One thing I like about playing the mouth harp is how you use your jaw and mouth as a resonator in order to amplify the sound. When you play, the sound is literally coming from inside your head, it’s a quite intense, engrossing, and beautiful experience. And yes, it’s also beautiful for the people around me, listening, I don’t know why you’d question that.
I think the sound of this instrument carries a particular allure, it reverberates with wizardry and summons forest creatures, the real, the mythical — angels and cacodemons, dísir and vættir. All music holds some type of magic, but the mouth harp is pure mojo, me thinks. Just look at what happened once, when I improvised a particularly sublime passage:
Source:
- Guerber, H. A. (Hélène Adeline). Myths of the Norsemen from the Eddas and Sagas. London: Harrap, 1909.