Hohner Musikinstrumente, a renowned musical instrument maker from Germany is releasing Beatles products that will enter the market in early 2022. One of the first instruments on the market will be a “Yellow Submarine” harmonica version under its “Signature Model” brand.
One could say that without Germany, there would not be a global phenomena known as the Beatles. The band got their chops fined tuned in Germany before returning home to dominate England and the rest of the world as a premiere rock band.
John Lennon played the harmonica in the Beatles and continued into his solo career. Below are songs where the harmonica was used.
“I played a lot of harmonica and mouth organ when I was a child. We used to take in students and one of them had a mouth organ and said he’d buy me one if I could learn a tune by the next morning. So I learnt two.”-John Lennon
Love Me Do
Please Please Me
There’s a Place
Chains
From Me to You
Little Child
I’ll Get You
Thank You Girl
I Should Have Known Better
I’m a Loser
Fool on the Hill
All Together Now
Rocky Raccoon
Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite Discographies credit Lennon, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, Beatles road Manager Neil Aspinall and Road Manager Mal Evans.
Spotify playlist John Lennon playing harmonica/harp.
The harmonica, that most modest of instruments, has ancestors that go back to Asia over a thousand years ago. But the “mouth organ” or “harp” as we know it today dates back only to 19th century Germany. In 1822 an inventor and musician from Berlin named Christian Bauschmann made an experimental instrument with fifteen reeds called the aura, designed mainly as a pitch pipe. It attracted the attention of a local clockmaker named Christian Messner. Because of an economic depression, the clock business was bad and Messner was looking for other ways to make a living. He started making cheap copies of the aura to peddle at local fairs and carnivals, and soon other German craftsmen were getting into the act. Then, in 1857, Matthias Hohner figured out how to mass-produce the little instruments, and soon became the leader in the field. By 1977 he was making over 700,000 harmonicas a year, and over half of them were being exported to America.