The Melodica and the Moog: Two Instruments that Changed the World

This article isn't about pianos or guitars. The instruments that I'm writing this article about may be well known to some, yet at the same time, completely unknown to others. These instruments have been utilized by many musicians since their recent inception; you've probably heard them in quite a lot of songs, but wouldn't recognize them at first unless you were familiar with the instruments already.

The first instrument I shall start with is called the melodica. The melodica is a wind instrument that was created by a German company named Hohner in the late 1950s. It is a free-reed instrument that is somewhat similar to the accordion and the harmonica. There is a keyboard on top of the melodica that you use one hand to play, and with the other hand you hold the instrument and blow air into a mouthpiece that is situated at the front of the instrument, similar to a clarinet or flute. The keyboard is normally either two or three octaves long.

Variations have been created on the melodica keyboard through the years and have been made by lots of different companies. Each company has given the melodica a different name, like blow accordion, melodeon, melodyhorn, wind piano, pianica and cassotto.

If you'd like to learn how to play the melodica, it's worth noting that there are few books out there that can teach you how. Instead, it's recommended that you experiment a lot with the instrument and get yourself acquainted with piano scales beforehand if at all possible.

One piece of interesting trivia about the melodica is that Mark Mothersbaugh of the band Devo was the only person in the Ohio Musician's Union that listed his melodica as his primary instrument.

Here is a list of some of the other musicians who have employed the melodica in their songs:

Jon King of Gang of Four
Paul McCartney of The Beatles and Wings
Martin Gore of Depeche Mode
Ian Curtis of Joy Division
Peter Murphy of Bauhaus
Donald Fagen of Steely Dan
Joe Jackson
Rick Davies of Supertramp
Mark Hart of Crowded House
Mike Patton of Faith No More
Stevie Wonder
Bernie Worrell of Parliament/Funkadelic
Bernard Sumner of New Order
Paul Arthurs of Oasis
Damon Albarn of Blur