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About the Harmonica's theme,I found an interview to Franco De Gemini.It's in Italian,so I put here a translation for you all.
Franco De Gemini talks about of the idea's origin for the film Once Upon a Time in the West: Sergio Leone a day asked him if he had any ideas for a movie, and he replied that it would be nice to do a film having like protagonist the harmonica .
So, De Gemini explains the significance of the variations of the harmonica's theme in the film.
-The film begins with Bronson (Harmonica) and all those bandits which are waiting for killing him.At the train's departure, they see that he's on the other side of the tracks. So Bronson began to play his harmonica as if it were a threat.
De Gemini says: "The three notes which Ennio Morricone gave me hadn't something inherent in the division, music, ecc. I must invent anything which every time I play the theme, it must to be different, though still using the same three notes. "
-The scene in which Bronson (Harmonica) is in the Posada, with Claudia Cardinale and the bandit too, he played the harmonica in a different way, making fun of the bandit .
De Gemini adds: "Bronson had to play the harmonica and I had given him one of mine. Anyway he didn't really play it.
I showed him how to hold the harmonica in his hands, partly because there was a piston, something which wasn't in the harmonicas of the time (so this piston had to be concealed by his hands).
They started the movie with my harmonica, but in a second moment, this was replaced by another harmonica (without piston). The public didn't notice this change. They made a hole in the harmonica and Bronson can took it to the neck. "
-The final scene:
The hanging of the Harmonica's brother.
Harmonica remembers when Frank puts the harmonica in his mouth.
De Gemini says: "If the kid can not move himself (his hands are tied) It is assumed that the harmonica has to be out of tune.
So I had to invent a special harmonica ... in the middle of it I arranged a semitone with a tone, to make it out of tune.
Many harp players asked me how I had to produce those two notes
because one is blown and the other is aspired.So I made fun of them by saying that I shared my mouth in two parts, one for blowing and one to aspire to. "
-Frank dies with the harmonica in his mouth.
De Gemini said: "This was the hardest scene, around an hour to realize it, not because there were difficulties with harmonica, but because I had to play like i was dying. "
Sergio Leone said: "Now I'll kill you to to play so perfectly for this scene "and I replied" If I am dead, who'll play it? "
The notes were always the same, but it needs to be interpreted in a different way every time.
