This page provides some more information relating to Evo Bluestein's Folk Music Assembly programs in schools.
More Activities: The Songs

Instruments used in Evo's folk music assembly concert.

banjo (info from Bill Reese)

EARLY STAGES
Banjos belong to a family of instruments that are very old. Drums with strings stretched over them can be traced throughout the Far East, the Middle East and Africa almost from the beginning. They can be played like the banjo, bowed or plucked like a harp depending on their development. These instruments were spread, in "modern" times, to Europe through the Arab conquest of Spain, and the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. The banjo, as we can begin to recognize it, was made by African slaves based on instruments that were indigenous to their parts of Africa. These early "banjos" were spread to the colonies of those countries engaged in the slave trade. Scholars have found that many of these instruments have names that are related to the modern word "banjo", such as "banjar", "banjil", "banza", "bangoe", "bangie", "banshaw". Some historians mention the diaries of Richard Jobson as the first record of the instrument.. While exploring the Gambra River in Africa in 1620 he recorded an instrument "...made of a great gourd and a neck, thereunto was fastened strings." The first mention of the name for these instruments in the Western Hemisphere is from Martinique in a document dated 1678. It mentions slave gatherings where an instrument called the "banza" is used. Further mentions are fairly frequent and documented. One such is quoted in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians from a poem by an Englishman in the British West Indies in 1763: "Permit thy slaves to lead the choral dance/To the wild banshaw's melancholy sound/". The best known is probably that of Thomas Jefferson in 1781: "The instrument proper to them (i.e. the slaves) is the Banjar, which they brought hither from Africa." more banjo history

mountain dulcimer (info from Bear Meadow Dulcimers)

The Appalachian Dulcimer is a fretted zither originally found in Southern mountain cultures, and is thought by some to be a descendent of the European zither, via the Germans who settled Pennsylvania and brought with them their square, three-stringed Scheitholt, a European folk zither of which there are many forms (see Epinette des Voges, for instance). Others believe the Appalachian Dulcimer is a true child of the Eastern American Mountain communities.
Whatever we may make of these opinions, the first Appalachian Dulcimers we know of were built in the mid-nineteenth century by rural craftsmen, who used whatever wood was growing around them, and whatever techniques would result in a playable instrument. The results were often crude, sometimes witty (some builders formed frets by hammering nails into the fretboard and bending them over), but always these little home-made instruments have a real charm and presence. Having been discovered by folk musicians, the dulcimer has grown beyond its mountain roots, and now attracts attention from musicians playing Early Music, jazz, blues, and ensemble music. This has created a demand for a truly accomplished musical instrument that will deliver concert quality when a performer needs true intonation, acoustic power and presence, and sweet voice.

From Sharon Kimball, (Appalachian Cultural Muesum)

The delicate haunting sounds of the Appalachian Mountain Dulcimer have been echoing through the hills and hollers of the southern highlands for over two decades. The name itself conveys the simple beauty of the instrument for it comes from the Latin word dulcis meaning sweet and the Greek word melos meaning sound: dulcimer = sweet sound. The simple wooden instrument, traditionally with only three strings, is America's oldest folk instrument and a truly authentic American creation.(more)

Teachers! Order an inexpensive kit including a cardboard dulcimer and instructional materials. For a higher quality instrument go here. For Evo's dulcimer book go here.

Cajun Accordion (from Larry Miller and Mike Miller)

The accordion Cajun people now use is actually by origin and definition a "melodeon" because a pull out of the bellows gives a different note than a push in on the same button. A piano accordion gives the same note whether one pushes or pulls the bellows while depressing the same button. The bass and chord buttons on the left are automatically coordinated whereby when pulling or pushing the bellows, a treble button on the right side is in key with a bass or chord button on the left, (except for only one note). The accordion (the word melodeon for our part is now considered obsolete), harmonica and concertina were invented in Europe in the early 1800's and were not well developed until about the mid 1800's. They reached Cajun land from Germany in about the late 1890's but didn't catch on very well until the early 1900's. The Cajuns did not come to America with accordions but rather fiddles and triangles, mostly, during the mid 1700's.

Some of the first accordions imported in America were Lester, Pine Tree and Bruno brands, but they were bulky, cheaply made and hard to play. Later on in the early 1900's the Monarch brand of German-made accordions became tops in Cajun land. They were "les tit noirs", meaning "the little black ones". They were a bit smaller than some of the older brands and were of course all black with pewter trim. They were the best ever at that time. Later the Sterling family bought the factory in about the 1920's, then the Eagle family operated the factory, but both were virtually the same instrument as the Monarch, except for the name.

Then, WWII destroyed these factories and thus Cajuns were cut off from the supply. So then Cajuns decided to build their own copies of the little black Sterlings to produce that distinctive sound and complement their "bon tons", Cajun style.

It is a most intriguing development of how only twenty to thirty years ago ordinary people like Sidney Brown and Charlie Ortego of Lake Charles, Marc Savoy of Eunice and Shine Mouton of Crowley, (and later many others) had the personal determination to duplicate these instruments in their own back yard workshops, mostly with hand tools. Today with better reeds, glues, paints, better shop tools available, Cajuns are now producing better accordions than the Sterlings and Monarchs of the pre-WWII era. They are all more durable and many of them sound better! (more)

hammered dulcimer (from Peter Pickow and Sam Rizzetta)


There are many theories as to the history of the dulcimer. Some of them are contradictory, some are complete conjecture, and some are well-documented.The most confusing aspect of the hammered dulcimer is its namesake -- the Appalachian, or mountain, dulcimer. The shared name seems to point to a shared heritage at some time. Actually, the mountain dulcimer is not a true dulcimer at all according to the definition of the word, which is: a member of the zither family that is played with hammers.

European and Eastern variants of the dulcimer are in evidence throughout recorded history, although the actual folk instrument that is most comon today probably came to these shores intact from Britain in Colonial times.
The actual specifics of this emigration are obscured by the fact that, at that time, the instrument was not truly in widespread use but rather surviving in isolated pockets. There is still quite a vital playing tradition in certain parts of Wales and Northumbria.

Interest in the hammered dulcimer continued in the United States, as evidenced by contemporary advertisements in the Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogues, and by the publication of self-tutors and method books throughout the 1800s and early 1900s. In fact, the instrument enjoyed a small burst of widespread acclaim due to its being a favorite of Henry Ford, and its inclusion in "Henry Ford's Old Fashioned Dance Orchestra".

In the Old World, the dulcimer experienced a strange revival in the year 1697 when a fellow by the name of Pantaleon Hebestreit invented an improved version of the medieval instrument and called it the pantaleon. It reportedly had 186 strings and was in evidence as late as 1767 when performances were given in England by George Noel on an instrument having 276 strings.

from the Kitchen Musician
Dulcimers may have originated in the Middle East, probably during the first millennium A.D. If so, the instrument could have been brought to Europe from the Middle East during the Crusades or into Spain with the Moors, or both. Then again, maybe not. Other research puts the origin near the end of the Middle Ages, in Europe, holding that the earlier medieval paintings and statues probably depict psalteries or dulcimer-like instruments without a central bridge. Psalteries are plucked rather than hammered, and in some of the old pictures and statues it is impossible to tell how the instrument is being played. Earlier 19th Century theorists, now largely discredited, put the origin in Assyria ca 800 BC, based largely on a bas-relief now in the British Museum. Whatever the historical origins, similar instruments have spread around the world. It is a direct ancestor of the pianoforte.

Dulcimers have many names in many lands: dulcymore, salterio, tsimbal, tsimbaly, santour, yang q'in, hackbrett and cymbalom. * The name "dulcimer" is derived from Latin, meaning "sweet sound". Hammered dulcimers were popular in England during the reign of James I, when the Bible was translated into English as the King James Bible. The dulcimer was mentioned in the Book of Daniel 3:5 among other instruments "..the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of musick..." The word in the original Hebrew text is now known to mean something other than "dulcimer"; and it is believed the King James translators were doing the best they could with knowledge available to them at the time.

autoharp (from Wikipedia)

Autoharps have been used in the United States as bluegrass and folk instruments, perhaps most famously by The Carter Family. They are relatively easy to learn to play as a rhythm instrument, but offer great rewards to the more committed player as a melody instrument. There is debate over the origin of the autoharp. A German immigrant in Philadelphia by the name of Charles F. Zimmermann patented in 1882 a design for a musical instrument that included mechanisms for muting certain strings during play. He named his invention the "autoharp". Unlike later autoharps, the shape of the instrument was symmetrical, and the felt-bearing bars moved horizontally against the strings instead of vertically. It is not known if Zimmermann ever produced commercially any instruments of this early design. Karl August Gütter of Markneukirchen, Germany had built a model that he called a "Volkszither" which most resembles the Autoharp played today. Gütter obtained a British patent for his instrument circa 1883-1884. Zimmermann, after returning from a visit to Germany, began production of the Gütter design in 1885 but with his own design patent number and catchy name. Gütter's instrument became very popular and Zimmermann has often been mistaken as the inventor.

Modern Autoharps have 36 or 37 strings, although some examples with as many as 48 strings exist. They are strung in either diatonic (1, 2 or 3 key models) or chromatic scales. Although the Autoharp is often thought of as a rhythm instrument, modern players are quite capable of producing clear melodies. Diatonic players are able to play challenging fiddle tunes up to speed by using open-chording techniques, "pumping" the damper buttons while picking individual strings very accurately. Skilled chromatic players can render music of surprising complexity.

For more activities: The Songs