Music
by Delaynna Trim, Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art Curator
With the return of Concerts in the Courtyard for the fourth year, I was thinking about the musical instruments in the Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art collection. We have a collection of reproduction Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque instruments created by Stan Hess. Stan was born in Oklahoma and known for his paintings and lithographs. He earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Oklahoma and had a long and distinguished career as a professor of art at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. Some of his later works were described as magic realism. In the 1970s, he started creating musical instruments based on Medieval and Renaissance designs. What started out as a hobby became much more. In all, he created over 60 instruments over two decades. He gave his collection of instruments to the MGMoA in 1996. The instruments include a harpsichord, a pan flute, recorders, viols, dulcimers, and rebec among others.
So, what are some of these instruments? The viol looks like a violin, but it is different. It is played with the bottom of the instrument on the lap or between the knees and the top upwards. It has a flat back and sloped shoulders. It was popular in Renaissance and Baroque music. It was originally plucked, but in the fifteenth century, people started playing it with a bow.
A rebec is popular in Arabic music and had been around since the 9th century. It is often rested in the lap and held from below. It has a more nasal sound. A dulcimer has a shallow hourglass shaped body. It is sometimes referred to as the Appalachian dulcimer as opposed to the hammered dulcimer which is played with wooded mallets. It is typically played laying flat on the lap, plucking the strings with the right hand and fretting with the left hand.
Most of us have played a recorder at least in elementary school. The recorder dates to the Middle Ages. Stan created several alto recorders out of wood, each with a different design carved onto them.
We even have a pan flute! A pan flute is a series of reeds or tubes in decreasing length bound together and are stopped at one end. It is played by blowing air across the holes. It gets its name from the Greek god Pan who was the god of nature and shepherds. Pan has the horns, legs, and hooves of a goat, with the torso of a man.
Join us each Thursday in June at 6:30 p.m. for Concerts in the Courtyard.
June 4: St. Paul’s ethodist’s handbells
June 11: Atlas Quirk and Friends
June 18: Joseph Craven and Friends
June 25: Jennifer Peck
Art Project
For videos and instructions on how to make a pan flute and other musical instruments, visit www.mgmoa.org/art-projects.
Make your own pan flute
Supplies: Paper, thick marker, glue, tape
Cut the paper into rectangles with increasingly shorter lengths
Wrap the paper around a fat marker or other round object
Glue the end of the paper to create a tube.
Cut a small circle the size of the marker to fit on the end of each of the paper tubes.
Glue the circles to the bottom of the tubes.
Place the tube increasing in size and wrap a long piece of tape around all the tubes lying flat.
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