M37 Professional 37 Key Melodica with Deluxe Case and two mouthpieces

I dig the sound of free-reed instruments. I've been tempted to buy an antique reed organ, but I don't really have the room for it. I like accordions but they are costly, and I don't want to have to learn the left-hand buttons. I have a few harmonicas and enjoy playing them, but I find them difficult to play with much accuracy. That leaves the amazing melodica. I have thought about getting one before, but they seemed like toys and I wasn't sure my asthmatic lungs could handle the effort involved. On a lark, I decided to get a melodica anyway. I'm glad I did. It's a really fun instrument!I chose this Hurricane Harps M37 after reading reviews and quite a bit of careful research on the Web. I came to the conclusion that most of the melodicas currently being manufactured are so similar to each other, that they seem to be designed by the same person. They may even all be made at the same factory or two, just stamped with different brand names and made with slightly modified designs for each brand. When I listened to demo recordings of a few of the more expensive models, I didn't recognize a significant difference in sound quality that would justify a higher price. So, with that in mind, I went for what seemed like the best price-to-keys ratio for a 37-note instrument.The Hurricane Harps M37 comes in a nice, fabric carrying case. My case had a few stitches missing on an interior divider that provides a storage area for the mouth piece, so one side of the divider is detached from the case. I don't mind that much. The alternative air-hose extension for two-handed playing is held in the lid with elastic straps. The instrument, itself, looks okay, with an all-black cabinet and black and ivory-colored keys. The cabinet and keys are made from a very light, rigid plastic that gives it the look and feel of a toy. That was a turn-off at first, but I realize a heavier instrument would quickly become unpleasant to play for long periods of time. The key action feels fine, with very little noise. There is a little loop on the underside of the cabinet, near the end with the mouthpiece that must be for attaching a lanyard, so you can hang the instrument around your neck when you aren't playing. Every brand of melodica I've seen has this loop. The hand strap on the underside is comfortable and accommodating to an adult-sized hand.I was glad to find that blowing the instrument requires less pressure than I had imagined. It's easy to generate a fairly loud tone at any pitch, with just the highest notes requiring a little more air pressure. Fairly quiet tones are possible, too. It may be worth noting that you only exhale to play a melodica, inhaling through the instrument will not produce a tone. So, you need to inhale through your nose, or remember to catch a breath through your mouth between long musical phrases. Individual notes on the same reed can be separated by keeping the key pressed while tapping your tongue on the back of your teeth as you blow. You can also get a little vibrato effect by shaking the instrument so that the tip of the mouthpiece wobbles a bit inside the grip of your lips. I do this by varying the pressure of my fingers on the keys and allowing the instrument to wobble in my left hand.The sound of the M37 is very pleasant. It seems to have an almost clarinet-like tone when playing single note melodies. When playing chords, it sounds more similar to a reed organ, harmonica or accordion, with the different pitches beating against each other. I didn't bother to check the tuning accuracy of each reed with an electronic tuner. Plus, I don't really want to take it apart to try to make slight adjustments and risk breaking it the first week I have it. I find it to be in-tune enough for my purposes.To hear what my instrument sounds like, go to YouTube and search for a video called: "21 Guns" by Green Day (Melodica cover). I also posted the audio to SoundCloud. I recorded this song three days after getting my M37. I processed the melodica's sound with some compression, reverb and delay filters in my music recording software.There are no written instructions included with the M37. On the underside, at the end furthest from the mouthpiece, there's an important button that you need to know about. This is the water key. Occasionally, you need to blow out the water that has condensed from the water vapor in your breath. (A friend of mine who is a professional trombonist told me the water that collects inside wind instruments is much more from breath humidity than from saliva.) This water condensation will start happening as soon as you start playing. If a reed gets too wet, it will play out-of-tune or stop working temporarily. It should be okay after it dries out. To get rid of excess water, here's what you need to do. Without pressing any other keys, press and hold the water key while you blow into the mouthpiece with some force for several seconds. Some water will drip out of a little vent near the water key. It may drip on your hand, your clothing or the floor. So keep in mind where you would prefer that it goes and position the instrument accordingly. Doing this seems kind of gross, but it will help maintain the tuning and will extend the life of the instrument. Be sure to do this after every several minutes of playing and before putting the instrument back in the case. You may also need to wipe off the vent area with a soft, dry cloth or tissue.Overall, I consider this to be a very good purchase. The Hurricane Harps M37 is inexpensive. It's portable. It sounds great. And it is both easy and fun to play. I recommend it!

The Melodica is a fun instrument to play and this one is particularly good for its price range. Its sound is fairly close to an accordion. It's good enough to use in a band for extra sound, Yet simple enough for a novice to have fun with. A great product I would recommended to my musician friends or a neighbor for their kid.

I can play keyboards in general (sort of), but this is my first melodica, and I just got it today.I fixed it, but one of the springs had jumped off the back of a key. The B-3 was slumped into a permanently depressed position when I opened the case. My heart slumped as well, because I really hate going through any sort of return process. Of course I could have raised a stink and sent it back, but I decided to take a chance. (This is something of which I don't recommend for most people.) I could hear the spring rattling around inside the instrument. I removed the eight screws on the back, carefully opened the case, located the loose spring, and placed it back on the key. Maybe it got handled roughly in shipping, but these springs don't look like they'd fall off that easily. Since I had to repair it from the start, I docked one star.Aside from that, the instrument looks pretty good. It even sounds like it's already in tune (what a relief). One thing I wasn't prepared for was how tricky it is to play polyphonic tunes on it. It's OK for non-polyphonic (one note at a time) melodies, but the moment you toss in the occasional chord, things get a bit wonky. I think that's just the nature of melodicas in general though.Don't get me wrong... You can play chords, but low notes come out a little faster than high notes, and you really have to adjust how hard you blow when you change the number of keys being depressed, otherwise the volume can really jump up there when you're pressing fewer notes. It'll take me a while to get used to this.I should also mention the storage case. It has a very nice storage/travel case. It is fabric, yet rigid, and it has both a handle and a shoulder strap. It looks very professional.Overall, I like the instrument, and I'm sure it will give me years of enjoyment.

It is what you would expect for the price. It works well but is not quite in tune all the way up. It is serviceable for learning and for melodies but if you plan to play with other instruments it can be little out of tune. Not bad. Worth the price for sure.

I'm not an expert on Melodicas so I don't know if it is correctly tuned but to me it sounds in tune. The melodica in general is easy to play if you are wondering about that. Just as long as you can read music and know the Keys on a Piano then it is easy. The only problem I found is it doesn't include something that tells you how to clean it for those who never owned a melodica. In the inside the reeds are copper and when spit gets on it and sits there then would damage the copper and possibly break the melodica. Now for me it will be hard to explain over this review so look up a video over Youtube

I'm a musician. I play piano at my church. I've been interested in melodicas for a while and finally ordered this one. It says it's a "professional" instrument. Well it's nothing but a toy, not an instrument for serious musicians. The thing is not in tune. When I tried to make chords with it it sounded like a squealing pig because the harmony of the notes were so far off. My opinion? Buy at your own risk.

The title kinda says it all. It's fun for playing on it's own, but it's definitely not in a440 standard tuning. I bought this to add some color to some recordings I'm doing, but it's pretty much unusable for that purpose. My kid likes it though so it'll probably end up in his toybox soon.