Chromonica Harmonica – The "Classic" Pop, Jazz Chromatic Harmonica
The Chromonica is a truly classic model of chromatic harmonica – made by the Hohner Company of Germany, it has been around for several years, and looking at pictures of chromatic harmonica players over the decades past, you can see the Chromonica in the hands of several famous players, such as Stevie Wonder and Toots Thielemans. Most often in these pictures they are playing Hohner’s Super Chromonica, the 12 hole version of the chromonica, model #270.
Stevie Wonder is famous for his pop/funk style of playing the chromatic, a choppy, slurring style that he created and that a lot of players aspire to imitate.
Toots Thielemans style on the other hand is much smoother, a legato jazz style that fits beautifully with traditional jazz accompaniment.
The Chromonica harmonica has a wooden comb, which means that the middle part of the instrument, the basic body of the instrument, is made of wood. Quite often these days, the comb of the harmonica is made of plastic .
There are varying schools of thought about whether it’s better to have a wooden comb or a plastic comb – they definitely have their pluses and minuses. Wood, as you can imagine, reacts to humidity and swells and shrinks accordingly, a little bit. Plastic combs on the other hand don’t have this problem but may not have the beautiful tone that wood has.
However, the Chromonica has been in production for several decades, and is still a really great instrument. It is not Hohner’s “top of the line” anymore, but it is a good reliable instrument that you can get a “classic” sound with, and if taken care of, the Chromonica harmonica can last and be one of your favorite instruments.
The Chromonica comes in various sizes: the 12 hole and the 16 hole models. The 16 hole chromonica has an extra lower octave on the left side of the harmonica, which can be fun, but on the other hand the 12 hole harmonica tends to fit in your hands much better, is lighter, and is easier to hold cupped to a microphone if that is the way you play.
Chromatic harmonicas are designed to play every complete scale in any key — major, minor, pentatonic, blues, etc. — all on one instrument. Nevertheless, they can be bought in various keys – the most common by far is the key of C.
A chromatic harmonica theoretically can play in any key because it has as part of its mechanism the ability to play all 12 notes of the “Western” (standard do-re-mi) scale, so that by using the button slide on the side of the chromonica you can build your various scales. But as you can imagine, the various keys start in various places on the scale of western music, such as G typically starting lower than the C scale harmonica.
The c scale-tuned harmonica is midrange, and also is very easy to understand music theory-wise, so that if you were using the chromatic harmonica (a Chromonica in this case) to build scales for whatever song you are playing, it is easy to start with the basic “blank slate” (no sharps or flats) of the key of C harmonica, and build it up from there.
An example of this would be if you were playing a key of C Chromonica in the key of D, then you would use the button slide to give you the C sharp and the F sharp in the scale of the key of D to play your C chromonica in the key of D.
In summary, Hohner’s Chromonica harmonica is a classic chromatic harmonica that has quite a lot of history behind it, has a beautiful tone, and is reliable. It is a midrange model Hohner harmonica and is a great place to start playing the chromatic harmonica.
By: Matthew Shelton