How I Made an Oriental Melodica
A melodica is usually thought of as a kids toy. Not taken seriously as a true musical instrument. Although, unsurprisingly, some "hipster" musicians have been known to use it on occasion, but it has always remained just that: a novelty item. And well, I admit, I might be somewhat of a hipster. I enjoy weird and wacky things, to an extent. I get sick of the same old stuff pretty fast.
I first saw the melodica in a Christmas music video being played by the great tenor Andrea Bocelli, surrounded by a bunch of kids. It's weird how nice a kids choir can be, especially when it's something Christmas themed or something similar.
After seeing that, I thought the melodica was like the coolest thing ever. It was like a harmonica, but easier to play for me because it had normal piano keys. I kept it in my mind, and after a while I had my mom buy me one as a Christmas gift. It was a basic student 2 octave melodica, nothing special.
I really enjoyed playing it. It did sound a bit like a harmonica but also it had some accordion in it. It had a pretty nice full sound, especially with chords. I even used it in my ridiculous Cheb Khaled "Aicha" cover.
Then for a while, I started having this idea based on the "Nay" instrument. I wanted to get multiple melodicas and tune each one to a distinct tuning, so that I could potentially play any song in any oriental mode, or any western mode as well for that matter. Fast forward to yesterday, and maybe it was me being bored out of my mind studying for finals, but I just had to start on that idea.
First, I had to figure out how to tune a melodica. I had loosely searched for that a few times before, I knew it had to do with filing something or something like that. After a quick internet search I found this cool video where someone talks about how they had a problem with some notes, and how they fixed it.
For your benefit I will explain some details here, you can skip to the next paragraph if you are not interested. So a melodica has these things that are called reeds. They're basically thin metal pieces that are attached from one side to a part of the melodica, and each reed represents a note. These are the things that make the sound when the air passes though by vibrating. Now in order to tune a reed, you have to file it. You file at the base (where it's attached) if you want to lower the tuning, and you file at the tip it you want to sharpen the tuning. Here's what the inside of a melodica looks like:
Second, I started the tuning process. I was going to drop each of the E notes (there are two of them) and the B notes (there are 3 of them) a quarter of the way down to get the oriental scale I wanted. So I opened the melodica and I pinpointed the reeds that needed to be tuned. I then got a small slot screwdriver and grinded the reeds while holding them up with a guitar pick (because I found out the hard way that if the reed dropped into its slot it would stop working).
I eventually got the reeds where I wanted them by trial and error. It took some time and a lot of testing and fine tuning, but I did it.
After all that work, I had to time-stamp my achievement. The next day I recorded a short video playing a Feiruz Classic. Here it is:
If you have a question please leave a comment below.
Pat
I first saw the melodica in a Christmas music video being played by the great tenor Andrea Bocelli, surrounded by a bunch of kids. It's weird how nice a kids choir can be, especially when it's something Christmas themed or something similar.
After seeing that, I thought the melodica was like the coolest thing ever. It was like a harmonica, but easier to play for me because it had normal piano keys. I kept it in my mind, and after a while I had my mom buy me one as a Christmas gift. It was a basic student 2 octave melodica, nothing special.
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| My Melodica |
I really enjoyed playing it. It did sound a bit like a harmonica but also it had some accordion in it. It had a pretty nice full sound, especially with chords. I even used it in my ridiculous Cheb Khaled "Aicha" cover.
Then for a while, I started having this idea based on the "Nay" instrument. I wanted to get multiple melodicas and tune each one to a distinct tuning, so that I could potentially play any song in any oriental mode, or any western mode as well for that matter. Fast forward to yesterday, and maybe it was me being bored out of my mind studying for finals, but I just had to start on that idea.
First, I had to figure out how to tune a melodica. I had loosely searched for that a few times before, I knew it had to do with filing something or something like that. After a quick internet search I found this cool video where someone talks about how they had a problem with some notes, and how they fixed it.
For your benefit I will explain some details here, you can skip to the next paragraph if you are not interested. So a melodica has these things that are called reeds. They're basically thin metal pieces that are attached from one side to a part of the melodica, and each reed represents a note. These are the things that make the sound when the air passes though by vibrating. Now in order to tune a reed, you have to file it. You file at the base (where it's attached) if you want to lower the tuning, and you file at the tip it you want to sharpen the tuning. Here's what the inside of a melodica looks like:
 |
| The Inside of a Melodica. The Reeds are in Copper. |
Second, I started the tuning process. I was going to drop each of the E notes (there are two of them) and the B notes (there are 3 of them) a quarter of the way down to get the oriental scale I wanted. So I opened the melodica and I pinpointed the reeds that needed to be tuned. I then got a small slot screwdriver and grinded the reeds while holding them up with a guitar pick (because I found out the hard way that if the reed dropped into its slot it would stop working).
 |
| Tuning Process |
I eventually got the reeds where I wanted them by trial and error. It took some time and a lot of testing and fine tuning, but I did it.
After all that work, I had to time-stamp my achievement. The next day I recorded a short video playing a Feiruz Classic. Here it is:
If you have a question please leave a comment below.
Pat
Just tried this out, great idea thanks for sharing! Fairouz songs here we come 🕺
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