Imagine a Markneukirchen Local Time Machine (#LTM)…
…and How the @ICScohort’s Musical Instrument Diaspora Identification (#MIDI) Companion Project Could Add a #SmartTourism Dimension to It.
Recently, the @TimeMachineEU project tweeted an invitation to its affiliated research and cultural preservation community members to suggest which European region should be considered for exploration as an official #LTM, or Local Time Machine project. This invitation is part of the The Time Machine Project’s expanding mandate to create the LSRI, the Large-Scale Research Infrastructure, to capture and present the voluminous history of Europe as both a reflection of the past, and an interpretative window onto the future, of the continent and its diverse mixture of cultural traditions and contributions to the various domains of Human Knowledge.
This article is the recommendation of the International #CitizenScientist cohort in response to that most-interesting invitation.
Markneukirchen #LTM, a Local Time Machine Where Music and Industry Meet
It may be hard for us living today to fully appreciate the world without instant access to music. The flip of a switch or turn of a dial on a radio or television, the visit to an Internet music streaming service, a quick adjustment to the wireless earbuds sending whatever music tickles your fancy into your auditory canals. But it was not so long ago that if you wanted to hear music, you or your friends had to make it yourselves. Whether a renowned symphony orchestra or a rag-tag group of after-work farmers or miners doing “porch music,” there was a global and always-growing need for the production of quality music instruments.
Since music was first invented, making musical instruments has been a skilled craft that met the need for those among us who wanted to answer the Muse’s call. Over time the need for high-quality musical instruments of all types could only be met if the craftsmanship of musical instrument-making was married with the growing skills and understanding of a more industrial approach to production. One of the earliest global centers of musical instrument production of all kinds, a region still steeped in its musical heritage, is the city of Markneukirchen located in Saxony, Germany, close to the Czech border.
Sample #LTM Research Question: How did an immigrant group of a dozen or so Italian violin-makers settle in the already-evolving musical instrument-making region of Markneukirchen in the late Seventeenth Century, and then grow into a thriving “craftory”— that is, a decentralized and distributed hand-crafted supply chain — making over 18,000 violin-family instruments each year by the start of the Nineteenth Century!?
Timlynn and I don’t have time right now to make the case further for a Markneukirchen Local Time Machine project. We are, as remarkable to us as it can be, and as equally as exciting and awesome as it could be, we are in the throes of preparation and packing to attend the #TimeMachine19 conference in Dresden! :D :D
From here there are unfinished and disjoint notes that were coming together for this piece… ITMT, the truly remarkable thing is that we will soon be meeting folks face-to-face that we can talk to about this and related #SmartTourism ideas…
This is the potential #LTM hub/sponsor/leader: The Musical Instrument Museum of Markneukirchen. If possible, Timlynn and I would like to “organize”/encourage a post-#TimeMachine19 “field trip” from Dresden to Markneukirchen to visit the museum, and hopefully meet with staff, to explore the possibility of doing a Markneukirchen Local Time Machine.
While the region of Markneukirchen is home to all variety of musical instrument-making industries of various scales, we were primarily motivated to learn about its violin-making community as the “Salmons family violin” is a beautiful instrument made by Hermann Geipel in Markneukirchen, we think, sometime in the late-19th Century.
Here is a collage of photos of the labels of our instrument. These photos were taken during a “family announcement” ceremony where we surprised my cousin’s grandson who is an aspiring musician in line to be the next caretaker/player of this family heirloom if he proves himself worthy of such a hand-off of a beautiful and sonorous instrument.
Here are some photos of this event… Gathered at my cousin’s for a Christmas family get together, we were first treated to an impromptu concert by cousin’s grandson and family friend Gordon. (This family member is playing his current “student-size” violin. He may eventually grow into playing a full-size instrument… and it may be a good one if he earns the right to be its next caretaker.)
After the mini-concert, we surprised our family member with the announcement that he might be the next caretaker of our family’s Markneukirchen violin! :-) :-) At this point we put the antique walrus-hide case on the dining room table and took a close look at this beautiful instrument:
Most of the finest concert-quality violin-sellers with an on-line presence have background articles on Markneukirchen instruments:
- Markneukirchen: violin making at the crossroads of craftsmanship and trade
- Markneukirchen Violin Production
- Markneukirchen: The Center of Violin Making in Germany
- World War II and the Rise, Fall, and Resurgence of Violin Making in a Tiny Corner of Germany
- Noteworthy families of Markneukirchen violin makers
- Markneukirchen: violin making in “German Cremona”
And this is just a sampling of information about the violin-making in Markneukirchen. Imagine the breadth and depth of information within the local archives, especially guild archives, that document the ebb and flow of a regional culture and economy intimately tied to a global market for instruments that stimulate the Creative Muse in each of us whether player or listener.
What a “Mashup” of a Markneukirchen #LTM & @ICScohort #MIDI Project Might Look Like
To those already familiar with the cornucopia of existing #LTM (Local Time Machine) projects, it is not difficult to imagine the contours of an #LTM project in Markneukirchen. It would be focused on the location and preservation of the myriad of historic documentation that can be unearthed by turning over every rock and limb that might reveal something of this region’s centuries-long tradition of making musical instruments.
The intriguing addition is the International #CitizenScientist cohort’s #MIDI (Musical Instrument Diaspora Identification) Project. In this companion project the #CitizenScientists of the #TMO will encourage TM-focused #SmartTourism based on a global call to identify and capture the stories of multi-generational families that have and cherish a Markneukirchen musical instrument.
We have already foreshadowed the “family history” dimension of a single Markneukirchen violin which has been preserved and cherished by one family in the United States. But let me quickly put a few more “shrimp on the barbie” of this idea by linking you to a supplementary article where I add a few “provenance episodes” that extend and deepen the potential story-capturing value of the Markneukirchen #LTM/#MIDI project… Please take a few moments to explore A Brief History of the Salmons Family Markneukirchen Violin which you will find here on Medium in the Nowsliding Journal.
In Closing and On Heading to #TimeMachine19…
Let’s hope that Timlynn and I can find Kindred Kollegen at #TimeMachine19 who might agree with us that Markneukirchen would be a wonderful addition to the constellation of #LTMs that make up the Time Machine Project. And let’s hope that someone among that group has the means and opportunity to help us get down to the Musical Instrument Museum of Markneukirchen the day after #TimeMachine19 ends. :D :D
Jim & Timlynn
#CitizenScientists attending #TimeMachine19 from Broomfield, Colorado USA
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