Goan musician on collecting mouth harps from across the world

Neptune Chapotin was 19 years old when he came across his first mouth harp in Chennai. He bought five more and took them back with him to his mother's shop in California, where they got sold out almost immediately. The next time, he bought a dozen, 30 the time after that and then 50. And so began his journey collecting and selling mouth harps.

"My mother got me murchingas from Nepal and then I got the Rajasthani morchangs," Chapotin lists the varieties that he first collected. The musician reminisces going to the North American Mouth Harp Festival, where he used to sell mouth harps and his own artwork from a table outside his mother's stall. "Nobody knows you're a mouth-harpist unless you hear a mouth harp playing," he adds. "The best way to find out is to just play a mouth harp at a festival. Out of the woodwork, you'll have someone appear next to you and start jamming with you. The same thing would happen at the table – someone would come by, pick up a harp and play."

For those who don't know how to play, Chapotin claims he can teach them in 30 seconds as it's a fairly simple instrument that depends on breath modulation and plucking. This Anjuna-born, French-American mouth-harpist came back to Goa in his teens and, despite frequent trips abroad, has made Goa his home. He's been putting up stalls at the Wednesday Market at Anjuna since 2009 and the Saturday Night Market at Vagator since 2010. This year also saw him set up a stall at the Friday Collectors Market. Although his travels keep him from having an online shopping portal, he is happy to ship mouth harps to those who like any particular variety on his website – World Harps.

For the musician, buying and selling is only part of the passion. In 2010, he went backpacking across Europe, funding his trip doing street performances on a unicycle (which he learned to ride as a child). Having made his way to Hungary for the Fifth International Jews Harp Festival, he met the organiser, who is also a mouth harp maker. "I met two more makers in Austria, one in Slovakia, a Balinese gingong maker... And I realised that mouth harps are more than a product to buy and sell – they each have a soul," he asserts. "The person who makes it also has his own story."

And so, he began researching about the nuances of the mouth harp (for instance it is the oldest recorded musical instrument and is used in some cultures as an instrument of courtship). In 2013, he helmed the launch of the World Mouth Harp Festival of India in Goa.

It was three years ago at the festival that Chapotin met two musicians with whom he would go on to create music for the next several years. Having dubbed themselves the Breath Pulse Trio, the band, which constitutes Augustin Sol on the Didgeridoo, beatboxer MC Eucalips and Chapotin on the mouth harp, play organic trance numbers at festivals, events and of course, the Saturday Night Market (where Chapotin is often found at his shop explaining the nuances of the mouth harp to enthusiastic tourists). "It's not just about buying, it's about the experience," he insists. "It's kind of like Harry Potter's wand. The wand chooses the wizard – or the mouth harp chooses the harpist."