In The Spotlight: Hohner Instruments

Sitkans who wish to sample or hear about the dulcet tones of Hohner musical instruments don’t have to go very far. Long time Sitka residents Gary Gouker and Michael Litman are both Hohner enthusiasts.

Sitkans who wish to sample or hear about the dulcet tones of Hohner musical instruments don’t have to go very far. Long time Sitka residents Gary Gouker and Michael Litman are both Hohner enthusiasts.

Hohner is a company founded in Germany by Matthias Hohner. The former clock maker began hand-crafting harmonicas in 1857 – that first year he turned out 650 of them! Harmonicas are still the company’s best-known product, but in later years they have also manufactured accordions, recorder flutes, banjos, acoustic and electric guitars, mandolins and (perhaps most shockingly) electronic keyboards, some of which were sold in the 1980s as “Casio synths.”

Gouker’s box of harmonicas

Gouker plays and collects harmonicas. “I have boxes and boxes of them. They are kind of throwaway instruments which you play hard at the beginning of their life, then softer as you go on. I can’t say I have ever found another brand of harmonica I like as much as Hohner – it has always been a cutting-edge company.”

“Even if you take good care of them, harmonicas usually last three years max, and some way less. If you buy the better ones, it’s about $60-$70 apiece. Over the course of a lifetime, that’s more than the cost of a piano.”

Litman is also a fan of Hohner, specifically accordions. Two of his instruments are chromatic keyboard accordions – a style popular in Europe and Russia, often heard in European folk music – a genre Litman has enjoyed playing through the years.

“One of my accordions was given to me – accordion players tend to notice other accordion players,” he notes dryly. “I got my other one in Queens through Craigslist in the 1980s or 90s. I bought it for $2,000 from a professional Ukrainian musician – he played that accordion beautifully.”

Litman’s smaller accordion

“I am always looking for an accordion with a perfect tone – Hohners have a lovely tone and the added advantage of a compact keyboard.” He also owns several non-Hohner accordions. Traditionally made in Italy, accordions were crafted, “one-at-a-time, by hand – of wood, wax, leather, felt and metal. What the German company did was apply the principles of mass production.”

Over the years, Hohner has made dozens of different harmonicas but Gouker has “almost always played variations of the original Marine Band model. To capture the tone of 30s, 40s, 50s blues masters, Marine Band’s wooden comb is perfect.”

Gouker admits to an obsession with the blues. “Playing the blues is not so simple as I originally thought. When you really start listening to the early masters – Sonny Boy Williamson, Rice Miller, Little Walter Jacobs – they all played Hohners and that’s how they got that sound. It’s what the old guys played. Since the early days Hohner has been progressive in making improvements. And right now, people are taking the instrument to new places!

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