#old instruments

Hello !!! Earlier today, I visited a vintage/antique event and I bought this instrument! This is called a psalmodikon, and according to different sources it originates from either Sweden or Denmark. The instrument itself has no bottom panel, and instead is supposed to be played on a table which creates a good sound chamber. Bow is made from horsehair !!

The seller told me this one is from around the 1850s, and that he got it from a couple of old karelian women. He said there were originally some notes for it too, but they have been lost to time.

It sounds much like a cello (o^-')b more photos below

Портрети українських кобзарів О. Сластіона / Portraits of Ukrainian kobzars, O. Slastion

old astrolabe + armillary sphere

A Treatise on the Astrolabe (1391) is a medieval instruction manual on the astrolabe by Geoffrey Chaucer. It describes both the form and the proper use of the instrument, and stands out as a prose technical work from a writer better known for poetry.

it is always very dusty

it has a fucker of an e flat wolf note

it has a sound post crack

there are worn down ditches in the fingerboard

its scroll has filled in holes that used to hold the screws for metal tuning pegs

it is the definition of an absolute hot mess

it plays like a dream

it sounds like one of those ridiculously soft bed throws turned into music

"Musician and storyteller David Holt onstage with Josh Goforth in 2016, sharing the story behind the mouthbow and his original song, "The Drovers".

This clip is an excerpt from a live episode of David Holt's State of Music, which ran for six seasons on PBS."