Tremolo harmonicas are a type of harmonica

Harmonica

The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...

, distinct by having two reeds per note. In a tremolo harmonica the two reeds are tuned slightly off a reference pitch, one slightly sharp and the other slightly flat. This gives a unique wavering or warbling sound created by the two reeds being not exactly in tune with each other and difference in their subsequent waveforms acting against one another. The degree of beating can be varied depending on the desired effect. Instruments where the beating is faster due to the reeds being farther apart from the reference pitch are called "wet", whereas those where the beating is slower and less noticeable due to the reeds being more closely in tune are called "dry".

Tremolo distinction

"Tremolo

Tremolo

Tremolo, or tremolando, is a musical term that describes various trembling effects, falling roughly into two types. The first is a rapid reiteration...

" is most often defined as a periodic change of volume (sometimes incorrectly defined as a change in pitch, strictly vibrato

Vibrato

Vibrato is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. Vibrato is typically characterised in terms of two factors: the amount of pitch variation and the speed with which the pitch is varied .-Vibrato and...

). Most orchestral instruments achieve this effect by repeated playing of a single note. The tremolo harmonica achieves the effect by employing the physical phenomenon called beats

Beat (acoustics)

In acoustics, a beat is an interference between two sounds of slightly different frequencies, perceived as periodic variations in volume whose rate is the difference between the two frequencies....

. Each note is played simultaneously by two reeds, fractionally out of tune with each other. The resulting sound is of constant pitch but the volume oscillates between loud and quiet. This effect is fairly common amongst Western

Western culture

Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...

 free-reed instruments and is found in accordions, harmoniums and reed organs under various names (celeste, vox jubilante, etc.), but it is also used, for example, on the piano, where each of the three strings is tuned very slightly sharper or flatter, giving a richer sound to the instrument.

Wiener system

Most tremolo harmonicas are built upon what is termed the "Wiener system", named after the city of Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 (Wien in Austria) where they first emerged. In this design the two beating reeds are distributed one on each reed-plate (top and bottom) and these share a common chamber. In practice, however, it is common for each individual reed to have its own air chamber. Unlike the standard ten-hole harmonicas (built on the "Richter system", e.g. Hohner's Marine Band) the blow and draw reeds do not share a common chamber, but are separated off from one another. This allows the player to isolate each reed. While normally the player simply plays both the tremolo reeds at once, it is possible to achieve a wide variety of bends and other effects through selecting certain reeds and chambers and not others. Similarly, it is possible to play without the tremolo effect by only choosing the top or bottom chambers and blocking off the others with the lips. In practice, though, these are primarily used for effects and mostly the instrument is played as if the two beating reeds shared a single chamber.

Tuning

There are three commonly encountered tunings or note layouts used for tremolo harmonicas. The older layout is very similar to that used in the standard diatonic harmonica and also found in diatonic accordions and concertinas. This tuning has the major diatonic scale in the middle and top octaves of the harmonica with two chords in the lowest octave

Octave

In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...

: the tonic in the blow and the dominant or fifth chord in the draw. This is very effective for chordal playing behind relatively simple folk melodies in either the tonic or the fifth of the key of the harmonica. In Asia, the fourths and the sixths are added back in, in order to play the melody; however, it is still unlike the scale tuning mentioned below, since the octaves are not repeated throughout the layout.

(capital letters indicate blow, non-capital letters denote draw)
Common tuning in Europe and North America
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (Hohner's labeling)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
-----------------------------------------------------------
|C |d |E |g |G |b |C |d |E |f |G |a |C |b |E |d |G |f |C |a |
|C |d |E |g |G |b |C |d |E |f |G |a |C |b |E |d |G |f |C |a |
-----------------------------------------------------------


Common tuning in East Asia
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
|G |d |C |f |E |a |G |b |C |d |E |f |G |a |C |b |E |d |G |f |C |a |E |b |
|G |d |C |f |E |a |G |b |C |d |E |f |G |a |C |b |E |d |G |f |C |a |E |b |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

A more recently developed tuning is commonly found on tremolos manufactured in or designed for Asia. This layout is derived from the "solo" tuning found in chromatic harmonicas and is sometimes called "scale" tuning. Here the notes of the major scale are found throughout the range of the harmonica without a separate chord section in the bass octave. This helps to facilitate a common practice in Asia of playing both a C and C# harmonica stacked in order to achieve full chromaticity by having essentially the same notes available in each octave of the harmonica. This tuning is also applied to Tombo's S-50.

(capital letters indicate blow, non-capital letters denote draw)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
|C |d |E |f |G |a |C |b |C |d |E |f |G |a |C |b |C |d |E |f |G |a |C |b |
|C |d |E |f |G |a |C |b |C |d |E |f |G |a |C |b |C |d |E |f |G |a |C |b |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Note: Some manufacturers replace the repeated root note (7 and 15) with a spacer (See S-50), or just completely do away with it (e.g.: Hohner).

Recently, Hohner also released a scale-tuned tremolo, the "21 Tremolo De Luxe", which has three complete scale-tuned octaves.

Use

Tremolo harmonicas are perhaps the most common form of harmonica in the world, being very popular in folk music as well as in much of East Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

. In the West, the tremolo harmonica is usually encountered in traditional folk music, being found throughout Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

 in this role. In China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, Korea

Korea

Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

, Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

 and other parts of Asia, however, tremolo harmonicas are found in nearly every area of music from folk

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

 to classical — in fact, there are specially manufactured tremolo harmonicas for ensemble playing. Players often use several different harmonicas at a time, holding them one atop the other, in order to play notes and chords not available on any single instrument.

Other

An interesting recent development has been that of the chromatic tremolo

Tremolo

Tremolo, or tremolando, is a musical term that describes various trembling effects, falling roughly into two types. The first is a rapid reiteration...

 harmonica. This combines the slider design of the chromatic harmonica with the dual reed beating sound of the tremolo harmonica. Harmonica technician John Infande has been manufacturing his own design in limited numbers for several years http://www.infandecustomharmonicas.com/page2.html while the Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese harmonica company Suzuki

Suzuki

is a Japanese multinational corporation headquartered in Hamamatsu, Japan that specializes in manufacturing compact automobiles and 4x4 vehicles, a full range of motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles , outboard marine engines, wheelchairs and a variety of other small internal combustion engines...

has recently released its design http://www.suzuki-music.co.jp/en/special/index.htm.

External links

• Information about tremolo harmonicas
• Learning to Play tremolo harmonicas