The Harmonium Handbook

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The Harmonium Handbook provides detailed instruction in how to play, maintain, and repair this popular devotional instrument. It also reveals the colorful history of free-reed instruments such as the harmonium, which dates back to the time of Marco Polo. The story behind the modern version of the harmonium is a fascinating testimony to the love, skill, innovation, and intermingling of many of the world's great cultures. The Harmonium Handbook Reveals:The history of the Indian harmonium, from Ancient China to Europe and America. The essentials of owning and caring for Indian harmoniums, helping them give many years of service. How to play the harmonium in a variety of styles, from the simple to the complex, including single-note melody, melody with a drone, chords, and other more advanced methods (a complete appendix of chords and chord inversions is provided). How to explore the "inner realms" of the instrument and perform a variety of adjustments and corrections, including how to tune a harmonium's individual brass reeds. Satyaki Kraig Brockschmidt is a Microsoft design engineer. He offers precision, inspiration, and an occasional dose of wit in sharing both his musical and technical experience with this special instrument.

Kraig Brockschmidt, who also goes by the spiritual name Satyaki, * first fell in love with Indian harmoniums in 1996. He discovered, immediately upon sitting with one for the first time, that he intuitively knew many subtleties of playing the instrument. Since then, devotional chanting has been one of his favorite pastimes, and he is considered highly skilled in the art. After a pilgrimage to India in 1998, during which he had the opportunity to visit the Bina factory in Delhi, he began importing Indian harmoniums on a regular basis. But after being flown halfway around the world, most harmoniums arrived in his home town of Seattle in less than perfect condition. Many hours spent adjusting these instruments gave him abundant opportunities to explore the fine details of the instrument and to find and describe solutions, as befits his professional work as an engineer and technical writer for Microsoft. In The Harmonium Handbook, he is pleased to offer in written form the love of his heart and the depth of his experience as both musician and technician. Satyaki currently lives with his wife and son at Ananda Village near Nevada City, California.