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UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER LIBRARY BULLETIN
Volume X · Spring 1955 · Number 3
Michael Praetorius and his Syntagma Musicum
-- RUTH WATANABE
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?PAGE=2470
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Music in the Daily Life of Vermeer: The Hommel
by Adelheid Rech
Very informative on a website about the painter Vermeer about the Flemish hommel. Links to a very brief mp3 file of a scheitholt played by a Helga Wagner (see note below). Quotes follow:
The hommel was primarily played in the privacy of the family circle of the lower classes. The great majority of the players were farmers, craftsmen or itinerant tradesmen who played at the fairs, and in years to come, factory workers. It is indeed the only folk instrument played by women, and more than half of the hommel-players still known by name today, are women. Unfortunately, not a single hommel has ever been detected in paintings of any kind.
The hommel may occasionally have been employed for the accompaniment of the congregational singing. The earlier municipal museum of Ypres (West Flanders), unfortunately destroyed during First World War, once housed a large hommel from the 17th century that substituted a church organ.3
But the hommel also served the military. In 1771 J. W. Lustig mentioned the hommel as an instrument for "soldatenmuziek" ("soldiers' music"). It was especially popular among Belgian front soldiers in First World War.4
During the first half of the 19th century the hommel had gradually fallen out of use and was only sporadically played in Frisia and northern Holland, mainly by elderly people. In his article "De hommel of Noordsche Balk," 5 J. C. Boers reports the story of an old woman from the isle of Föhr (North-Germany) who related that her hommel came from Holland (Frisia) where elder[l]y men or women accompanied home singing and "Sunday afternoon psalms" up to the 1870s.
* * *
The hommel is played with a noter held in the left hand, a stick of hard wood, 5-7 cm long, for the fretting, and by plucking the melody string/s and drones with a plectrum7held in the right hand. Instead of the noter some players use the fingers of the left hand to stop the melody string/s on the frets and pluck with the fingers and occasionally the thumb of the right hand.
Noting (fretting) and plucking are generally done simultaneously; rapid melodic passages and grace notes are played with one single stroke (glissando). While playing, the instrument is usually placed on a table top or chest; the musician sits down or plays standing. Occasionally the hommel is played while held across the lap or knees.
By Googling "Helga Wagner" I found a webpage featuring antique musical instruments made by "Klangwelt" in Süsterseel, Germany
The hommel may occasionally have been employed for the accompaniment of the congregational singing. The earlier municipal museum of Ypres (West Flanders), unfortunately destroyed during First World War, once housed a large hommel from the 17th century that substituted a church organ.3
But the hommel also served the military. In 1771 J. W. Lustig mentioned the hommel as an instrument for "soldatenmuziek" ("soldiers' music"). It was especially popular among Belgian front soldiers in First World War.4
During the first half of the 19th century the hommel had gradually fallen out of use and was only sporadically played in Frisia and northern Holland, mainly by elderly people. In his article "De hommel of Noordsche Balk," 5 J. C. Boers reports the story of an old woman from the isle of Föhr (North-Germany) who related that her hommel came from Holland (Frisia) where elder[l]y men or women accompanied home singing and "Sunday afternoon psalms" up to the 1870s.
* * *
The hommel is played with a noter held in the left hand, a stick of hard wood, 5-7 cm long, for the fretting, and by plucking the melody string/s and drones with a plectrum7held in the right hand. Instead of the noter some players use the fingers of the left hand to stop the melody string/s on the frets and pluck with the fingers and occasionally the thumb of the right hand.
Noting (fretting) and plucking are generally done simultaneously; rapid melodic passages and grace notes are played with one single stroke (glissando). While playing, the instrument is usually placed on a table top or chest; the musician sits down or plays standing. Occasionally the hommel is played while held across the lap or knees.
By Googling "Helga Wagner" I found a webpage featuring antique musical instruments made by "Klangwelt" in Süsterseel, Germany
Musikinstrumente aus aller Welt und aus eigener Werkstatt
including the scheitholt, the Finnish kantele and the dulcimer
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