Volume 30, No. 35                                      
September 4, 2005

Heavenly Harps

   It’s called the harp, the tin sandwich, or the Mississippi saxophone, but most of us first knew it as the mouth organ.  Call it what you will, artists use the harmonica to breathe new life into their music

   It all started 5,000 years ago in China with a three-foot-long, bamboo instrument called the sheng or “sublime voice” which had a vital feature of today’s harmonica, a free reed.  A reed is a thin strip of cane, wood, plastic or metal that vibrates when air passes over it.  In a “free reed” instrument like the accordion or harmonica, sound is made by a reed vibrating inside a chamber,  The vibrating reed produces a single note and doesn’t touch anything else.  The sheng had several free reeds inside bamboo tubes, allowing the playing of chords.

   When a French missionary sent some shengs from China to Paris in 1776, Europeans began building variations.  By 1825 the harmonica had a 10-hole, 20-note design with one row of reeds activated by inhaling and another by exhaling.  Those rows were perfectly arranged so that, no matter where the mouth was placed, the notes harmonized.

   Seeing great potential, German clockmaker Matthias Hohner started building harmonicas in his kitchen, making 650 the first year.  Then he sent some to relatives in the U.S. and sales in North America and Europe climbed to a million by 1887.  At about the same time, former slaves in America were developing a new kind of music they called the blues, and the harmonica helped give it a distinctive sound with “bending” — using direction and air pressure to slide between notes.

   By the 1920s, the harmonica was a fixture in musical styles ranging from blues and jazz to classical and country.  The Hohner company was selling 25 million a year and harmonica classes were standard in public schools.  Though the instrument slipped in popularity during the 50s, it surged again in the psychedelic 60s with the help of artists like Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Stevie Wonder.  On December 16, 1965, astronaut Wally Schirra played Jingle Bells on the harmonica from Gemini Six, 160 miles above the earth.

   Today, after more than a billion sales, the Hohner company is still thriving.  Its most expensive harmonica is the size of a baseball bat with hundreds of reeds.  It goes for $1,500.  But the most vital part of the market is still the lowly mouth organ.

   In many ways, the harmonica is a sound metaphor for believers who are called to be the sublime voice of God in a world in need of more harmony.  Not a quavering, sectarian, soul-quenching voice, but one that comes from letting the Holy Spirit pass over our hearts.  

   Each of us is like a free reed, separate and unique with a distinctive tone and tenor to our lives.  But we’re not designed to operate only in isolation, touching nothing and no one.  Instead, our Creator has arranged us in a spiritual setting called the church so we might work, live and love in complete harmony.  “There are different ways God works in our lives, but it’s the same God who does the work through all of us,” says Paul.  “A spiritual gift (ability) is given to each of us as a means of helping the entire church.” (1 Cor. 12:6,7)  And, from there, the world around us.  When we stay where the Spirit places us, there will be harmony wherever He breathes his love into the church.

   But the music that results from God’s work in our hearts isn’t always happy.  Like the blues, it’s often born of loss and lament, mingled with chords of hope and confidence.  Still, the notes we sound, especially in times of suffering, will resonate with meaning when we bend to the direction and the gentle pressure applied by the Spirit.

   And taken together, the music God draws from deep within us is truly astounding in its rich diversity.  The message He conveys through his followers may be the same, but the styles in which He does it are as varied as our personality and experience. Despite fad and cultural fetish, our sound never falls completely out of fashion and it does rise high above the world.  And remember:  there may be bigger, more powerful instruments out there, but God works mostly through those ordinary ones who rest in his hands and yield to his Breath.

By Rick Gamble, published in Cross Current, the weekly newsletter of the Followers of Christ church family in Brantford, Ontario, Canada.  Reprint at will in not-for-profit publications.  To receive these free weekly articles via email, send a note to sgamble@bfree.on.ca