Mark.Nelson

Hi Jonas (et al) I am attaching a link to a pdf posted on my Dropbox : "De Hommel in Lage Landen." It is a short English introduction from 1976 to a much larger book of the same name by Hubert Boone. Anyone can download it using the link. As I said, I believe Wim Bosmans was involved in the English summary. Last contact I had with him a couple years ago, he was still playing traditional music. The larger book is well worth searching out for the many photos of historic instruments. As you can see from the photos on the cover of the pdf, the instrument took on many different shapes. And I am happy to discover that my memory is not that faulty; one of the names for the hommel in Flanders is "vlier." Beats "tokkelblock" - "plucking log." I'd also suggest paying a visit to the Musical Instrument Museum in Brussels to view their collection. All the best to you!

Hi Jonas The type of instrument you have was very popular in the late 19th- early 20th Centuries. It was called a hommel, or hummle, among many other names. In the French speaking areas it might be called eppinette. Check out Salon Ambrosine for a contemporary take on eppinette music from Wallonia. In 1975 I met a Flemish musicologist named Wim Bosman at a festival in Ireland. He was traveling with his group, which featured four or five of these instruments. I believe he called them "vlier," although that may have been the name of the group. It was a long time ago. I seem to recall that some songs featured several instruments tuned to different pitches. So, for example, a pair would play in C when the song was in C, and a different pair would play in G for the dominant chord. I've also heard this technique with Hungarian citteras. Mr. Bosman was then working at the musical instrument museum in Brussels. He was also involved in publishing an extensive survey of fretted zither instruments in Belgium and Holland. I have a copy of a short overview that he published in English; I'll see if I can dig it out of my files and post a pdf copy to this forum. From what I can see of your instrument, I'd tune all the melody strings in unison, say to G so you could play in C major. Ditto the drones--they could be C or G. I think @NoterMan has that covered. Stay tuned!

Hi Holly! Hope you are well. You still got this puppy? I have a friend who is looking for her first instrument. Onward!

Greetings from the State of Seclusion! Since my rural internet will not allow me to Livestream or otherwise engage with the world in real-time, I've decided to post all of my old Kicking Mule, Flying Fish and Wizmak recordings on Bandcamp. You can listen to them free for nothing, or download them for a greatly reduced price. Here's a link to my Bandcamp page. There are a couple other things up there, too. Including the demo recording for my Folk/Jazz fusion band "Southern Light" and the only recording of the legendary Tex Pistols. And there's more to come. And yeah, I'm still around, and I still play the dulcimer. But I've been doing other things lately. In fact, I couldn't access this forum using my old log-in. Musta expired or something. :o) I wish everyone in the dulcimer community all the best. Stay well, stay home, and stay tuned! Mark Nelson