Re: klezmer percussion

[Tim Meyen <tim...>]

The 'broombass' sounds intriguingly familiar in form and manner of playing to
the 'lagerphone' popularised by Australian 'bush' (quasi-traditional) bands.
The lagerphone is an upright stick topped with numerous beer bottle lids which
jangle when the instrument is tapped on the floor and 'bowed' with a notched
stick. Is this a case of concurrent evolution or are the Devil's Stick,
broombass and lagerphone linked at some point? (Through German immigrants?).
Grounds for a thesis :)
Tim

Itzik Gottesman wrote:

> Re: Klezmer percussion: Moyshe Nussbaum,(1906-1988) a fiddler from Rypin a
> Polish town on the German border, learned how to make a "broombass" from a
> German musician, and he then made one in my basement in the Bronx.
> According to Henry Sapoznik the American equivalent of the "broombass" is
> called a Devil's Stick: a broomstick with a wire  or string going from the
> top to the bottom; cymbals nailed on top (in the one he made he used three
> tops of round metal candy boxes). he then took a one foot long round stick,
> like a short broom stick, cut a notch into the broombass, and that was his
> "smitchik", his bow. One bounced it and hit it with the smitchik at the
> same time.  He also added some bells to the "cymbals". I don't think they
> used this broombass in his kapelye in Rypin when they performed, but did
> use it for private, parties at home. - Itzik Gottesman
>
> -----------------
> Itzik Nakhmen Gottesman
> Assistant Professor
> Yiddish Language and Culture
> Department of Germanic Languages
> EPS 3.102, University of Texas at Austin
> Austin, TX  78712-1190
> phone: 512-471-4123
> fax: 512-471-4025
> Itzik (at) mail(dot)utexas(dot)edu
>

---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+