The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #111446 Message #2348628
Posted By: Bonnie Shaljean
25-May-08 - 04:22 AM
Thread Name: Medieval instrument question
Subject: RE: Medieval instrument question
I see you've written some friends and I are going as beggar monks. If any of the others have musical experience, and you are going to use a stringed instrument, it would sound just beautiful if one of them played a gemshorn with you. (I have a gorgeous authentic-reproduction medieval harp and have a weakness for the voice of the gemshorn in combination with it - one of the loveliest sounds on earth. In period too.)
They are wind instruments, made from (? I think) cow's or ram's horns, and are rather recorder-like but mellower in tone. They're also pretty simple to play, and do have a fairly limited range. Anyone with any musical knowledge could pick it up, even if they don't have fantastic technique. It's another of those early instruments which you can sound good on without having to be Phil Pickett.
Thanks to Don Firth for that great website (ditto the great joke - LOL!) which I have now gone back to and retrieved the gemshorn link. Be sure to play the sound clips, which will tell you what they sound like. If you click on their main "Musica Antiqua Instruments" link it will take you to a whole page of early instruments to look at & listen to:
http://www.music.iastate.edu/antiqua/gemshorn.htm