The Crow Hill Company is proud to announce availability of VAULTS-HARMONIUM — bringing bellows to DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) as its latest free VI (Virtual Instrument) monthly drop, allowing anyone to experience the timbral complexities and harmonic layers of its gorgeous and, some might say, quaint instrument namesake for the rest of their lives, abiding, as always, by the Edinburgh-based enterprise creators’ collective Make Music, Your Music motto — as of October 24…
Its iconic appearance in Director/Writer Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2002-released dark romantic comedy Punch: Drunk Love — look it up! — may make many think of the harmonium in a certain way. What is certain, though, is that the small free-reed organ was patented way before, back in 1842 by Frenchman Alexandre Debain. By being smaller and less expensive than traditional pipe organs, it quickly became popular through Europe, India, Africa, and the southern United States. Travelling through the north of the UK, harmoniums can still be found tucked away in the corners of many recording studios. Saying that, those that are there are not just set dressing; after all, the harmonium captured the hearts of artists such as The Beatles, Supertramp, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, and Tori Amos, all of whom featured it in their music.
Making music with a harmonium is easier said than done, however, since the instrument in question generates sound by pumping air — using two foot-operated pedals joined to a mechanism that operates a bellows or by pushing and pulling a handle joined to the bellows back and forth with one hand — past a thin piece of metal in a frame and making it vibrate. Vibrations then resonate through the harmonium’s wooden body, thereby producing the distinctive, church-like sound. Thankfully, The Crow Hill Company has succeeded in capturing this sound to produce VAULTS-HARMONIUM, making it much easier for many more appreciative sound-seekers to experience its musical magic.
Composer Christian Henson — original founder of The Crow Hill Company — freely admits to being a big fan: “It’s got to be one of my favourite instruments. It can bring a simplicity to music — dare I say it, a quaintness, but because of its timbral complexities, it’s also massively expressive.”
Enter VAULTS-HARMONIUM; re-enter Christian Henson — no stranger to working with samples: “With keyboards and samples, there seems to be a ‘Once its triggered, you’re off to the races’ type of thinking. That’s it done. It just isn’t the case. And if you listen to stuff that’s made with bellows — whether it be an accordion, an organ, or, indeed, a harmonium, you’ll hear when they’re being played that there’s all sorts of timbral differences that are used after a note is played to make the instrument more progressive. If you play VAULTS-HARMONIUM without using the expressive features it sounds a bit ‘Bontempi’, whereas if you start using the TIMBRE control suddenly it comes to life. In addition to the expression that we’ve got here that bring out some of the upper harmonics, we’ve also got a selection of different recordings, which, again, have those different harmonic layers, and you activate them with velocity on this VAULTS… instrument — quiet has a more innocent feel, loud has a more ‘church-y’ feel.”
Fortunately for everyone concerned, those recordings involved in making VAULTS-HARMONIUM are as good as it gets.
For more information, visit thecrowhillcompany.com.