The World's Smallest Playable Harmonica

It all started with this purple, Toy Harmonica that my mom bought for Kiki & Colin from one of her year-end vacations in Taiwan. The other mini harmonica she's got for Colin comes with Doraemon print.

I thought to myself-- Hummm... Teacher S says she likes miniatures. I think this toy would make a nice Christmas gift for her. So I started searching online and found that Amazon has a few types of mini harmonicas.

After researching between the likes of makers- Swan and Hohner, I got more and more interested in this little instrument although I can't play it. But I could manage a passable "Twinkle" with it.

Continuing with my research, I've discovered that exactly, this little harmonica is the first musical instrument ever played and broadcasted from outer Space. Well, not this toy harmonica but an actual, playable harmonica made by Hohner (Germany), the harmonica model named - Little Lady. Measuring a mere 1.3/8 inches (3.5 cm), the Little Lady is a tiny, working instrument. It's not a toy. (Note: Do note that there's another Hohner Mini Harmonica named "Mini". It has the same measurement but it does not play like the Little Lady. That one is about US$6++ while Little Lady is about US$20++. 

Some Science buff do not consider Little Lady as the first musical instrument being played in Space because firstly, it wasn't a planned activity by NASA. Secondly, the harmonica wasn't a declared item on board, it was sneaked in by Walter. Thirdly, Astronaut Walter Schirra (Wally) was pulling a prank on his friends by reporting a possible sight of an UFO but end up playing Jingle Bells for laughs. It was after all, Christmas.

His friends had both a shock and a good laugh.

16th December 1965 was the date and this is 13 more days to 50 years ago.
Wally has since donated his Little Lady to the Smithsonian (museum in D.C). 

Don't you just love a practical joke? Especially one that involves breaking rules. 

When I told Kiki the story of Little Lady, the first thing she asked was if Walter was still living (since this was 50 years ago). (hum........................).  I didn't have that information last night and it was late, so I did a mental calculation and told her that Walter might still be living, given my guesstimate of age 30++ of an astronaut. Alas, no. He passed in 2007. But his cheekiness will be legend.

You can listen to the audio broadcast of Wally's Jingle Bells on Gemini 6 from here --

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmsOmqf7Hso 

 This Little Lady

 is in my palms now 

 S$22, one for me, one for Teacher S. 

I bought it via this website --  http://www.harmonicamegamall.com.sg/

Nice people 

Little Lady is set in C Major (whatever that means).

There are four holes, each hole plays two notes.

I've tested it out and it goes like this ------ 

First hole - Do & Re   (exhale, inhale)
Second hole - Me & Fa (exhale, inhale)
Third hole - So & La (exhale, inhale)
Fourth hole - Ti & Do (*inhale, exhale)  *different sequence from first three holes.

So, you can play any tune that's made up of these eight notes! I'm sure songs like Mary had a little lamb,,, Oh Sussana, those kind of Children & Folk Songs fit eight notes. Twinkle does. Jingle Bells does.

You know, a long, long time ago when we get like a.... 9 digitally sounding notes on the buttons of our telephones? Do you remember that?  Although the *, 0, # keys are repeat tones, we can still get 9 tones from digits 1 to 9, I used to play some tunes on the dial pad just to amuse myself. Eg: Mary had a little lamb goes -- 3212333, 222, 3 66, 3212333, 44 321.   Gosh, I still remember them. Faint*. 

So these eight notes on the harmonica are kind of similar to the phone dial pad ya?  

Amusing.