[Lee Davila]

Hi all! I’ve just received a beautiful condition Hohner Piano 27. I’ve had several of these over the years, so I’m pretty familiar with how they play. This new one didn’t come with a mouthpiece, but I’ve found that it takes and incredible amount of air to get it to play most notes. I’m seeing stars and only getting a few weak bleats. I took it apart and cleaned it. Everything looks to be in order, but the sound is poor at best. Could a proper mouthpiece fix this? I don’t want to throw good money after bad 😉
TIA!
Lee

[Leonard]

If you blow into the melodica without any keys pressed you should feel no air movement, If you do it could be the spit valve or a few of the keys have missing pads.
Its not good, the joy of a melodica for me is the easy way they play, it should never be so much air.
Also the question about the mouth piece, that shouldn’t make any difference, from memory I think that the bottom of that melodica has alot of tiny screws they make a seal inside that is important, don’t overtighten them.

[Alan Brinton]

Your Piano 27 does not have a good seal, Lee. You didn’t say which model Piano 27 you have. In most cases, the melodica has a gasket that seals the reed chamber and that can be replaced by a new gasket that you make. If you do a search for “gasket” in these forums, you’ll find many posts about replacing a gasket. It’s not hard, though it may be more so if your instrument is the original metal body Piano 27.

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