What is an Indian harmonium and what are its origins?
The roots of the present day Indian harmoniums lie in the development of free-reed instruments in Europe largely between the hundred year period starting in the latter part of the 18th century.
The design in the early free-reed organs in Europe was largely influenced by the mouth organs brought by explorers from China. This led to the advent of Kirshnik’s free-reed organ dated around 1770. This ‘Harmonica’ was remarkably similar to today’s Indian harmoniums, played with one hand on the keys and one hand on the bellows to blow the air.
Although the Harmonica it seems never became popular, its design lead to many attempts by makers to find an organ that would best suit the market. The answer came in Debain’s 1842 harmonium. The Frenchman’s design had pedals to pump the bellows and to control the volume, stoppers and occasionally two keyboards. The interest became widespread in Victorian homes as it was far more affordable to the average person than a piano and could be justified as a devotional instrument as it was used for hymns.
A classical free reed harmonium of the 19th Century
It is likely that Christian missionaries entering the sub-continent in the latter part of the 19th century would have taken many such harmoniums with them. Used predominantly for singing hymns, this type of reed-organ style instrument was always likely to find favour in a devotional country. However the fact that these harmoniums had to be played with a chair and against a wall made them largely impersonal to listening audiences and participants during devotional meetings or satsung.
In 1875, the Calcutta designer Dwarkanath Ghosh made a harmonium that could be played by sitting on the floor and that was also portable and easy to maintain. It was played with only one hand, perfectly adequate for playing the melodies of Indian music. It is this harmonium design that became the blueprint for all of todays Indian harmoniums.
Other useful links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonium
http://www.india-instruments.de/pages/glossar/pics/harmonium.jpg
