Mouth Organ

P. Peckmann Austrian

Not on view

This instrument, known only by this specimen, has the shape of a baroque-period racket and was seemingly meant as a historicist "new racket." It speaks with pressure and suction, has two-by-five finger buttons, and is tuned like a harmonica in D. The arrangement of the buttons, however, allows one to play chords, making the instrument well suited for accompaniment. Another concept was to provide a large resonance chamber, in the form of the hollow wooden cylinder underneath the reeds at the upper end of the instrument. The sound of the instrument has a special tenderness. Peckmann is also known as a maker of music boxes.
The mouth pipe is a reproduction.

Mouth Organ, P. Peckmann, Wood, leather, various materials, Austrian

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