Post by ulricus on Jun 28, 2011 7:43:32 GMT 1
here is the link to photos from the exhibition "The Hummel" in the Museum Cloppenburg, Germany:
picasaweb.google.com/113317314064737482954/StoryOfTheHummel#5622973221697047202
The big Hummel-exhibition with more than 50 historical instruments is going to its final point (July 10th). There was never such an exhibition in German speeking countries with Hummels. The instruments were mostly forgotten and layed in the attics of the museum. Some layed broken there for 100 years. I was able to restore some of them. Now they are in good condition for exhibitions. I could make CD-recording so you can listen to 100 - 250 year old instruments (forefathers of the Mountain Dulcimer) with their original sound. I had them in my workshop one by one and so it was great to have them assembled in the exhibition.
Peter Ellertsen (USA) was here last weekend and he will make a report about this event. My more than 10 years researches ran into a book: "The Story of the Hummel" which is the catalogue of the exhibition of the Museum Cloppenburg. The translation was made by Christa Farnon, Wynnewood PA. With this you have the story of this wonderful instrument from medieval times to 20th century.
Best regards
Wilfried Ulrich
www.ulrich-instrumente.de
I add the paper Pete Ellertsen wrote:
Wilfried Ulrich, The Story of the Hummel (German Scheitholt). 181 pages. Published by the author. A translation of Die Hummel: Geschichte eines Volksmusik-Instruments. Volume 42 of Materials Pertaining to the Everyday History and Folk Culture of Lower Saxony. Clopppenburg: Museumsdorf Cloppenburg, 2011. Price: 22 euros, plus 7 euros shipping (approximately $42 total at current exchange rates). A CD is available for 10 euros with recordings from 100- to 250-year-old restored Hummels from museums. Contact Wilfried Ulrich,
Am Diekschloot 40, D-26506 Norden, East Frisia, Germany.
Email: ulricus.norden@t-online.de
Web site: www.ulrich-instrumente.de
For 500 years rural Europeans have played a simple folk zither variously called a Hummel, a Scheitholt or a Kratzzither. In years past, they were played widely in Germany, France and the Low Countries; and German immigrants brought them to America, where they inspired the mountain dulcimer. More recently, however, they fell into oblivion. German luthier Wilfried Ulrich has assembled a Hummel exhibition at the Cloppenburg Museum Village in northern Germany, April 10-June 10, 2011, and his 20 years of researching, building and playing Hummels are reflected in the exhibit. He has published an English-language translation, by Christa Farnon of Pennsylvania, of the exhibit catalog. Ulrich draws on historical texts and his study of similar instruments in Europe and during trips to the USA and Japan. Forty instruments are fully documented, with measurements including vibrating (nut to bridge) string length and the distance of each fret from the bridge of diatonic instruments.
Ulrich’s research strongly indicates that the Hummel originated in Central Europe during the Middle Ages from various experiments with the monochord. He says the standard account of a West Asiatic origin of the zither, asserted by ethnomusicologist Curt Sachs in 1919 and perpetuated since then, does not hold up under scrutiny.
Written sources, as well as instruments that have survived in museums, attest to the wide distribution of Hummels in the 18th and 19th centuries. But this should not lead to the conclusion that they were not as widely distributed before that time. Ulrich says that just as unused instruments are simply disposed of in modern times, this may have happened in centuries past. He notes that one name for the instrument, the “Scheitholt,” means firewood and suggests that old Scheitholts may indeed have been used as firewood!
The Hummels were built for the most part in villages without the professional help of a luthier. Many a “clever chap” who was good with his hands, would build an instrument for his own enjoyment, which also enabled him to play for the villagers at a festival or on a quiet evening. But some also built an instrument for neighbors or friends. This is reported from Hungary, Slovakia and Bavaria. The term “Mächalar” (maker), from the Allgäu, indicates that someone became a specialist on the side, without his being then considered an instrument builder.
Although Hummels were forgotten in many areas, due to the availability of other instruments that were easy to play such as the concertina, various “Hummel-nests” have persisted till the present day. This is true of Flanders, the Vosges mountains, Norway and also Hungary. When the American dulcimer became known in Central Europe with the folk music revival in the 70s, enthusiastic people remembered once more the great-grandfathers of this instrument, and searched in museums for what is still there. Thus, no new “Hummel-nests” formed in Germany, but some musicians were again fascinated with the sound of the drones. And so, the Kratzzither rings out again with fast rhythms in Bavarian inns, where for more than 150 years the concert zither was played. Taught by the author, more than 220 students in East Frisia have built and learned to play Scheitholts, various Hummels and also several dulcimers.
picasaweb.google.com/113317314064737482954/StoryOfTheHummel#5622973221697047202
The big Hummel-exhibition with more than 50 historical instruments is going to its final point (July 10th). There was never such an exhibition in German speeking countries with Hummels. The instruments were mostly forgotten and layed in the attics of the museum. Some layed broken there for 100 years. I was able to restore some of them. Now they are in good condition for exhibitions. I could make CD-recording so you can listen to 100 - 250 year old instruments (forefathers of the Mountain Dulcimer) with their original sound. I had them in my workshop one by one and so it was great to have them assembled in the exhibition.
Peter Ellertsen (USA) was here last weekend and he will make a report about this event. My more than 10 years researches ran into a book: "The Story of the Hummel" which is the catalogue of the exhibition of the Museum Cloppenburg. The translation was made by Christa Farnon, Wynnewood PA. With this you have the story of this wonderful instrument from medieval times to 20th century.
Best regards
Wilfried Ulrich
www.ulrich-instrumente.de
I add the paper Pete Ellertsen wrote:
Wilfried Ulrich, The Story of the Hummel (German Scheitholt). 181 pages. Published by the author. A translation of Die Hummel: Geschichte eines Volksmusik-Instruments. Volume 42 of Materials Pertaining to the Everyday History and Folk Culture of Lower Saxony. Clopppenburg: Museumsdorf Cloppenburg, 2011. Price: 22 euros, plus 7 euros shipping (approximately $42 total at current exchange rates). A CD is available for 10 euros with recordings from 100- to 250-year-old restored Hummels from museums. Contact Wilfried Ulrich,
Am Diekschloot 40, D-26506 Norden, East Frisia, Germany.
Email: ulricus.norden@t-online.de
Web site: www.ulrich-instrumente.de
For 500 years rural Europeans have played a simple folk zither variously called a Hummel, a Scheitholt or a Kratzzither. In years past, they were played widely in Germany, France and the Low Countries; and German immigrants brought them to America, where they inspired the mountain dulcimer. More recently, however, they fell into oblivion. German luthier Wilfried Ulrich has assembled a Hummel exhibition at the Cloppenburg Museum Village in northern Germany, April 10-June 10, 2011, and his 20 years of researching, building and playing Hummels are reflected in the exhibit. He has published an English-language translation, by Christa Farnon of Pennsylvania, of the exhibit catalog. Ulrich draws on historical texts and his study of similar instruments in Europe and during trips to the USA and Japan. Forty instruments are fully documented, with measurements including vibrating (nut to bridge) string length and the distance of each fret from the bridge of diatonic instruments.
Ulrich’s research strongly indicates that the Hummel originated in Central Europe during the Middle Ages from various experiments with the monochord. He says the standard account of a West Asiatic origin of the zither, asserted by ethnomusicologist Curt Sachs in 1919 and perpetuated since then, does not hold up under scrutiny.
Written sources, as well as instruments that have survived in museums, attest to the wide distribution of Hummels in the 18th and 19th centuries. But this should not lead to the conclusion that they were not as widely distributed before that time. Ulrich says that just as unused instruments are simply disposed of in modern times, this may have happened in centuries past. He notes that one name for the instrument, the “Scheitholt,” means firewood and suggests that old Scheitholts may indeed have been used as firewood!
The Hummels were built for the most part in villages without the professional help of a luthier. Many a “clever chap” who was good with his hands, would build an instrument for his own enjoyment, which also enabled him to play for the villagers at a festival or on a quiet evening. But some also built an instrument for neighbors or friends. This is reported from Hungary, Slovakia and Bavaria. The term “Mächalar” (maker), from the Allgäu, indicates that someone became a specialist on the side, without his being then considered an instrument builder.
Although Hummels were forgotten in many areas, due to the availability of other instruments that were easy to play such as the concertina, various “Hummel-nests” have persisted till the present day. This is true of Flanders, the Vosges mountains, Norway and also Hungary. When the American dulcimer became known in Central Europe with the folk music revival in the 70s, enthusiastic people remembered once more the great-grandfathers of this instrument, and searched in museums for what is still there. Thus, no new “Hummel-nests” formed in Germany, but some musicians were again fascinated with the sound of the drones. And so, the Kratzzither rings out again with fast rhythms in Bavarian inns, where for more than 150 years the concert zither was played. Taught by the author, more than 220 students in East Frisia have built and learned to play Scheitholts, various Hummels and also several dulcimers.