European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 4, 1947, Darmstadt, Hesse                                I Hohner makes music continued Page 4 diatonic Mouth hundreds of color and shape combinations continued experimentation on what was to become know As the it would be hard to Lay a Finger on the one most exacting task in the Hohner according to chief technician Karl Scherer husband of one of Matrious Hohner grand but he More than Likely the hardest to replace would be the there Are two Hundred tuners at everyone of whom came from a family whose men have been listening to the pitch of Reeds for we have come to know that certain families will produce Scherer sex and when the boys in these families reach their fourteenth birth Day we offer them a Job beside their fathers and it takes five to eight years to train an acceptable these years Are spent in Little cubby holes listening for hours As slivers of steel Are made to closer and closer to an exact any accustomed at All to listening to can detect a difference of ten Terzian wave vibrations per second Hohner tuners must be Able to narrow this Normal tolerance Down to one tenth of one vibration per and they do it by ear sound Engineer who has spent considerable time studying such says that experiments at Hohner and at other Harmonica and accordion works have failed to pro Duce a satisfactory mechanical sub Stit Tefor the human of we can obtain perfect pitch elec Scherer Points and we can photograph sound Waves proving that the Reed and the machine have reach identical pitch deserting the scientific Field in which he has been the Engineer simply shrugs his shoulders and the Harmonica with machine pitched Reeds sounds just like a machine Analysed the problem of pitch comes a Little less variances in material Are the Wood used for sounding boards varies slightly from shipment to shipment the steel plates on the Reed always ordered from the same steel works from the same specifications cannot be expected to have exactly the same ten Sion every making an adjustment Here and another the tuner does not strive for individually perfect but seeks balance of the intrinsic flaws in his it takes about ten months to com plete an accordion and about six months to make a this time includes the seasoning of the Wood and the actual Assembly of the instrument a very Large share of this Assembly time is devoted to the cannot stay on the Job their ears begin to ring and they become too nervous to work in their cubicles after a few All our tuners have Scherer most of them farm even More than the other a few of them have devel oped handicrafts to which they can devote themselves in perhaps not too none of them knows or cares to learn How to play an accordion or Harmonica about half of Hohner work ers do know How to play the instruments they work at Dur ing the although Only one Man in the town is considered an expert on both the Harmonica and the a very rare it was stated whether they play Hohner instruments or the Hohner employees Are evidently Happy in a country where the personal pronoun do is strictly reserved for the very close children and most of the Hohner people address their present Matrious Ernest with the familiar and following in his father Jacobs and grandfather1 knows the majority of his employees by their first the Hohner family has Lent hundreds of thousand of Marks to employees on simple re payable within five w ten most of these Loans have been for farm a few for illnesses or other extraordinary expenses and All of them have been repaid without pressure the needless to there has never been a strike at the Hohner company got through world War i without too great a with the vast proportion of their business devoted to times were the year of brought a sudden shot in the Arm to the Harmonica and accordion Larry Adler began to play the chromatic Harmonica on concert and somehow the piano accordion became Hohner people think a lot of Larry Adler they rate him tops among the worlds Harmon Ica and consider Borah Minkevitch second name no Best and Are glad to credit Adler with the sudden Rise of the now the Only instrument played by today the Hohner Are beset by Only one Basic they must get their Export program under the Plant did not convert to War it was a Tough Karl Export manager but Hitler ism didst take too Well i Tross Ingen where a socialistic system had been in for a Good Many with no inter Nal pressure the Hohner were Able to Berlin that Harmonicas and accordions were a necessity to National production took a terrible nose As Worken were drafted and materials ran Short but the wehrmacht did buy huge quantities of instruments the International buying for Allied became the company second Best at the wars end no bombs had fallen intros Singen and actual War damage could be calculated Only in the intangible loss of the Market for the now production has begun again with about men and women employed on a fou Day week Plant is making about forty Harmonica the War it made a twelve types of accordions on a yearly scale of approximately Harmonicas one third of prewar production and a Quarter of the 1938 output thus far not a single Hohner has been but plans with French economic authorities Are in the final stages the Hohner who must worry about such things As the differences in pitch Between european 870 vibrations per and Ameri can 880 when they Are manufacturing for a Given naturally Hope that they will be Al Lowed to retail through their prewar new York they believe that Only in this Way can they assure the chinese Hohner Harmonica the South african Hohner Harmonica band and the thousand of other Hoh Ner musical replace ments for their worn out whether the French authorities will approve this plan is still unknown at the Tross Ingen the factory is doing a Large repair Harmonicas Wear out in a few months with nor Mal accordions played by professionals will last ten years with exceptional i dont know what a Man like Larry Adler has done about the Harmonica Schefold he wears them out in a it is that when exports Are allowed again Hohner will regain leadership i the Only a few Small companies have continued operations through out the War and their Competition never amounted to leaving the factory Scherer pointed out Over the roof tops of were really just one big family he said with evident and you can be sure Well make a if