‘Boy Playing A Jew's Harp', Sir Peter Lely, C.1648

The Jaw harp (also known as a Jew's Harp) is not a harp and has no historic association with Jewish traditions. You may and you should inhale in different ways. If during one pluck you make a long inhale the time of the sound increases significantly. During one pluck you can inhale two, three or several times. Using such breath you can alter strength and length of sounds.
Buffy Sainte-Marie , a Native American protest singer popular in the 60s and 70s, uses the mouthbow in several of her songs. The mouthbow has a sound similar to that of the Jew's harp, and it works in the same way. Here are instructions on how to make your own mouthbow. Here are instructions on how to play it. Go to the following page on the Amazon site and choose the songs "Cripple Creek" and "Ground Hog" to hear Buffy accompany her singing on the mouthbow.
In his published writings of 1917 titled Die Maultrommel: eine typologische Vorstudie, Curt Sachs denotes the type of frame employed as the main differentiating characteristic of the Jew's harp, and further categorizes the instrument by establishing whether it is idioglot or heteroglot, hence either having a tongue that is cut into the frame or alternatively, one that is attached to it. Leonard Fox however points out that the classificatory system of Geneviève Dournon-Taurelle and John Wright in their collaboration of Les guimbardes du Musée de l'Homme, although simpler in nature, provides a more sound solution, especially in view of the fact that Curt Sachs' scheme excludes bone, horn and mammoth ivory materials utilized in the idioglot Jew's harps of the native peoples of Siberia, Mongolia, and of the Eskimo.
The musician's smile may become irregular over time, if the morsing isn't alternated between the two sides of the mouth, and the two hands. It should be very easy to learn to play the morsing with the other side. It's not known whether regular corrective smiling (in the mirror) may improve this.
He started making Jew's harps in a shed of a long-demolished building in 1976. Having created thousands of them he felt they were good enough to be ready to be shown to others. He still uses some of the tools he started with almost 40 years ago and his workshop is still a humble place as it has always been.
Actually, the only two uses I know of are on Billy Joel's first album, on the song Travellin' Man and, if memory serves, by Godley and Creme on the album Goodbye Blue Sky, each song of which includes some use of harmonica, as well as at least one use of Jew's (now jaw) harp.
This is an absolute delight! This is my first real harp,I've been using the cheap disposable "Snoopy" type of thing for years but this is light years beyond those type of instruments. The sound is incredible and it's much louder than I thought possible. Well worth your time and money. And a special thanks to the seller, Shamanicshop. The harp arrived from Russia in less than a week and a half. And the seller included a small good luck charm that really made the whole transaction special.
Double clamp version - for folks who want to play several different harps you get one bell and two head clamps. You can fix your harps onto the head clamps and change over in 5 seconds, pull off one head clamp & harp and put the other one one! Specify any two clamps of your choice (use notes).
Working with many different musicians, John recorded award-winning albums ranging from Irish traditional music and the compositions of John Playford to medieval interpretations. Performing with his wife, Catherine Perrier , he travelled throughout Europe and north America. They toured extensively in France, documenting, collecting and recording songs and music from traditional sources. Both played an important role in the revival of traditional French folk music, song and dance.
However, if you want to play music, that is, shape sounds and tunes on the Jew's Harp intentionally, you need to know playing techniques and the functioning of the instrument. These instructions seek to contribute to this knowledge: They describe and illustrate a variety of playing techniques and give some background information on the instrument. For each technique a sound example is provided.
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