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click pic to play film clip of melodica and sunset in oman

melodica in action at a Sid Peacock SURGE gig

a player's-eye-view

The melodica is a very important instrument to me. Back in 2003, I started thinking seriously about finding a non-electric/electronic instrument that was very portable for transporting around to gigs. I had just had a bad experience with my then piano keyboard letting me down mid-gig. I was left without an instrument for two very important concerts, and looking around the rest of the band I saw that I was the only one who was unable to fix my instrument manually should there be a problem during the gig. I realised that I had to find something acoustic and manageable, something on which I could still produce the music I wanted to produce, but that I could use should there not be an acoustic piano available (which sadly is pretty par-for-the-course in the UK these days).

In a seemingly unconnected matter, I was coming to re-think of the role of the piano in a small band situation, being unsatisfied with how many band leaders see the instrument as some kind of chord machine (at worst) or occupying an uneasy position somewhere between the front line and the rhythm section. This clashed with my developing improvisational thinking towards a more single-line, lead-voice role for the instrument. Or more accurately, for my musical voice. This desire to move into a contrapuntal rather than harmonic context for future development of my ideas, combined with the need to find an acoustic alternative to keyboards, led me to the melodica, the undervalued reeds-and-plastic "toy" developed my Hohner.

The simplicity of the melodica's design and look, plus the ease with which I can translate my keyboard-oriented musical ideas onto it, made it the best choice for me. I put in an order for a Hohner Piano-36 Professional and waited for it to arrive... for a year! It turns out that Hohner in Germany (where it was to be shipped from) wait until they have at least 60 orders for melodicas before they send them out from the factory. So it was a somewhat dreamlike situation when I finally got the phone call 12 months later to say my melodica was ready for collection.

One main difference between playing piano and playing melodica is the necessity for phrasing to include breathing points. This is a big thing for a keyboard player, since phrasing had always been a matter totally unrelated to the requirements of human breathing patterns! The music will breath, of course, but I didn't have to think about my own breathing until I first picked up the melodica. This had a pleasing effect on my improvisations, in particular, since I was now adding a new factor into the equation, and the results were freshening-up my music no end, trimming down my sentences and paragraphs, if you like, and forcing punctuation where once there would have been stream-of-consciousness. And I found that this carried over into my piano playing, too, which was interesting.

Another difference is the eye-to-keyboard angle, which also presented me with a problem at first. Instead of having a birds-eye view as one does when playing the piano or electronic keyboard, one's view of the melodica keyboard is more like an ants-eye view! And an ant permanently stuck at the bottom of the keyboard for that matter! I didn't want to use one of those blow-tubes you can buy for the melodica, so it took me a good while to get used to this change of view and learn to rely on feeling where the keys were. This again carried over into my piano playing, and I found that if I closed my eyes whilst playing piano, I knew where the keys were instinctively rather than relying too heavily on the visual aspect.

One final problem is the size of the keys - half the width of piano keys. Once you get used to feeling of having sausages for fingers, there are definite advantages - such as being able to span an octave-and-a-half with ease, for example (compared to a 10th on the piano). This in turn expands the palette of colours available in one's voicings.