DAN MOI considers itself as a fair trader of musical instruments, close to the customers and the producers. Our team is motivated by the fascination with handmade sounds, effect instruments, and with jaw harps in particular. Today DAN MOI can offer more than 400 different jaw harps made by artisans from all over the world. Moreover, there are more than 200 percussion, string, wind, and sound effects instruments, such as gongs, shakers, Duduk, Shakuhachi, nose whistles, mouth bows or kalimbas. The customer base counts more than 10.000 persons worldwide by now. Furthermore, we supply to 800 retailer/shop owners.
The special thing about DAN MOI is that most of our instruments are made by instrument makers and mouth harp smiths we know personally. It is an important concern for us to be in contact and work together with the producers. DAN MOI’s continuing demand for jaw harps and percussion instruments led to the filling of 20 new jobs in Vietnam for example. This is one reason why DAN MOI is accepted as supplier by the “Fair Trade” in Germany. One important part of our work is to find new jaw harp makers and unknown producers. Only very few artisans produce mouth harps as a full time job. Most of them have other professions and make only a relatively small number of instruments per year. Our work would not be possible without intensive personal connections. As a team we are pulled together by the enthusiasm and fascination with the instrument jaw harp. At the moment we are six staff members. Even in our free time all of us support DAN MOI in various fields to foster the playing of jaw harps and effect instruments. By being so close to our instruments we are able to check the quality of their sound and material before we hand them on to our customers.
We are travelers and musicians. We observe and explore. We are listening carefully when sounds are produced – in front of our own door, but also cross-border and worldwide. By taking delight in getting on to new sounds day by day and sharing this search with other people, the musical instrument trading company DAN MOI was founded in 2002 by the musicians and globetrotters Clemens Voigt and Sven Otto from Leipzig. When there is not enough space in the luggage for big percussion instruments or didgeridoos, then these guys are at least accompanied by a mouth harp when traveling…
En route: Clemens is our contact with the artisans
Clemens is our jaw harp hunter. After his community service he was traveling around the world for three years, working with a loam constructor, learning how to glass blow, helping in a carpenter’s workshop, and trading in bamboo. When didgeridoo and drum would not fit into his luggage anymore, another instrument became his permanent companion: the jaw harp. After playing the mouth harp for many years as Clemens’ passionate hobby, he first hit on the idea of trading in jaw harps through an encounter with the Vietnamese mouth harp Dan Moi: “I got to know my first Dan Moi through a musician friend and immediately fell in love with this kind of jaw harp. This is because of its playing technique – the Dan Moi is played on the lips only. Its sound is very delicate, soft, and rich in overtones. This has totally fascinated me.”When Clemens noted that it was impossible to buy a Dan Moi anywhere in Europe, he decided to set out for Vietnam. He rented a motorbike for several weeks and drove across the North of Vietnam searching for jaw harp makers. He found them in the villages of the H’mong. Clemens bought a whole backpack full of Dan Moi jaw harps and returned to Germany with these instruments. The idea of the musical instrument trading company DAN MOI was born. In the following years Clemens made a lot of contacts with mouth harp artisans. And until today he is our connection to the producers in Sakha, Italy, Vietnam, Japan, and India, just to mention a few of the meanwhile almost 40 regions of origin.
Listening: Roxi detects new sound producers
Music has always played a central part in “Roxi’s” life. He formerly sang with the children’s choir of the Gewandhaus (Leipzigs world famous concert hall) and broadcast in Leipzig. Then he made a side trip into electronic music and DJ culture, and today he plays a good handful of musical instruments: Shakuhachi, Fujara, Kaval, Duduk, and of course the mouth harp. The idea to provide people with the whole range of jaw harps means to him a direct way to musical variety: “I am driven by the fascination with new sounds. It is exciting to hold an instrument in my hand without knowing exactly what it is, to attend to it, and to figure out how it is played traditionally, and how I would play it, or how we would apply it in an ensemble. It is thrilling to be able to try one’s hand at the most different combinations. And the most astonishing thing is that it never ends. There is always somebody somewhere who plays a sound which you have never heard before. It is a universe. Each sound is a little star, and there are an infinite number of possibilities. And that’s fun!” Not least due to Roxi’s never ending passion for listening and searching, DAN MOI is today a musical instrument trading company which provides an incredible selection of musical instruments and sound producers.
The DAN MOIs spend a lot of time on the road
Searching for mouth harp producers
An important part of our work as mouth harp experts is to always search for still unknown jaw harp makers. Many mouth harp artisans make these instruments rather in their free time and not in a commercial way. But through a lot of experience, many contacts, much patience, and through helpful hints by our fans and customers, we always manage to find new models which we can offer you here on our website.
At festivals
It is a lot of fun to be part of mouth harp, didgeridoo, and overtone festivals. There you can appeal to us directly and try everything of our range out – in case we have our own booth.
Presentations
Now and then we are invited as mouth harp experts to give presentations on these instruments.
Music Trade Fairs
Musical instrument shops are also customers of ours. Therefore, being present at important music fairs – notably the one in Frankfurt – is part of our routine. There we can also catch up on current developments ourselves and sometimes discover new and interesting instruments which supplement well our range.