Play Harmonium Online — Free Virtual Harmonium with Bellows Reeds
Pump a virtual harmonium in your browser: two chromatic octaves of bellows-fed reeds, keyboard and MIDI, record and download — no install.
Keys Z–M play C4–B4 and Q–U play C5–B5; the accidentals sit on S D G H J and 2 3 5 6 7. Hold a chord and the reeds swell like a pumped bellows.
How to Play in Four Steps
- Tap a key on the board — the lower row of your keyboard plays the lower octave.
- Press and hold two or three notes: a harmonium is a chord instrument, and the reeds beat against each other.
- Mark the notes of a raga or a hymn line, then play them back as a sequence or all together.
- Connect a MIDI keyboard and record your take as a WebM file you can keep.
A Short History of the Harmonium
The harmonium descended from the free-reed instruments that reached Europe from China, and it was refined in nineteenth-century France as a small pump organ for parlours and chapels. Missionaries and teachers carried it to India, where it found its way into devotional music within a generation.
Indian musicians made it their own: the harmonium is now the standard accompanying instrument for Hindustani and Carnatic vocal music, kirtan and ghazal — a player holds a drone in the bass, follows the melody in the treble and pumps the bellows with the left hand.
Acoustically, air from the bellows passes a metal reed in a brass frame, so every note is a sustained, slightly beating tone rather than a struck one — reproduced here with a detuned reed pair and a slow tremble.
Harmonium Quiz
0 / 3 · Score
What makes a harmonium sound?
Which hand pumps the bellows?
Which music tradition adopted the harmonium most completely?
Frequently Asked Questions
Tap a key on the board, tap a note in the strip, use the two keyboard rows (Z–M for C4–B4, Q–U for C5–B5), or connect a MIDI keyboard. Every path plays the same reed voice.
A free-reed keyboard instrument: air from hand-pumped bellows passes over metal reeds, so a key press gives a sustained, slightly buzzing tone rather than a struck note.
Because a reed instrument sustains. Harmonium reeds sound for as long as air moves over them, which is why it accompanies singers and carries a drone for long stretches.
Yes. The harmonium became the standard accompaniment for Hindustani and Carnatic singing, kirtan and ghazal precisely because it can hold a drone and follow a voice in any key.
This simulator uses equal temperament, so every semitone is evenly spaced. Acoustic harmoniums are often tuned by ear and drift slightly against each other, which some players prefer.
No. The bellows are modelled into the envelope — the note swells after the attack and trembles slightly, which is what a hand-pumped harmonium does under steady pressure.
Two full chromatic octaves, C4 to B5. Real harmoniums usually run three octaves or more, but these two cover most hymn, kirtan and film-song melodies.
Yes. Press Record, play, press Stop, then Download. The take is written as a WebM file from the browser master bus, with no upload and no account.