Folklore: Germanies, 17th Century, Folk Flutes?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Germanies, 17th Century, Folk Flutes
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 01:48 AM

More about old folk instruments, revived and recently built:
Dudelsack Mossmann.
The Schwegelpfeife is nothing else than the fife used since times olden by the infantry fifes and drums. Now there is a modern addition used with the fife: a movable plug at the closed end for tuning to the same tone.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Germanies, 17th Century, Folk Flutes?
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 08:42 PM

G'day eleanor c,

Melody instruments probably don't come any older than transverse flutes ... archeologists (and paleo-musicologists ... ?) have been arguing about the odd straight bone with a few holes bored in what looks like the right places for a prehistoric transverse flute.

Just as I have made a workable flute from a length of bamboo - with seven holes (embouchure and six finger holes) bored and finished off with a penknife - some cave-dweller with a bit of spare time (or a religious need for music) and an idea of what they were doing could use simple (if laborious) bone-working techniques to form and trim an embouchure ... then position the holes in roughly suitable positions and tune them by starting small and reaming out until each desired pitch was attained.

By the mediaeval period a small wooden flute ... or whistle ... wasn't beyond the capabilities of a determined woodworker. I've watched a Sicilian traditional maker turn out simple 6-holed whistles with little more than a saw, a knife, an awl and a reamer ... and sell them to passers-by!

The difference between making a simple transverse flute or a simple whistle is fairly small ... and mostly decided by local custom / preference. Either would be appropriate for Teresa's " ... little peasant boy in the Thirty Years War ... " and the deciding factor might be that the lad is shown a tin whistle - so the locally-made equivalent is a simple 6-hole whistle, rather than its upper-class relative, a Renaissance recorder.

As well, the Renaissance style of recorder had a rather different mouthpiece from the familiar "beaked" mouthpiece of the Baroque recorder - or a simple whistle. There is a horizontal slot below the top, into which the player blows while keeping the intrument fairly vertical. The air goes through a right angle down to a labium in the expected position. I think this difference is enough to suggest that a lad who had seen a modern tin whistle would opt for something more like a simple peasant whistle as the closest local (temporal ... ?) match.

Regards,

Bob

Subject: RE: Folklore: Germanies, 17th Century, Folk Flutes
From: eleanor c
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 06:05 PM

Hi, the S.German/Austrian folk trd has something called a schwegelpfeife (transverse) which must be old, look at the flute board page
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=22926&highlight=schwegelpfeife
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for info & more links

Subject: RE: Folklore: Germanies, 17th Century, Folk Flutes
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 05:13 AM

1630: Hurdy-gurdy = germ. Drehleier

Subject: RE: Folklore: Germanies, 17th Century, Folk Flutes?
From: Teresa
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 04:17 AM

Thanks, bob. The wooden "whistle" type would be the most convenient for me to use, if it's somewhat plausible. The audience here isn't going to be folklorists or even folkies, however, not wanting to "dumb it down" either. Just trying to play by the "keep it simple" rule. :) The boy is going to catch onto the tin whistle very easily, because it is very much what he is used to playing, only not wood. So if that is plausible, then it will work.

Also, if anyone has ideas for other folk instruments during that time period, that would be very helpful. The scenes in the stories will be your basic variant of a folk club or front porch session, with a very limited number of instruments from the present time (one five-string banjo, one modern guitar) and any 1630s German common folk who want to join in on whatever will make music. :)

Thanks,
T

Subject: RE: Folklore: Germanies, 17th Century, Folk Flutes?
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 12:10 AM

G'day Teresa,

The whistle (no need to be "tin") is just a simpler case of the blockflute - only 6 holes, all on the front and octaves are simply "jumped" by over-blowing. This would have been favoured by peasant musicians, who stayed in a simple set of "keys" for rhythmic, traditional music.

The recorder was the same whistle ... "tweaked" for better chromatic playing ... for the wealthier types who could afford printed music and who played with the wider range of keys that orchestral music introduced.

A simple transverse flute is just that: simple. The bore needn't be tapered (conical) ... but simple boring tools would tend to have some taper ... dead cylindrical is hard! On the question of simplicity, I have (admittedly starting with a section of bamboo ... already almost cylindrical) made a transverse flute with a pocket knife - and it works.

It's more work to construct a tight fitting fipple (block) and shape a wind-cutting edge (labium) in a whistle than it is to push in a suitable cork and carefully whittle a neat embouchure (hole) in a transverse flute. However the playing skill for the flute starts a bit higher.

Your peasant boy might well have played either type of flute - depending on local tradition and opportunity. A peasant flute would, most likely, have had the basic six holes - just like a modern tin whistle - that play a 'diatonic' scale ... the sort of scale most European peasant music fits into. Unfortunately, "simple peasant" instruments are not the sort that were put in museums back then ... so you need to consult writers that base their knowledge on less direct evidence - and the surviving traditions.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Folklore: Germanies, 17th Century, Folk Flutes?
From: Teresa
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 02:49 PM

Thank you, Wilfried. :)

T

Subject: RE: Folklore: Germanies, 17th Century, Folk Flutes
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 02:08 PM

In former times some end blown recorders (self made) were played by the cildren of my home county till the end of 19th century/beginning of the 20 century.
They were made from willow branches and produced singing a special song: Saft, Saft, seire = sap, sap, (untranslatable). During this song the bark was beaten with a wooden stick till it loosened and the bark could be drawn off. Then the mouthpiece was cut off the wooden soul and inserted again, and the slit and holes were cut into the bark.
I never did it myself, but it must have worked - how else could the song have survived so long?
The recorder seems to be the older version than the traverse flute.
The three hole pipe was not uncommon, but always played with a little drum hanging from the left wrist, and it needed a lot of training.
The idea of a time traveller introducing a penny whistle should fit very well with Malcolm's proposition of a rustic flute.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Germanies, 17th Century, Folk Flutes?
From: OldPossum
Date: 16 Oct 04 - 07:17 PM

I am not quite sure what the original question is here, but the boy in that painting is clearly playing a transverse flute. But then again, he doesn't look like a peasant boy, in fact he looks quite upper-class to me. Speaking generally, apparently the transverse flute was especially associated with Germany. To quote from the book Instruments of the Middle Ages and Renaissance by David Munrow: "The instrument [the transverse flute] became something of a German speciality and the expression German flute is found off and on for the next 800 years as a means of distinguishing the transverse flute from whistle types". That is a quote from the section about the middle ages. To quote from the section on the renaissance: "the transverse flute was especially cultivated in Germany in medieval times and became known as the flûte d'Allemaigne during the Renaissance".

On the other hand, as Malcolm says, a simple recorder type instrument or tabor pipe is probably more likely for a peasant boy. These instruments were certainly not unknown in Germany. And the transverse flute of that era was apparently very difficult to play.

(Disclaimer: I don't really know anything about it. I just found some stuff in a book.)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Germanies, 17th Century, Folk Flutes?
From: Teresa
Date: 16 Oct 04 - 04:01 PM

Thanks, Leeneia. I'm almost tempted to buy that, even though I'm blind. but it would make a neat pretty for folk to see when they come over. :)

this goes well with my story, as a time-traveller of sorts shows her penny whistle to the boy and he quickly learns to play it. Simply a question of getting used to no thumb position. :)

T

Subject: RE: Folklore: Germanies, 17th Century, Folk Flutes?
From: masato sakurai
Date: 16 Oct 04 - 12:14 PM

The painting is "Boy Playing The Flute" by Judith Leyster (1609-1660) (Click on the image to enlarge).

Subject: RE: Folklore: Germanies, 17th Century, Folk Flutes?
From: leeneia
Date: 16 Oct 04 - 11:45 AM

I once had a library book about the paintings of a 17th-C Dutch painter named Judith somebody. She did a painting of a young boy from a family of entertainers, and he was holding a recorder or flageolet, which are both flutes which you play up and down, not transverse flutes.

The boy had been playing in a tavern. He did not look healthy, and I felt that she was applying a mother's eye to the scene.

Anyhow, your story will be more credible if the flute is not transverse and if the boy comes from a family of performers.

I believe that the wooden transverse flute was just coming to its own in the 17th C because it has a conical bore. This means that the hole inside it tapers from wide to narrow as it goes down. Cutting that out was a pretty sophisticated task. I doubt if a commoner, especially a child, could have afforded one.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Germanies, 17th Century, Folk Flutes?
From: Teresa
Date: 15 Oct 04 - 06:29 PM

Thank you, Malcolm. This goes along with some ideas a historian friend had as well. I'll stay tuned.

T

Subject: RE: Folklore: Germanies, 17th Century, Folk Flutes?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 15 Oct 04 - 06:18 PM

The transverse flute was certainly known in Germany during the 16th century, so far as I know without keys and with smaller finger holes than we have today. End-blown flutes such as the recorder were still much more popular at that time. A peasant boy might perhaps have been more likely to play a form of "rustic flute" (more or less a home-made whistle) or the three-hole pipe (as in "pipe and tabor").

Not my subject, mind; but if we keep the thread current, people who know more will be along in time.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Germanies, 17th Century, Folk Flutes?
From: Teresa
Date: 15 Oct 04 - 04:51 PM

Refresh.

Also, any other instruments besides flutes would be neat to know about. :)

Subject: Folklore: Germanies, 17th Century, Folk Flutes?
From: Teresa
Date: 15 Oct 04 - 02:01 PM

I'm working on a story about a little peasant boy in the Thirty Years War who played a flute and lost it. Is this a workable scenario as regards the flute? Is there any sort of wooden flute he might have played?

thanks,
Teresa