The Jaw Harp as a Handmade Product

Dear customers, please bear in mind several features of how jaw harps and their accessories are made and distributed—and of the place they occupy in the world of commercial goods.

Jaw harps are rare and unusual musical instruments, and making a good one is an art that demands considerable time and enthusiasm. With a few exceptions—represented here only in the humorous museum section—they are not stamped out in factories. They are made in small quantities, often one at a time, by craftspeople around the world. Like all handmade acoustic instruments, individual jaw harps have their own timbre, volume, mechanical properties and appearance.

If you need a current-year consumer product with an MP3 recorder, 124 extra functions, a one-year warranty and a printed manual, we sincerely recommend a synthesizer. If you want an instrument made by a living person, carrying a part of that person's world, ready to become a constant companion and surprise people with unfamiliar sounds in the most unlikely setting, a jaw harp is an excellent choice.

As an organisation devoted to jaw harps, Oberton Pro brings together instruments representing as many types, traditions and individual makers' ideas as possible. We systematise and publish detailed information about every instrument and provide the best possible conditions for choosing one. What remains is to decide what you want.