Harmonium Repair

Most harmonium problems are not serious. A note that will not sound, a key that sticks down, a reed that has gone flat, a bellows that has started to hiss: every one of these is a repair rather than a replacement, and a harmonium that is properly looked after will outlast the person who bought it. This page explains what goes wrong, what you can safely put right yourself, and what should come to a workshop.

What we repair

We repair harmoniums of every make in our Mumbai workshop, whether or not you bought the instrument from us. The work we do most often is reed cleaning and retuning, freeing stuck and sluggish keys, replacing bellows cloth and valves, sealing air leaks in the reed board, re-seating warped key beds, replacing broken coupler parts, and repairing scale change mechanisms that have started to bind.

The four faults we see most

A note that does not sound

Nine times out of ten this is dust or a fragment of debris caught between the reed tongue and its frame, not a broken reed. The reed board has to be opened and the reed cleared. The two videos below show exactly how this is done on a Kolkata style harmonium and on a Bina.

A key that stays down or feels heavy

Usually the key has swollen slightly with humidity and is rubbing on its neighbour or on the guide pin, or a felt washer has compressed. Easing the key and replacing the felt is straightforward bench work. It is worth doing promptly, because a key that rubs will wear a groove in itself.

A note that has drifted in pitch

Reeds move over the years. One reed sounding sour against the rest is a tuning job, not a fault; see our harmonium tuning guide for how the work is actually done, and our harmonium FAQs for how often an instrument needs it.

A hissing or weak bellows

The cloth of a bellows perishes long before the wood does, especially in a dry climate. You will hear it as a hiss, or feel that you are pumping harder than you used to for the same volume. Re-clothing a bellows is a proper workshop job, but it completely renews the instrument and costs a fraction of a new harmonium.

What you can do yourself, and what you should not

Cleaning dust from the reed board, easing a sticking key and chalking a loose latch are all reasonable things to do at home with patience and good light. Filing a reed is not, unless you are willing to practise on an instrument you do not mind spoiling: metal removed from a reed cannot be put back. If you are unsure, take a short video of the problem and send it to us before you open anything.

Bringing an instrument to us, or sending one

You are welcome to bring a harmonium to our Mumbai showroom, and we will look at it with you and tell you honestly whether it is worth the work. If you are elsewhere in India, write to us first with photographs and a description of the fault so we can quote before you pay to send it. For customers outside India, shipping an instrument back for repair almost never makes financial sense, so instead we help remotely: we will diagnose the fault over video, tell you exactly what parts you need, send them to you, and talk your local craftsman through the job.