion-jazz, latin-jazz, indo-jazz, mando-jazz… to cut a long story short, there’s a -jazz attached to every genre of music. And there will be a -jazz attached to every genre that comes along. I’m a musician who’s atracted to anything that looks, feels, smells, tastes and even sounds like music, so naturally I choose jazz as I get to play it ALL.
HP- What sets apart jazz music from other genres?
CD- Jazz is the only form of music that embraces all other forms and it is no longer American music. Today jazz can safely be called world music.
HP- What led you to become a jazz artiste?
CD- From amoung all the different genre’s of music I grew up listening to, for some reason it was always jazz that struck those extended chords within me. I could always hear the human and very often super human element in a jazz rendition.
HP- Your favourite jazz aristes/tracks.
CD- You’ll need to extend this interview by a few thousand pages to answer that. My all time favourite however was a bassplayer called Jaco Pastorius who revolutionised bassplaying taking bass right upfront, over, under and right through a song.
HP- To whom would you attribute your credentials as a jazz musician?
CD- To everyone i’ve worked with and everyone I would like to work with someday.
HP- Where and how did you train to be a jazz artiste?
CD- I have no formal training in music, I learnt music listening to other musicians, assimilating what I liked and using it consiously or subconsiously in performance until i developed a style of my own. Once I decided to play professionally though, I did study the technicalities through some great music books that are easily available these days.
HP- How do you prepare for a gig?
CD- I make sure there’s enough soda to go with the whisky…just kidding! It depends, if it is a concert where I would be performing my own compositions, I get the tunes composed, then get the band to rehearse and sound the way I heard it in my head. As it often turnsout, input from the rest of the band takes the tune to a dimension I would never have imagined. So you see, music is all about connecting and collaborating, don’t believe any of those fantastic one man bands. They’re faking it for monetary reasons, not that I have anything against it. All is fair in love, war and music.
HP- Talking about gigs, where and when did you first perform/how long have you been into jazz?
CD- Like most musicians I first got into music with school/college bands. I then graduated into fivestar hotel resident bands whose repertoire was made up mainly of jazz standards. I did that for ten years, playing music every night made me a musician.
HP- What is the jazz scene like in India, and Goa in particular?
CD- The jazz scene in India, Goa or anywhere in the world is the same. There’s a niche group of performers and listeners that grows all the time. Hopefully with jazz’s open armed evolution, it will grow into the global sound of music.
HP- What have been your highs and lows in your career thus far?
CD- The highs have always been the applause at the end of a track performed, the lows would be finding out that the applause was actually for the sixer Sachin hit on the big screen just besides the stage at Jazz by the Bay in Mumbai.
HP- How would you explain your role as a jazz musician in society?
CD- A jazz musician gives people a nicer high than some other interesting social highs.
HP- Define jazz.
CD- Jazz is improvised music. Sometimes structured, sometimes orchestrated, sometimes free of form and almost always, spontaneously created.
HP- Notable gigs/performances.
CD- The world reknowned Hennessey XO jazz tour has always been featuring jazz artistes signed by the American Blue Note label. Last year for the first time a jazz band outside the label, from far away India, was selected for this prestigious international tour. I was the bassplayer for that band. An unforgettable experience for sure. More recently my indo-jazz fusion band ‘The Brown Indian Band’ has been approached to open for Sting’s European tour this year. Fingers are crossed about that one.
HP- Collaborations with other musicians.
CD- I am contineously collaborating with musicians from all over the world thanks to the internet and my website http://www.hullocheck.com
HP- I understand you have been into different genres of music and worked with various ensembles. Tell us more.
CD- As I mentioned it before, when it comes to music I want it ALL. Name the genre and chances are, i’ve been there. You’ll find traces of just about every genre in my own music. There are very few musicians in the world today, who would match the number of bands and musicians I have worked with.
HP- Currently performing at…
CD- I currently perform on two resident contracts in Mumbai at the JW Marriott hotel in the afternoons and the Taj Lands End hotel in the nights. I also take timeoff from these two gigs to perform at concerts and corporate events in India and abroad. So that averages some sixty gigs a month!
HP- Your hobbies/interests…
CD- My main hobby and interest is my profession today. Everyone else works for a living, I play for mine. Someone once told me ‘All play and no work makes…makes me tick!’ Seriously though, I am very keen on improving the plight of most goan musicians in Goa. I was one sometime ago so I should know the raw deal most of them get. My plan is to set up Jazz Goa as an umbrella organisation for not just jazz but all the other immense artistic talent in Goa. To start with my studio in Sangolda will record and produce deserving artistes. Jazz Goa will then launch the best from there at a global level. Jazz Goa has already produced four audio CD’s and a DVD that is available in Goa exclusively at Vibes Music in Margao and online at http://www.jazzgoa.com
By: Jazz Goa