Kirtan Harmoniums

A kirtan harmonium has one job: to sit under a voice for two hours without fighting it.

That sounds obvious until you have led a program on the wrong instrument. What you need is a tone that supports singing rather than covering it, bellows that keep up without becoming work, keys light enough to play while you are the one singing, and a body you can actually get to the gurdwara. Everything else is secondary.

These are the smaller, lighter harmoniums in our range, most around 30 keys and two and a half octaves, built to be carried and played sitting on the floor in front of a sangat. They are the cheapest way into a properly made harmonium, which is a large part of why they are the most common first instrument we ship.

Do you need a scale changer? Almost certainly not. Most kirtan sits in a small number of scales and singers learn to play in their own key. A scale changer earns its cost when several different voices share one instrument, which is a different situation. Save the money and the weight.

Kirtan model or folding? If the instrument stays in one place, or you need the full keyboard range for anything beyond kirtan, look at folding harmoniums instead: they travel as well and give you more instrument. If portability and price are the priorities and kirtan is the use, stay here.

If you are choosing between two, message us on WhatsApp and tell us the range you sing in. See also the full Harmoniums range and our buying guide.