Hohner HM-901 Alto Melodica

I just received this as a Christmas gift. It's the first instrument I've ever played that involves my lungs, so I apologize for all the horrible pauses to suck in air. I'm completely untrained and am probably playing it like a slob to anyone with any proficiency on the thing.

I posted this up mostly as a demonstration of the button-key variant of the melodica and it's possibilities beyond just flatly playing a melody; I have yet to see videos of players even attempting to play it with both hands and noting a melody while they comp with themselves or even play chords. So for now, I hope this video of sloppy improvisation will make due.

in a nutshell: this is what the TV sees when I sit and noodle on mouth piano while I watch re-runs of Home Improvement.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• hohner
• hm-901
• alto
• melodica
• harmony
• melody
• self
• comp

[goodpickin56]

ANYONE WHO KNOWS ABOUT INSTRUMENTS PLEASE HELP ME! I am looking into buying a melodica to make the sound made in The Distance (by CAKE) for my band but every melodica video I have found has had a much lower sound than the one in this video. I can only guess that either the sound is altered or that this melodica is some variant. Your help is greatly appreciated. Please reply to this comment

[eyodir]

@goodpickin56 I think you're confusing a melodica with a trumpet.

[eyodir]

@goodpickin56 Upon further investigation, I'm going to assume you're getting confused because of the video. That's the Hohner soprano model in the video, and it's also not what's playing that bit you're hearing. It's a synthesizer sound; probably a minimoog. It's the same sort of sound Dr. Dre cranked out all the time for his g-funk.

[eyodir]

@algor17

Do you like my violet sweater?

[miklpa]

Very inspiring! Until I saw your video, I've only heard the melodica played with flat one-note-at-a-time-tunes or with simple chords. I've just posted a video response, where I try out something similar. :-)

[IHaveDimensia]

How'd you get that sharp tremolo at the end? Is that the camera or your playing?

[rm2kmidi]

@goodpickin56 There's a melodica in the video, probably so the keyboardist can be in the video. The sound is clearly a synthesizer. A mini-moog sound, but any modern synthesizer can approximate that sound. A melodica has a reedy sound, it couldn't make that sine-wave lead sound without significant post-production filtering or hooking it to a microphone then hooking it into an effects processor. And even then, I'm not confident it could make THAT sound.

[sismyfavouriteletter]

hey, I like the music you are playing on it, definitely keep playing and become even better ... haha

[mkvickery09]

Coolest sounding melodica I've found on Youtube.

Keep it up

[Fingtam]

@algor17

I think He's referring to the melodica in the video by cake goodpickin56 referred to in his comment

[Poobumweefartyface]

@eyodir not only is this melodica red, but this says alto melodica, not soprano.

[LiquidShorts]

@eyodir it looks olive to me.

[algor17]

@eyodir i think you are color blind, you should go to an eye doctor