Paloma Companion
Paloma Companion is the perfect support for mantras and kirtans on the road and at home. It is amazingly light, compact, sturdy, comfortable to use and yet a full harmonium with warm, round sound. The light weight and small dimensions are achieved without any cumbersome and delicate folding mechanisms.
Superior workmanship makes this a top-of-the-line harmonium, ensuring good fluency and dynamics of the keyboard and long-term tightness of the air chambers. Its 27 keys give a range of two octaves and two half note steps - about an octave less than full sized harmoniums, but covering the melodic range of all commonly used mantras and kirtans. Each note is fitted with two well responding quality reeds in middle and low octave (male / bass). They can be played separately or in combination, giving three different tonal colours, and produce a particularly warm and round sound. The back bellows are open to the top. They fold out and fill themselves automatically when unlocked. You just need to pull them towards yourself for playing - always against a little resistence, though. Inherently, the inner bellows of the Paloma Companion are considerably smaller than those in full sized harmoniums, resulting in a slightly shorter "breath". Therefore a little more pumping of the outer bellows is required for playing chords or producing a high volume. The level height of the keys can be adjusted. A special Paloma feature is the surface treatment with wax in order to enhance the beauty of the natural wood veining - it pleases eye and hand alike and gives the instrument a very natural, organic feel.
"BONUS: One month free online access to comprehensive harmonium teaching material at the Bhakti Breakfast Club with harmonium purchase!" - more info here!
Sound sample Paloma Companion
- complete melodic range with both registers
- three-note chords in middle range
- complete melodic range with both registers without cover (jali)
- 27 adjustable stick and palette keys (English keys)
- range of 2 octaves and 2 half note steps from F to G
- 2 high-quality reeds per key in low (bass), and middle (male) register
- 2 large knobs for playing the 2 registers separately or together
- 2 small knobs for drone notes C, G
- top opening bellows with double fold
- removable cover plate (Jali)
- wedge locks for easy maintenance opening
- silk-matt sealed surfaces with visible grain
- cabinet made of teak wood
- key mechanisms made of beech wood
- key surfaces made of nylon
- metal handles
- three-sided surrounding intarsia strip at the base of the cabinet
- including padded carrying bag
PALOMA is the international brand name for instruments by Haribhau Vishwanath from Mumbai (formerly Bombay). Haribhau Vishwanath was founded in 1925 as a small repair shop. Today Paloma is an international top brand for harmoniums. This is due to successful innovations such as the Compactina and Maestro models and unique quality standards. Working techniques and tools have been permanently developed further over decades. Under the direction of Ashish Diwane, Haribhau Vishwanath in 2018 was the first Indian instrument maker to integrate a computer-controlled CNC milling machine into the traditional handcrafted manufacturing process, in order to get consistent precision in the production of essential components.
Apart from harmoniums, Haribhau Vishwanath also manufactures shrutiboxes, santoors, swarmandals and some drums. In addition, the company is active in the instrument trade and procures some rarely needed instruments for which direct purchase from the manufacturer would not be worthwhile. Haribhau Vishwanath has been a partner of India Instruments since 2005.
In India, our harmoniums are tuned to international concert pitch of a = 440 hertz. In Europe, however, they usually sound slightly higher at a = 441 to 442 Hertz due to the colder climate. The difference is small and not necessarily noticeable even to trained ears.
On request we can tune exactly to 440 hertz for 28 € additional charge.
Tuning to 432 hertz is also possible by arrangement for an additional charge.
NOTE:
Air temperature and blowing pressure influence the vibration frequency of harmonium reeds. At higher temperature and higher pressure, it decreases; at lower temperature, it increases. In our workshop in Berlin we tune at room temperature around 20 degrees Celsius.
Measure: height 24 cm, width 39 cm, depth 29 cm, weight: 5.7 kg
Each instrument is individually hand-crafted and might differ from our description.
