Blog

Seeing a jaw harp in a movie is a rare moment: In the first scene of his film "You Cant Win 'Em All" (1970) Charles Bronson is passing some time by playing a jaw harp. Sound-wise, it’s not too fancy, we´ll take a closer look.

It is the artistic approach that currently makes the jaw harps of Dmitry Babayev the most excellent and conspicuous instruments in the Russian-speaking world. Furthermore, the jaw harps leave his workshop in an immaculate state. We spoke with him about the aesthetic side of making jaw harps and his personal access to those instruments.

The French jaw harp player and percussionist Francois Cesari who was part of the trance music bands Goayandi and Watt The Foxxx passionately teaches music to children. For the last two years he’s been regularly sharing sound experiences with them. On this mission the instruments from DAN MOI are involved.

Kecskemét is the Hungarian city of music instruments and in particular it is the city of jaw harps. This is because Áron Szilágyi and his father Zoltán Szilágyi, two of the most important protagonists of the European jaw harp scene live there. Helen Hahmann from DAN MOI met Áron Szilágyi for the Jaw Harp Blog.

“The Scottish and Irish integrated the jaw harp into their music culture, the English did not,” writes Michael Wright in his book about jaw harps in Great Britain and Ireland, which was published in 2015. Even though the English didn’t play the jaw harp that very often, England became one of the largest jaw harp manufacturers and exporters. A piece of history.

The jaw harp expert, musician and didgeridoo master Jonny Cope from London talked to Helen Hahmann from DAN MOI about what has changed for the instrument on the island, what fascinates him the most whilst playing, and what beginners should be looking out for.