Trumps (Jews Harps)
Date: 2020-06-23T09:30:38.831179+00:00

Jeremy Montagu

Shawms Around the World

© Jeremy Montagu 2020

The author’s moral rights have been asserted

Hataf  Segol
Publications

Ebook produced by Simon Montagu
in Kovid Goyal's Calibre ebook editor

Photographs by Kate Roseman

Abbreviations

O
overall
L
length
W
width
th.
thickness
⌀
diameter
c.
circa, about

CIMCIM

International Committee of Museums and Collections of Instruments and Music

CUMAE

Cambridge University Museum of Archæology & Ethnography

FoMRHI

Fellowship of Makers and Restorers of Historic Instruments

ICTM
International Council for Traditional Music
IFMC

International Folk Music Council (the former name of the ICTM)

The Catalogue numbers for my collection are listed by a Roman numeral for the volume of the ledger catalogue and an Arabic number for the page in that volume, e.g. III for the volume and 188 for the page.

All measurements are in millimeters

Introduction

The Trump or jews harp is one of a family of music makers that depends entirely on the vocal tracts of the performer to produce music. Although all wind instruments depend on the vocal tracts to some extent, their main tool for making music is the instrument itself. Singing relies entirely on the vocal tracts, and only the trump and one other instrument, the musical bow, are those that also rely basically on the vocal tracts. They share, also, with just one form of singing, that of overtone singing, the use of the overtones of their fundamental pitch to create their music.

With all three, the trump, the musical bow in its earliest form as the mouthbow, and overtone singing, a fundamental is generated. With the trump it is done by plucking the tongue or reed of the instrument.

It was Hugh Tracey, founder of the African Music Society, who pointed out in conversation with me many years ago, that the tongue of the trump functioned as a reed, and this is why I use that term. Most trump players, however, would be more inclined to call the reed a tongue or a feather, and therefore I shall use any of these names indiscriminately.

With the bow it is done by tapping the string with a light stick, or more rarely by bowing the string, and even more rarely by blowing across a quill attached to the string. And with overtone singing it is done by generating a vocal drone in the throat. For the first two the reed or the string is held against the lips or the teeth of the player; in the third the drone is generated inside the player. With all three the musical results are produced by modifying the shape of the mouth and the tongue and other parts of the vocal tracts so as to produce different partials of the fundamental as overtones. We shall go into the playing technique for the trump and its acoustics in a little more detail below, but the basics are common to all three ways of making music. The bow has a slight advantage over the trump in that the bow string can be divided by a brace to produce a second fundamental, and a third fundamental can be produced by stopping the string with a raised thumb or finger of the hand that is holding the bow, and thus two or three different series of overtones can be generated; the overtone singer can modify their fundamental at will so that any series of overtones can be produced. The trump can only achieve such things by having more than one reed or more than one instrument, as we shall see below.

Overtone singing is closely linked to trump playing, especially in far-eastern Russia and Mongolia, and I have a suspicion that this may be due to nomadic habits, especially those carried out on horseback. Trumps can only be played by both hands, one to hold the instrument to the mouth and the other to pluck the reed or the hinge, depending on whether the instrument is hetero- or idioglottal respectively. While horses can be trained to respond to leg pressure, nevertheless the reins do often have to be used, thus inhibiting playing a trump on horseback. Even more, the climate may be responsible, for in cold weather such as is experienced in those areas, playing the trump in gloves is not easy. In each case overtone singing remains the best substitute for the trump, for both produce the same music, and we also know that both overtone singing and trumping are commonly practised in those areas for recreation as well as for communal performance. Music is ideal in keeping the mind active on long journeys, or while herding animals, whether it be singing or playing an instrument, and this has been true throughout the ages, long before the invention of the transistor radio and the iPlayer.

The name of the instrument is a problem. In 1481 British customs duties on imports showed up a batch of jue trumps and jue harps, and there are many other references with various spellings such as Iues, and in 1591 as Jewes. So why Jews? Nobody knows. Maybe they were sold by Jewish pedlars (all Jews had been illegal in Britain since 1291 and were not legally readmitted until 1656 but we know of many who were there despite these prohibitions and who seem to have been present nevertheless). Maybe there was some other reason for the name. But the name has stuck and while there is nothing anti- (or pro-) Semitic about it, some people don’t like the name. Fred Crane suggested the use of Trump by itself, and this is probably sensible, but the only trouble is that few people recognise the instrument under that name so that one always has to use the common name as well, as in my title here. One thing is certain: there is no historic nor linguistic legitimacy in the term jaw-harp.

Figure 1 shows what it looked like in the Middle Ages, although the reed is missing:

Figure 1 Mediæval Trump (XII 70), missing its reed and described fully below

Trump is quite a logical name for it, because the basic sounds it produces are the overtones of the fundamental of the reed or tongue, which are exactly the same as those of the natural trumpet.

Where the idea of ‘harp’ for the English name came from, nobody knows. Some other languages are more sensible, others less so. Mundgeige (it’s not a fiddle), Maultrommel (it’s not a drum), the latter the more rude German name for the mouth, guimbarde in French (a type of coach), scaccia i pensieri in Italian (away dull thoughts), khomus in Russian, morchang in India, kubing in the Philippines, morsing in Pakistan, it is used worldwide under many names.

History of the Trump

This is vague at best. We do not even know if there is a common history shared by the idioglot type (those whose reed is cut from the same body as the frame) and the heteroglot (the common European type with a separate reed fixed to a frame). It has been suggested that the idioglot is Asiatic and the heteroglot may have been an independent invention in Europe. One problem there, however, is the existence of a heteroglot type in Japan, but this is of unknown date and therefore perhaps it may have derived from post-European contact in the fifteenth century or later. Anyway there is no evidence to back this suggestion of two separate historical lines, but nor is there any evidence for any development from idio- to hetero-.

I have in the past suggested that there is an equivalence, save in size, between the Asiatic mouthorgan and the trump. With each, the reed is cut out on two sides (if triangular) or three sides (if rectangular or oblong), from a thin sheet of bamboo and later of metal, brass or bronze. One is small enough and light enough to be sounded by blowing; the other is too large for that and it needs to be plucked initially to generate the sound, which is then amplified by blowing past the reed.

Figure 2 Trump and mouthorgan reeds compared
Above: The reed from a Chinese trump
Below: A free reed from a Thai khaen

If I am right in this suggestion, that there is a connexion between the idioglot trump and the free reed of the mouthorgan, then we do know from Chinese historical records that the mouthorgan dates back to at least as early as the fourteenth century BCE in China. It has been suggested, by Laurence Picken and others, with as yet no evidence, that Thai and other neighbouring area mouthorgans might be even earlier than that date.

Whether the mouthorgan or trump came first is a chicken or the egg scenario, so one can only suggest some coevality, with maybe a few centuries in between the one or the other, of unknown pre-fourteenth century BCE date, while suggesting that as so often larger gives way or leads to smaller. The operative word throughout this history is ‘suggesting’.

A further complication in the prehistory of the trump is that the Melanesian culture of Oceania, including New Guinea, was Neolithic, and we do know that trumps were made and played within that culture before there was any European contact, and that these trumps, which we shall see below, are still made and played in the same way today. Because idioglot trumps are usually of vegetable or animal materials, such as bamboo in Melanesia, which could never survive in the ground, or small slips of bone, we have as yet no physical traces of any such instrument in any other Neolithic history or culture. I am slightly doubtful whether archæologists would recognise an idioglot trump if they ever found one -- it would be simply a slip of bone with a narrow triangular slit cut in it and, if found, it could then well be thought to be a hair clip or something of that sort. We, in our culture, use very similar objects, such as a Jewish kippa clip, to hold a head-covering in place.

We do know that in Mongolia and in eastern Russia and Siberia idioglot instruments of bone and wood and even ivory were and are used, as still in China and Japan, but the earliest dates we have from those areas so far, are very late. One has recently been found archæologically from the Altai region, where Russia, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan come together, an area inhabited by the Huns, and has been dated to the fourth or fifth century CE. This trump is open-ended, not enclosed by the frame like the Asiatic idioglot trumps below, looking rather like three extended fingers, the index and ring fingers the frame and the middle finger the reed. Another was found in Moldova, a country further to the west that is surrounded by Romania on one side and Ukraine on all the others. That trump is dated to the ninth century and has a closed frame, and each is idioglot. These, so far, are the earliest positive dates for trumps that we have. As always with archæology, we have only what we have found, and what may still be in the ground is unknown.

It has often been suggested that the instrument might have come towards us in Europe from the Orient or S. E. Asia, and in heteroglot form via India, and that it became known in Europe in Roman times, but those that were allegedly initially thought to have been Gallo-Roman, from around 500 CE, as in the Besançon Musée des Beaux Arts & Archéologie catalogue Le Carnyx et la Lyre, 1993, nos. 3-6, pp. 20-21, are now regarded with some considerable suspicion as to their date. Some found in Kent in southern England from the 1940s, were then alleged to be Roman or Anglo-Saxon in date, for example those published and illustrated by F. C. Elliston-Erwood (Arch. Cantiana 56, 1943 and 60, 1947) and L. R. A. Grove (ibidem, 69 & 70, 1955 & 1956), but these were surface finds and typologically it would seem more likely that they were later mediæval in date, probably from the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries.

The earliest heteroglot trump found so far is one from Hungary dated to the tenth century and there seems now to be some consensus that the earliest western European trumps may have started around 1100. It has also been suggested, as above, that the heteroglot type of trump that we use may have been invented independently in Europe, with no connexion at all with the idioglot type. Both the Moldovan and the Altai trumps were idioglot and the Hungarian is heteroglot. Quite simply we do not know whether the idioglot trumps led to the heteroglot ones or not, though we can be sure that idio- was earlier than hetero-.

Frederick Crane published all the then-known early European trumps in his Extant Medieval Musical Instruments (University of Iowa Press, 1972) and references therein, and there was a considerable variety of types found all over Europe. Crane’s work, which he continued in many other publications, has been amplified and updated, and others that have been found since then are described and illustrated by Gjermund Kolltveit in his Jew’s Harps in European Archaeology (Archaeopress, Oxford, 2006 as BAR 1500). The overwhelming majority of those found all over Europe have been surface finds, including those in Kent above, and are therefore mostly undatable, but Kolltveit has, fairly convincingly, produced a typological and chronological sequence, citing archæological provenance wherever it exists.

We do know that the instrument was known in England at least by 1270, because one was found in London under the Old Customs House, and is dated to that year, and that it was probably imported from Austria or Germany. One was portrayed on the bishop’s crozier of William of Wykeham by 1370 (see my article ‘The Crozier of William of Wykeham’ Early Music, 2002, 540--62), and there is evidence that trumps were being made in Molln in Austria, in Thüringen in eastern Germany at least a century earlier than that, and in Valsesia in northern Italy a few centuries later.

And this is all that we do know. Basically, the early history of the trump is unknown.

Playing Technique

It is essential that the gap between the reed and its frame is as narrow as possible so that the vibration of the reed is coupled to that of the player’s mouth. The instrument is held against the mouth, between the lips so that the main air movement is between the reed and the sides of the frame, and it is also often held against the teeth. The reed is plucked by various methods, as we shall see, and this generates a fundamental pitch whose overtones are elicited by changes of mouth-shape and tongue movement and shape, as in producing the various vowel sounds, a, e, i, o, and u. It is of course more complex than that, and while the basic overtones are those of the harmonic series, it is clear that non-harmonic pitches can also be obtained, particularly in the upper ranges. The acoustics of the instrument are complex and, among other investigations, have been studied by Laurence Picken and Cecil Adkins (C. J. Adkins, ‘Investigation of the sound-producing mechanism of the jew’s harp’, J Acoust.Soc.Amer., vol 55 no. 3, March 1974) concluding that the overtones are not necessarily harmonic, especially in the upper range.

Most good players blow on the reed as well as plucking it, which both amplifies and enriches the sound, and this has led some scholars to think of the instrument as an aerophone (eg Ole Kai Ledang, ‘On the acoustics and systematic classification of the Jew’s Harp’, International Folk Music Council Yearbook 4, 1972). The classification of the instrument has been, and probably always will be, controversial between its position as an aerophone and that as an idiophone. As an idiophone it is the sound of the reed that is regarded as the more important, and alternatively it is the overtones that are regarded as those of a reed-generated aerophone. When I was revising the Sachs-Hornbostel Classification System (much of it now embodied in the MIMO version of that system), I left it where it was as an idiophone, but my own inclination today would be to shift it into the aerophone section.

The simplest forms are idioglottal, meaning that the ‘tongue’ or glossa is integral with the body, for the reed is cut from the same body as the frame, with (botanical) reed or more often bamboo and palm-leaf mid-rib as the most easily accessible materials. (We are cursed with the word ‘reed’ both for the object that generates the sound and as the botanical word for a wide variety of plants.) All that is necessary is that the material should have sufficient spring to vibrate in front of the mouth. Indeed, any vibration will suffice, and Anthony Forge brought back one recording that he had made in Papua New Guinea of a boy who had captured a large beetle and held it buzzing furiously in front of his mouth, using it instead of a trump to produce the overtones of the buzz.

Idioglottal Trumps

Melanesian type

In New Guinea (Papua), on both halves of the island, the trump is still a popular instrument. They are made from a short length of bamboo, originally with the tongue being abraded from the frame with stone or shell tools, but now more often knife-cut. Today it is often a children’s instrument (this first one was made by a young boy), but we have many illustrations of grown men using it also. Whether it is solely a male instrument, I do not know, only that I have never seen an illustration of a woman or girl playing it, and in New Guinea there are many things that are taboo for women, and perhaps this is one of them.

Figure 3 Idioglot bamboo trump, Gumini, Papua New Guinea (V 158)

This idioglot bamboo trump (V 158) came from Gumini, where the people are of the Mian-Golin language group, in the Chimbu Province, on the southern edge of the Central Highlands, in Papua New Guinea (PNG). PNG is the eastern half of the island which, before World War I, was a German colony. After the War it became British and then Australian, and it is now an independent nation. The western half of the island (Papua or West Papua) was a Dutch colony but after the Second World War it was taken over by Indonesia, and ever since then it has striven to be an independent nation like the eastern half. The trump was made from a segment of bamboo tube, the reed knife-cut from just beyond a node. Like all New Guinea trumps, it is played by jerking a cloth cord at the hinge end in such a way that the player’s thumb strikes the hinge. This one is complete with a photograph of the maker, Michael, and a recording of him playing it. There is poker-work decoration on the convex side of squares and triangles, with some red pigment on the concave side. The butt end beyond the node is cut off flat. The cord has an original cloth tag on the end, but the thread binding at the points is a replacement. Its measurements are OL 205 mm; ⌀ 22.6; reed L 163; node to base of reed c. 12.5; node to the base of the cut out on the back 38.9; length of the cut-out to the point 146. It was brought back as a gift, with all the documentation, by the well-known photographer Axel Poignant.

These New Guinea trumps normally consist, like this one, of a short length of bamboo tube, with the reed cut as a long narrow triangle from the wall of the tube (hence the use of the term ‘idioglot’). The cuts on many of them look as though they were abraded by a pointed tool until the groove was worn right through the material, though on this example it is clearly knife-cut. The grooves start just below a natural node, which is left intact. The opposite side of the tube is cut away, usually with a sloping cut, often curved, which reaches the reed side of the tube just below the tip of the reed. The two arms thus formed are always tied together at the point with a cord lashing, often with a notch cut in the ends of the arms, to help secure the lashing. Whereas our instruments are played by plucking the distal end of the reed, which is usually bent at 90° or so to make this easier, the reed on these instruments does not project from the frame, and on the Malayan type of trump (below) the reed is wholly enclosed within the frame. Therefore, the impetus has to come from the butt end of the frame and not from the point of the reed, and this is possible because the instrument is both a complete unit and is flexible. The Melanesian trumps are thus played by jerking a cord, which is fixed through a hole in the bamboo at the hinge end on the tongue side of the node. The reed is normally, perhaps always, on the opposite side of the tube from a side shoot, which is on the stub side of the node from the reed.

Figure 4 Another Gumini trump, both front and back (VIII 138)

Another idioglot bamboo trump (VIII 138), this one made also by a child, who inscribed his name, Simon / Mana, on the back in poker work. It also comes from Gumini in Papua New Guinea. It is very similar to the previous instrument, though the poker-work decoration is much more elaborate.The inside is again stained red. The reed again is knife-cut The butt end beyond the node is cut in a V, perhaps to resemble the jaws of a crocodile (an animal very often carved on slit drums from that island). A V-shaped mouth is cut on the back between the node and the cut-out, with a slit leading from the point of the V to the base of the cut-out. This may be an accidental split but it might also be deliberate, to create a buzz which may have the same effect as the similar slit on the Celebes rere which there also adds a buzz. The cut-out goes only part way down the arms, which then continue parallel-sided to the point. The point lashing is a replacement. The cloth pulling cord ends with a tassel of several pieces of cloth. OL 218; ⌀ 24.3; reed L 135; node to reed c. 9.6; node to V-mouth 30.5; node to cut-out 49.8; length of cut-out c. 82. One side of the tube is also split but that is clearly accidental. It also was a gift from Axel Poignant.

Figure 5 Idioglot trump from Tari, Papua New Guinea (IX 196)

This trump (IX 196) is similar to the above, but it is obviously much older. It is also longer, and stained dark brown, perhaps with wax. It has a V-shaped end beyond the node but with shorter jaws than VIII 138. The pulling cord is string, not cloth. The cut-out starts with a tangential cut, not in a segmental point, and it is briefly duplex. A short branch stub projects above the node on the back (the cut-out side); on the other trumps from PNG this has been cut off flush with the surface. The binding at the tip looks original – it is a similar cord to the pulling cord but much lighter. OL 265; ⌀ 27.5; reed L 196; node to reed c. 15; node to cut-out 20; cut-out to point 213. Tari is the capital of the Tari-Pori district and is the centre of Huli country in the Hela Province of PNG, also in the highlands but to the south of the Chimbu Province. This instrument was bought from Tony Bingham.

Figure 6 Idioglot trump from New Guinea (XI 118)

I have no better location for this instrument (XI 118) and it might even be from the Indonesian half of the island, and it differs from the others in several respects. It is made in a much shallower curve than usual, without a complete tube at the hinge end, so shallow that it looks to be less than a quarter of the circumference. The reed is very definitely knife-cut and the slot between the reed and the frame is much narrower; it is clear that it was cut from the inner surface of the bamboo whereas those above were equally clearly cut from the outer surface. It is quite a new instrument, with poker work decoration in X and dot, but is probably genuine rather than tourist. It has four small lengths of highly figured bamboo (or perhaps another other type of reed, for it is solid, not hollow) as rattles on the end of the plucking cord. The cord is of vegetable fibre and is now somewhat fragile. The tie at the point is of similar material and is certainly original and is quite elaborate with a decorative tuft on the end. The reed is loaded with black wax at one point for tuning. OL c. 212 (the tuft obscures the end of the instrument); OW 27; reed L 157; node to reed 12.5. It was also bought from Tony Bingham.

Similar trumps are widely distributed over the other Melanesian islands as far south as the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Fiji.

Malayan style Trumps

We now move to the Malayan style of trump.These are usually of bamboo, or often of palm mid-rib, still idioglot, but made of a flattish or flat section of bamboo or palm rib and are very neatly cut out with a knife, much more elaborately than the Melanesian type. The reeds are cut out in two steps, wide towards the hinge end and much narrower at the tip, usually with a right-angle step between the two, and they are fully enclosed within the frame. The sides of the frame are thinned beside the narrower section of the reed to give a shallow resonance chamber, and just before that section of the reed, the reed and sometimes the side of the frame are left thicker, both for strength and to weight the reed. They are played by plucking the hinge end, either with the finger, as on the Philippine and Thai instruments, or with a cord and pulling stick, as on the Javanese and Balinese. A thicker section is left in the bamboo between the hinge end and the hinge end of the reed, presumably to obviate risk of splitting and, save for that block, all the rest of the body is thinned down except for the far end, which is is again left thicker. The Javanese and Balinese are perceptibly cruder, especially my example of the latter which may be a tourist instrument and not meant for serious playing, with a thicker block left over the last centimetre or so of the wider part of the reed, all the rest being thinned, and being made from a rougher species of bamboo. The Philippine trumps are similar to the Javanese but are more neatly made.

Figure 7 Idioglot trump from Java, front and back (VI 34a)

This is a rinding from Java (VI 34a). It has a pulling stick tied through a hole in the hinge and the ragged remains of a cloth case are tied into a notch in the other end. It is made of slightly curved bamboo. A hollow is routed out under the narrow end of the reed with a block, the thickness of the strip of bamboo, remaining standing at the point where the wider section of the reed changes to the narrow part. It is an instrument of some age and has been well worn in use. OL 148; OW 14.1; reed W 6.3 (81.5 long) and 1.5 (32.2 long). It was bought and brought back as a gift by Zaire Novack and it is now on loan to the Bate Collection.

Figure 8 Idioglot trump from Bali (VI 34b)

An idioglot bamboo rinding from Bali (VI 34b). Like the Javanese trump above, it has a pulling stick tied to the hinge and has a blue cloth case tied to the point. Again it is of slightly curved bamboo. It has a dark brown cortex. OL 147; OW 15.2; width of reed 5 (74 long) and 1.8 (37.2 long). It was bought new in a shop in Paris, and it may have been made as a souvenir for tourists.

Figure 9 Idioglot bamboo trump from the Bali-Aga people of S.E. Bali, front and back (XI 230)

This is a genggong (XI 230) from the Bali-Aga, the aboriginal people of Bali living in and around Tenganan in the Karangasen District of S. E. Bali, an area that was restricted to local inhabitants to avoid social pressure and therefore closed to tourists, but it is now more open to visitors. The trump is made of slightly curved bamboo with a pulling stick tied to the hinge end. The bark, or cortex, is leopard-spotted. It has a longer, rectangular tail than either of the previous instruments, and is very neatly made. The pulling stick is more substantial than that of the previous two. OL 225; OW 20.5; tail W 10.7; width of reed 10.3 (94 long) and 2.7 (34 long); length of tail 73. It was brought back and given to me by Rachel Hewitt, one of the original members of the Bate Gamelan players who went to Indonesia to study gamelan, both in Java and in Bali.

Figure 10 Idioglot bamboo trump from Papua New Guinea of Malay type (IX 194)
The whole instrument below and details of the reed and decoration above

Although this idioglot trump (IX 194) was said to have come from Papua New Guinea, it is of the Malay flat bamboo type and was presumably imported to PNG, probably by the original player. It has no details of provenance save that it was one of a batch of other material from New Guinea. However, a similar instrument in the Tropen Museum in Amsterdam is labelled Irian Jaya, now Papua or West Papua. It has a very long, thin, flat (but now curved) tail not much thicker than the cortex at the non-hinge end. OL 631; OW 13.3; reed W 4.9 (67.7 long) and 1.5 (46.8 long) – the shoulder of the reed is slightly sloped rather than the usual right-angle steps where the width is reduced. There is a tuning-wax weight on the outer side at the end of the wider section of the reed just before the shoulder, with only a very slight thickening on the inner side. The tail has some decorative carving on each side but is mostly plain, just a long strip of cortex, and at one point it is bound with thin metal, which looks as though it comes from a cigar tube, swaged over it, presumably repairing a break. The pulling stick and its string is tied round a waisted knob at the butt end of the body. It was bought from Tony Bingham.

The next group are still the Malayan type, but instead of using a pulling cord, the hinge end is plucked directly by a finger. This is a widespread technique, used for many of the idioglot types, as in China and other parts of S. E. Asia and the Orient.

Figure 11 Idioglot bamboo trump, T’boli people, Mindanao, Philippines (X 290), back and front

Trump, kubing (X 290), T’boli people, Mindanao, Philippines. Idioglot flat bamboo, played by plucking the hinge end directly with the finger, instead of by jerking a cord. It is decorated with patterns in incised and blackened lines. Despite its somewhat banana shape, it works nevertheless. It is more neatly made than the Balinese examples above, but it is without the wings of the Thai examples below. The cortex has been removed over the length of the reed except just above the shoulder. OL 203; OW 11.2; reed W 4.4 ( 57 long) and 1.5 (36.8 long). It was bought in an Oxfam shop, where many have been seen.

Figure 12 Another trump, also from the T’boli people (X 292b), front and back

These three trumps (X 292a-c) are presumably also kubing from the T’boli of Mindanao, for they are identical with X 290 in form, with only slight variation in the patterns of decoration, which is still in the same style. Only one, (b), has been measured. OL 194; OW 11.2; reed W 4.4 (60.8 long) and 1.5 (32.3 long). One has been given away. They were bought from Raymond Man, then in Covent Garden, but last encountered in Camden Town. While his shop is mainly a Chinese musical instrument shop, he does also stock useful instruments from other cultures. Only one is illustrated here.

Figure 13 Flat idioglot bamboo trump from Thailand (VIII 228a)
The instrument with its case above and detail of the reed with its wings below

Two flat idioglot bamboo trumps (VIII 228a and b) from Thailand without any more detailed location. They are played by plucking the bamboo at the hinge end with the finger. They are said to be used for courting, and the sound is said to be aphrodisiac; much the same is said also for the Indonesian instruments, with instruments like this being played quietly outside a hut in which a young woman may be sleeping. While the local languages are not normally said to be tonal, nevertheless there are verbal implications within the music played on them, and it is said that the listener can understand what is being conveyed by the trump. These Thai trumps have tubular cases of bamboo with fine incised decoration, stained red. A cord of red wool round the point of the hinge end of the trump is knotted through a hole in the node of the case so as to pull the trump back into its case. The reed of these trumps is identical with, though much larger than, the blown free reed of that area. The reed has two widths, one (a) 2.3 mm from the hinge for 46.7 mm, and then reduced, with square shoulders, to 1.2 for 20.7 to the end. The wider part is thinned to the hinge. Over the narrow part, the cortex of the bamboo has been removed from the body and two slivers of bamboo are inserted into slits in the side of the frame beside the narrow section of the reed as wings which can be adjusted to control the width of the gap between the tongue and the frame. This is a subtlety which I have seen on no other style of trump other than the Cambodian example immediately below. The whole instrument is much more delicate than these other Malay style trumps. (a) OL 131; OW 6.5. (b) OL 140; OW 8.2; reed W 2.5 (46.5 long) and 0.8 (19.5 long). These trumps were bought from Global Village Crafts, Somerset. Originally four were bought together, but two have been given away, and one (b) is on loan to the Bate Collection.

Figure 14 Flat idioglot bamboo trump from Cambodia (XIII 198)
The whole instrument above and detail of the reed and the wings below

This Cambodian trump (XIII 198) is similar to those from Thailand, save that the distal end of the bamboo terminates in a long carved point. It is of bamboo, idioglottal, and again with thin wings inserted on each side to frame the tongue, which is neatly but more crudely done, with thicker wings than on the Thai instrument above. The extra thickness at the shoulder where the width of the reed changes is also heavier than on most others of the Malay type here, and the shoulder curves from the wider to the narrower. The narrow end has a curved end rather than being cut off flat. OL 232; OW 1.9; reed W 4.7 (50 long) and 2 (39.3 long); tail L 108, ending in an arrow head. It was bought from Jonathan Cope at the Bate trump conference in 2007.

As noted above, it is acoustically necessary that the reed should fit closely between the arms (just as with the blown free reed of the mouthorgan) so that the vibrations of the reed are strongly coupled to the resonator, here the mouth, rather than to a small chamber with the mouthorgan. This is why these Thai and Cambodian trumps use the wings inserted below the cortex to each side of the reed, so as to adjust this gap, and so far as I know, these are the only trumps that have such a device.

Just as mouthorgan reeds are now made of brass or bronze, so also are trumps, both in the Philippines and in China, and perhaps also in other neighbouring areas, such as South-East Asia and Japan.

Figure 15 Idioglot brass trump from the Philippines (V 198)

Idioglot brass trump (V 198) from the Philippines. It is a wedge-shaped segment cut from slightly curved, partly tinned brass sheet, narrowest at the hinge end, which has also been hammered and is now 0.2 mm thick. The reed was cut from the sheet with a knife, and much of the surface has been filed. It is played by plucking the hinge end. OL 64 mm; reed L 42.5; max W 14; min W 7.4; th. 0.4; hinge end to reed 6.4. The instrument is clearly identical, save for size, with the blown free reed of that area. Two of these were bought from Jack Schuman and the second one was given to Laurence Picken, now CUMAE 77.437; all Dr Picken’s collection was sold to the Cambridge University Museum of Archæology and Ethnography in 1977, but before that time he and I collected cheaper instruments in duplicate for each other.

I made a similar idioglot brass trump (VIII 112), based on the Philippine type, from hammered brass sheet, for demonstration at lectures. It is not illustrated here.

Figure 16 Brass idioglot trump from Vietnam (XIII 196)
Above: The case and the front of the instrument
Below: The back

A much larger idioglot brass trump, Rab ncac (XIII 196), from the Hmong people of Vietnam. It has its own carved wooden fish-shape case with a wooden plug. Again it is played by plucking the pointed hinge end and it is held at the other end which has a fish-tail cut out. The frame is faintly fish shape and fully encloses the reed. The upper (outer when played) side of the frame is totally flat, whereas the under side is thinned at the hinge end so that the reed is also thinner, and after a step up in thickness of both frame and reed, nearer the point of the reed, the side walls of the frame are routed to form a shallow resonance chamber. OL 129; reed L 63.7; max W 11.5, min W 9.2; th. 0.4 and 1.5; hinge end to reed 16.8. It was bought from Jonathan Cope at the Bate trump conference in 2007.

Figure 17 Dual-blade brass idioglot trump from Laos (XIII 194)
Above: The case and the front of the instrument
Below: The back

Idioglot dual-reed trump (XIII 194) from Laos, again without any more detailed origin. It is made of a flat strip of brass, thinned at the hinge end, with a forked double tongue, resembling that of a snake, and it is plucked by the finger at the hinge end. Like the Hmong trump above, the upper side is flat and it is routed out on the under side to form a shallow resonance chamber. Again the frame fully encloses the reeds. Although there are two tongues, there is no perceptible difference in pitch between the two and there is no possible way to sound one rather than the other; plucking the hinge simply activates both. It is in a red-stained bamboo tube with incised decoration, similar to those of the Thai bamboo trumps, but rather narrower in diameter, retained with a cord through the node with a pink wool tassel, and a hole drilled in the tail of the trump. OL 113.7; reeds L c. 59; max W 10.3; min W 4.8; th. 1.1 and 0.5; hinge end to reed 23.9. It was bought from Jonathan Cope at the Bate trump conference, 2007.

Multi-reed trumps are quite common in some areas, mainly in the Far East, but are not unknown elsewhere. They allow for two or more fundamentals and therefore can provide different series of overtones. Some are multiple on the one body, as among the aboriginal peoples of Taiwan (where some are heteroglot) and the Laotian instrument above; some are simply conjoined trumps, the most elaborate of which was the aura, invented by Johann Scheibler in 1816, a group of up to a dozen trumps clamped together. Scheibler’s own article is reprinted in Leonard Fox’s book The Jew’s Harp (1998). Other players have become equally expert in handling more than one trump at a time, making quick changes whenever a change of musical key is demanded by the music. Many concertos have been written for the trump by composers such as Albrechtsberger in the eighteenth century onwards.

Figure 18 Conjoined idioglot brass trumps from North China (XIII 200)

Triple-trump, khuxiang (XIII 200), from the Yi people of North China. Three idioglot brass trumps are held together by a rivet at the points, each one a different pitch, the lowest in the middle, and they are played similarly to the aura, by moving each over the mouth as is appropriate. They are made of very thin brass, folded over at the edges to stiffen the frame. OL 33.6; reed L 28.7, 23.6, 21.8; max W 11.2; min W 3.3; th. 0.3 and 0.4; hinge end to reed c. 4. In a small torpedo-shape bamboo slip case with red-stained decoration. Bought from Jonathan Cope at Bate trump conference, 2007.

Figure 19 The same instrument from the back

The same khuxiang, showing how the very thin edges of the reeds are folded over for greater strength.

Heteroglot Trumps

For lack of any further examples of the idioglot type in my collection (and there are many more examples out there, in many areas, from the Eskimo, who link with Siberians, right round to eastern and south-eastern Asia and Oceania) we turn now to the heteroglot types. Here the reed or tongue is of a separate (hetero) material from the frame and it is attached to the frame by various means. The commonest method of attachment is setting the tongue in a groove, ground or cast in one surface of the frame, using a cold chisel to force a segment of the edge of the groove over the side of the tongue, and then hammering that segment flat as a clamp on each side. More rarely, a slot is cut in the back of the frame, into which the end of the tongue is inserted and is then held in place by a metal wedge. The advantage of this method is that if the tongue breaks, as sometimes they do, a new tongue can easily be fitted as a replacement. This system would only be found among specialist hand-made trumps, such as that by Straume from Norway below. A ‘false’ slot can be made by routing a depression in the frame and placing an exactly fitting block over the reed, held down by a screw, as on one of mine by Hanifovich, or by a rivet. Another method is by riveting a plate over the reed and the frame. But by far the most common is the first of these methods, the groove and clamps, especially for mass-produced instruments.

The commonest form of the frame is made by bending a strip of iron wire, either square or hexagonal in section, into most of a circle or ovoid and then into two parallel arms, either quite sharply with almost right-angle bends, or more smoothly in a curve. Alternatively to this, the frame can be cast in a mould into much the same shape, or as as ornately as the maker desires. Most of the nineteenth-century and later English trumps had cast iron frames, and as a result they were poorly performing trumps because it was difficult to control the gap between reed and frame in this way. Most German and Austrian, and almost, perhaps all, hand-made trumps are made from forged or bent frames.

The reed or tongue is made from spring or hammered steel, either parallel-sided (one common source is said to be old bicycle spokes) or more often tapering from the fixed end to the tip, and sometimes with a median swelling of width. The end is bent up, usually at a slightly obtuse angle, and the tip is either curved over or bent round in a ring so as not to cut the player’s finger.

One reason for starting the heteroglot trumps here with those from West Africa is that Africa, Australia, and the Americas are the only areas where we know for certain that the trump had never been an indigenous instrument, and that it was an imported instrument, as trade goods, following European contact. I have no examples of later Australian make, and only one, possibly two, from the Americas, and that positive one from USA, but I have three locally manufactured trumps from the Hausa people of Nigeria in imitation of the European form.

Archæological evidence has told us that this African manufacture began quite early, soon after the Portuguese settlements became established along the west coast of Africa in the early fifteenth century, and in the Americas trumps became popular with the incursions of the Conquistadors, though there is no evidence for any early local manufacture in Central nor southern America, nor so far found in the islands. The earliest American instruments that we have are from the North in settlements such as Williamsburg and Plymouth, and also in Native American settlements, and these all appear to have been of European manufacture. It was in Africa that local blacksmiths began to create their own versions of the instruments that the Portuguese had brought as beads, trumps, and other trade goods to exchange for ivory and gold. The other reason for starting in Africa is that there is also an idioglot toy substitute in West Africa, certainly in the Hausa areas of Nigeria and probably elsewhere also. These are made from guinea corn and although they are not really trumps, they do produce an imitation of the same music.

Figure 20 Two Idioglot Guinea-corn trump substitutes from Zaria, Nigeria (VI 238a-b), showing front and back

These are idioglot guinea-corn trump substitutes, bambaro (VI 238a-e), from Zaria in Nigeria, where they are children’s toys. They are made by cutting a piece of guinea corn stalk in half with an extended strip of cortex projecting as a tongue; a small hollow c. 14x8 is cut in the pith as a resonating chamber. The instruments are not true trumps and they work by plucking the strip of cortex so that it bounces against the stalk, in much the same way as would any strip of material held across the mouth cavity and plucked with the finger. (a) OL 182; body L 122; tongue L 57; OW 13.3. Nine of them were bought from the Gidan Madauchi Ibrahim Bagudu of Zaria City, following an introduction by David Ames, and four were given to Dr Picken, which are now CUMAE 77.518.

Figure 21 Two iron heteroglot trumps from Zaria (VI 202a & b)

These three heteroglot trumps, bambaro, (VI 202a-c) were made by a blacksmith in Zaria, Nigeria, one of them small (a) and two (b-c) larger. They are iron instruments of different sizes, locally made in imitation of the European. The frames are oval, lozenge-shape in cross-section, with a steel reed hammer-clamped into a slot. The distal end of the reed is bent away from the frame. We change here from OL to Frame L because in a number of cases the bent end of the tongue projects slightly beyond the frame, and this would mislead us on the size of the frame. (a) Frame L (lower arm 1.5 shorter) 44; OW 20.2; reed W 2.1 at bow. (b) Frame L 51.1 (reed projects slightly further before bending up); OW 33.5; reed W 5.5 at back bow; hammered thin there, becoming a round rod just before it enters the gap. A fourth example was given to Laurence Picken, and is now CUMAE 77.505. They were bought through the Gidan Madauchi Ibrahim Bagudu. David Ames & Anthony King’s book, Glossary of Hausa Musical Instruments, p. 4, describes the use of these instruments by young people of either gender.

It was David Ames who introduced me to the Madauchi, a high-ranking officer to the Emir, equivalent to that of the Vizier to the Caliph in the Tales of the Arabian Nights. Over a period of several years the Madauchi sent me a number of Hausa instruments, including these trumps, initially in the need to determine the proper classification of some instruments.

The trump was not used in Africa before the European arrival, but it is now often used as a substitute for the musical bow, both because its acoustical behaviour is the same, with the overtones of the reed, instead of those of a string, being resonated by the mouth, and because it can be bought very cheaply instead of having to take the trouble to cut and shape a bow stave and prepare a string. It has a little less musical potential than the bow, for there is only a single fundamental, whereas a bow string can be divided to give two fundamentals, and a third can be obtained by stopping the string with a finger or the thumb. So far as I know, no African has yet reinvented the aura to compete fully with the bow, nor have I seen an African trump with two reeds, though these are known from several Asian cultures, as we have seen above.

Because I can see no logical order for cataloguing the rest of my trumps, and because the overwhelming majority of those that I have are of the Western European type which were common from the Middle Ages, we will take next those of the Indian sub-Continent, and then take all the European ones together.

Figure 22 Iron trump from Kabul, Afghanistan (VI 112)

This style of heteroglot iron trump (VI 112), comes from Kabul in Afghanistan. It is similar to the Indian type, with an even narrower frame, and with the back end of the reed projecting far beyond the back bow. The reed fits tightly between the arms of the frame which, as usual with this type of trump, end in points. The arms are lozenge shape, four-sided, as is most common around the world. OL 94, frame L 53; OW 13.8. It is now on loan to the Bate Collection. It was given to me by Laurence Picken, who had bought it from a boy in the street. His is CUMAE 77.545.

Figure 23 Iron trump from India (VIII 206a)

Two iron trumps (VIII 206a/b) from India with no more precise location known. These are the normal Indian/Afghan type with the end of the reed projecting back from the flat hoop of the narrow triangular-section frame which is formed by bending a piece of iron rod sharply at two points. The distal end of the reed is bent in a circle away from the frame (a) OL 100; frame L 53; OW 14.7. (b) OL 89, frame L 53; OW 14.7 (the reed projects less from the back). They were bought new from Raymond Man’s instrument shop, then in Covent Garden, where he stocked many Indian instruments and accessories such as strings, as well as the Chinese.

Figure 24 Iron trumps from Nepal

I bought two Nepalese instruments (XII 220a/b) from the shop in the Tropen Museum in Amsterdam, with very sharply folded frames, triangular in cross-section. One of them (b) is very small and is of reasonable quality. The other, larger one (a), is useless because the reed is only 1.45 mm wide all the way down, and this is ridiculously narrow for the gap between the arms, which is between 6.3 and 3.7 mm wide and therefore fails to interlock with the frame. It is illustrated to show the problem, which is endemic with careless manufacture and this sort of thing is only too often sold as tourist tat. The reed for the small one (b) tapers in width and fits quite well; OL 64; its frame length is only 43mm long; OW 18.9. (a) is OL 84; frame L 69.2; OW 32; the back of the frame is flat, not curved inwards like that of (b).

We now turn back to the Western European trumps, beginning with three mediæval examples.

Figure 25 Copper alloy trump found on the Thames foreshore (XII 70)

Whether the frame of this trump (XII 70) is of bronze or brass is unknown because it has not been tested for tin versus zinc, and so it is safer to call it copper alloy. It appears to have been gold washed, and it is allegedly mediæval. The frame has a rounded bow, with the cross-section of the body in lozenge shape. The lower arm as played is 1.5 mm shorter than the upper. Frame L 50.5; OW 24.5; top of bow to bend c. 20.8; length of upper arm 27.5 (lower arm c. 2.5 shorter); width of gap 4.2 reducing to 2.5; max thickness 3.7; open channel for reed 1.9; the body is slightly curved parallel to the player’s face, though this may be accidental rather than deliberate; I have never seen a modern one curved in this way. As one would expect from being found in the mud of the Thames foreshore (for which see below) the steel tongue has long ago corroded away. It is Kolltveit’s Nijmegen type. It was bought at auction at Phillips Bond Street (sale 26,688, lot 94) as one of a group. It was passed on to the Bate Collection for fear of conflict of interest, and it was later returned to me in the summer of 1995 as a near duplicate. Those that remain in the Bate are Kolltveit 264–271 (his pages 163–5).

I wrote to Phillips to see whether any provenance details might be available, and the vendor wrote to Phillips in answer to my query: “As it is such a long time ago we do not have any documentary evidence on the piece. According to memory, we think that this particular piece may have come from the Thames, as we bought a considerable amount of items then which had been retrieved from spoil heaps downriver of earth taken from construction sites in the City in the late ’80s (especially from Billingsgate). The purchaser would do well to contact the museum of London as many of the artefacts were shown to them shortly after being found by the Mudlarks and other detectorists.”

Figure 26 Wrought iron trump found on the Thames foreshore (XII 72) with detail showing the depth of the bow

This trump (XII 72) was one of the same group as the previous instrument, but the frame here is of forged iron rod. The back and sides of the bow are of flat iron strip, reduced by forging to lozenge shape for the arms of the frame. The back of the bow is almost flat, rather than curved. The arms are still approximately parallel (they are often found somewhat splayed) and come to a point at the end. The tongue is missing and the frame is somewhat corroded. Some of the group at the Bate have a stub of reed surviving; this is usually narrowest at the clamp and then widening; it must then narrow again once it enters the gap. It appears to be either Kolltveit’s Kransens or Horsens type, more probably the former. Frame L 47.6; OW 22.3; top to bend 19.9; length of lower arm 25.6 (upper arm 0.9 shorter); width of gap 2.9, narrowing to 2.3; max thickness 6.9; arm thickness at bend 3.4. It was bought as part of the same lot at auction at Phillips, passed on to the Bate Collection, and then returned to me in the summer of 1995 as a near duplicate.

Figure 27 Copper alloy trump found near Oxford (XIV 90)

This trump (XIV 90) is probably post- or late mediæval, considerably larger and heavier than the two preceding instruments. The frame is of brass or bronze but it has not been tested for zinc or tin. All traces of the feather have vanished. It was a metal detector find near Cumnor, on the hills just to the west of Oxford, and I bought it from a stall on the Oxford Thursday Market. The frame is again lozenge shape in cross section and it is clearly Kolltveit’s Stafford type. The frame again is slightly curved to fit against the player’s face, though in both cases this might be accidental, and the lower arm is slightly bent, which is certainly accidental. As with all three of these trumps there is no remaining trace of a reed, just the remains of the channel into which it fitted, with clear hammered retaining clamps on XII 70 and this one; on XII 72 those have either corroded away or are concealed by the general corrosion of the frame. Frame L 86.7; OW 35.5; top to bend 32.9; length of upper arm 57.4 (lower c. 1.5 mm shorter); width of gap 6.4, narrowing to 4.4; max thickness 8.4; arm thickness at the bend 5.5.

Figure 28 Three poor English trumps (I 32)

I bought eleven English trumps (I 32 a-k) over the years up to 1967 when I first compiled my ledger catalogue. They were a variety of shapes and sizes, none of them much good, and all with cast iron frames (always a bad sign – all the better ones have forged or bent wire frames). The English instruments cannot, nowadays, be compared with the Austrian, though some, made by firms such as Troman of Birmingham, are of usable quality, but most were knocked out as cheap rubbish. Some of these were bought, in the days before the Austrian trumps became available in London, in the vain hope of faking an Aura. No purchase sources were noted. There are some indications of different makes: some have MADE IN cast on the outer side of one arm and ENGLAND cast on the outer side of the other arm, as on the larger trump in this figure; one has England cast on the inner side of each arm; two have three nicks cast in the face of each arm, as on both the smaller instruments shown here, though the nicks are in different places; one, a large one, has been brass washed, including the steel tongue, and the frame then washed to look silvery (again the largest one here), and two others are more decorative in shape, like the one in the middle of the photo. By comparison with the Troman Phono Harp below, it seems likely that those with Made In and England on the arms were probable also made by Troman, who was a major manufacturer of trumps in Birmingham. All are lozenge shape in cross section and all but one have the tip of the reed bent over in either an open or closed loop; the exception has the tip bent over slightly. The largest (that which was brassed) measures Frame L 119.8; OW 78.5; top to bend 52; arm length 57; width of gap 6, narrowing to 3.6; max thickness 14; arm thickness at bend 6.4. The smallest, the one with the three nicks on the arms, measures Frame L 75.1; OW 46.3; top to bend 37.5; arm length 38; width of gap 3.6; max thickness 8; arm thickness at bend 5.

According to Michael Wright in his book, The Jews Harp in Britain and Ireland, there were four or more generations of Tromans making trumps, starting with Samuel Troman, whose name was originally Trautmann, and who was a Saxon deserter from the Prussian army who fled to Britain around 1690, and ending with Millicent Troman who introduced machine manufacture, with the result that the firm’s trumps became little more than cheap toys.

Figure 29 An English trump (XIII 232)

Another English trump (XIII 232). The frame is of black iron, cast much more carefully than the previous English trumps, and the front face of the bow is cast as a horseshoe in pattern. It has no mark on it but it looks English. The tip of the tongue is curved in a closed loop. Frame L 78.3; OW 37.4; top to bend 38.3; arm length 38.5; width of gap 8.9 narrowing to 2.7. It was bought on the Oxford market.

Figure 30 Trump Phono-Harp by Troman (X 12) and its box

Troman’s patent, Phono-Harp, (X 12) in its original box. The face of the box is marked “PHONO /HARP” / Patent no. 11185/31 / {[}engraving of the instrument with the reed facing back towards the bell, the reverse of the instrument itself{]} / BRASSED AND LACQUERED / MADE IN ENGLAND / M. TROMAN & CO, Curzon St, B’ham, England. One of the narrow sides of the box has This Box Contains ONE / PHONO HARP with an engraving of a man playing one. The above patent number does not correspond with those used by the Patent Office Abridgements for Class 88, musical instruments and therefore it could not be dated. It is an iron instrument, brassed and lacquered according to the box, but it has the usual poor quality cast-iron frame and there is no trace on it of either brassing or lacquering; it is now slightly rusty. The outer face of one arm has MADE IN cast into it, and that of the other has ENGLAND. It has an attached tin plate horn bell, quite complexly soldered, first a smooth conical shape and then, with a soldered joint, a wider flare. The bell has stamped into the side of the cone: Pat. No. 11185/30, suggesting that the horn was patented separately from the instrument as a whole, unless the / sign indicates that there were at least thirty different elements of the patent. Frame L 80.5; W 51.5; the reed widens after the slot from 4.7 to 5.6 and then narrows evenly. Bell L 115; ⌀ 84. It was bought in its original cardboard box fro“m Tony Bingham.

Figure 31 Large trump, possibly from Chile (X 200), with a detail showing the reed set through a slot in the bow

This large trump (X 200), looks as though it was made in the late nineteenth century or early twentieth. It was a gift from Edgar Hunt who gave me other material from Chile, which is why I have suggested that it might be from that country. It has a wide round bow with the frame made from iron wire, lozenge-shape in section, quite carefully made along the arms. The reed is fixed in a slot cut through the back of the bow, not in a channel on the surface as usual. Whether there was a Chilean factory for trumps I have no idea; the instrument may equally well have been an import, perhaps from Spain or Italy. Frame L 95; OW 65.5; reed W behind bow 7.5, th. 2 (much thinner by the centre of the bow).

Figure 32 Five from a ‘Prima Selection’ of Karl Schwarz trumps (I 34)

Looking back to Figure 28, after I had become unsatisfied with the poor quality of English trumps, somebody whom I can’t remember recommended those by Karl Schwarz of Waldeggstraße 1, Molln in Upper Austria. When I wrote to him, Schwarz offered me a ‘prima selection’ of various sizes and patterns, lacquered in different colours, from 45 to 105 mm long, and so I bought them (I 34) directly from him. Originally there were 29 trumps of different sizes and shapes in the batch, and while many have been given away, some of each size have been kept. Five are shown here and are arbitrarily lettered a to e, from largest to smallest, for identification of their sizes. Trumps have been made in Molln, and by this family, since 1679, and these were then, around 1967, the best that were commercially available in general music shops in Britain, and perhaps they still are. See Karl Klier, Volkstümliche Musikinstrumente in den Alpen, Bärenreiter, 1956 for a general history of trump making and their use in Austria. The largest has an oval bow to the frame; the others are all the same more conventional shape with a hard angle from the bow to the legs. All are lozenge shape in cross section, made from bent iron wire, and each has the tip of the tongue slightly bent over. Dimensions: a) Frame L 104.6; OW 56.9; top to bend 65; arm length 38; width of gap 4. b) Frame L 73.5; OW 54.5; top to bend 39; arm length 30; width of gap 4. c) Frame L 64.5; OW 45.7; top to bend 33.7; arm length 27.5; width of gap 3. d) Frame L 56; OW 40.6; top to bend 32; arm length 25; width of gap 2.5. e) Frame L 46.4; OW 35.5; top to bend 26; arm length 18.5; width of gap 2.

A silver coloured trump (VIII 258) that was given to each participant, along with the Conference papers, by the Musikmuseet, Stockholm, during the ICTM Conference there is almost certainly one of theirs. It is not illustrated here.

Figure 33 French guimbarde (VI 168)

I bought this guimbarde, Modèle ‘FAR WEST’ / CBS Masterwork / BAB L 1010 / Fase Production — France in a music shop in Bayonne during the IFMC Conference there. The fully enclosed frame is in guitar shape, cast in cheap, flat metal. The reed is riveted into the slot with two rivets which appear to be integral with the frame. Frame L 95 mm; OW 40.5; top to end of guitar body 58.5; guitar neck length (the arms) 45.5, which project beyond the end of the reed. The slot terminates in a round hole to allow the reed to move to and fro. The tongue produces a very low pitch and is musically useless. Two were bought there and one was given to Laurence Picken, now CUMAE 77.653.

Figure 34 Italian scacciate i pensieri (XI 184)

This trump (VI 184), stamped SCACCIATE I PENSIERI on the frame, comes from Italy. It is in a modernistic quasi-guitar shape. The fully enclosed frame is of cast bronzed flat metal, with a blued steel reed clamped to the body by a metal plate riveted through the body over the reed. Frame L 98.6; OW 40.5; main body L 35; ‘neck’ L 41.5. Again there is an open circle at the end of the slot to allow the reed to vibrate to and fro. The upright end of the reed projects quite sharply backwards towards the body instead of the usual right angle or slight forward projection. While Valsesia, in the Piedmont of north-east Italy, was once a major centre for the production of trumps with vast numbers being exported, many to the Americas in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there is no evidence that this trump came thence. It was bought in a music shop in Hamburg.

Figure 35 American ‘Snoopy’s Harp’ (XIV 32) and its box and instructions

This American trump (XIV 32) was brought back from the USA by one of my grandchildren. It is in its original box marked Snoopy’s / Harp / featured in the motion picture / “A Boy Named Charlie Brown” {[}picture of Snoopy playing{]} / Copyright 1969 / United Feature / Syndicate Inc. On each side of the box: Harp along with Snoopy / Trophy Music Co, U.S.A. On the back of the box: Make new sounds on one of / world’s oldest instruments / it’s fun...it’s easy / complete instructions / inside {[}bar code{]}. Instructions are printed on the plastic bag containing the trump with an address only as Cleveland OH, with no further indication of the maker’s address. It is a rather poor quality trump, quite heavy and chromium plated, including the reed, which is also quite heavy. The frame is pear-shaped. Frame L 90.5; OW 44.7; top to bend 46.5; arm length 40.5; reed W at slot 5.3, evenly tapering. Whatever trump may have been heard on the soundtrack, it cannot have been anything like this instrument.

We turn now to better quality handmade instruments, produced for the increasing number of trump enthusiasts and virtuosi. There is now an International Jews Harp Society with its own website www.jewsharpsociety.org which holds regular festivals and congresses around the world and publishes a regular journal and newsletters. The instigators of the Society were Professor Frederick Crane of Iowa and Michael Wright of Oxford.

Figure 36 Slovakian drumla by Peter Sobata (XIV 66)

Trump, drumla (XIV 66), made by Peter Sobata, Kalinčiakova 15, 900 01 Modra, Slovakia. It has a bilingual (Slovakian/English) paper label (pasted in my ledger) saying: “hand made, friendly to environment. Made of iron or anticoro [stainless steel] – uncoloured.” It is similar to the Molln style but more carefully made, in lozenge cross-section of forged and bent iron wire, with a more obtuse angle from the maximum width to the arms of the frame. Frame L 76; OW 56.9; top to bend 44.5; arm length 29; reed W at slot 5.6 evenly tapering. It was given to me by my grandson, Jacob Roseman, who lives now in Slovakia.

Figure 37 German Maultrommel by Friedrich Schlütter (IX 84)

This trump in A (IX 84), is by Friedrich Schlütter of Zelle-Mehlis, in the Thüringa Wald in what was then East Germany; it was my first trump to be made in a defined pitch. Schlütter was a self-taught maker (the firm has a website with a history of how they first started making these instruments). It has a flat-topped, buckle-shaped round section, steel frame, ground away along the gap to give a very precise edge. Frame L 54.5; OW 38.5; top to bend 21.5; arm length 31; reed W 4.5 at slot, evenly tapering. The distal end curves slightly back towards the frame. Michael Wright The Jews-Harp in Britain and Ireland (SOAS Musicology Series), 2015) has suggested that the earliest trumps in Britain might have come from this area in Thüringia. I bought it new from the maker, during the ICTM and CIMCIM joint conference at Bratislava and Dona Krupa. He also demonstrated (and gave me) a bark reed, and showed that a credit card could also be played in the same way.

Figure 38 Norwegian munnharpa by Jacob Lavoll (XII 186) both inside and outside its hus

Munnharpa in E (XII 186), by Jakob Lavoll of Torpo in Norway. The back of the end of the body is stamped J. The body is made of quite heavy forged brass or bronze in lozenge cross-section, and the reed is set into a slit in the back of the frame and held there with a brass or bronze wedge. Frame L 63.5; OW 26.5; top to bend 23; arm L 38; reed W at slot 3.3. It is in its original wooden hus with a sliding and rotating lid by the same maker. It is one of a series in E, A, G, and D that was bought from the maker in 1996-7 by Bernhard Folkestad, who says “His instruments demand a rather delicate touch and this fact combined with the long ‘fjør’ (feather/striker/trigger) does not agree with my rather robust playing style. The hus is treated with boiled linseed oil ... some have been the object of rose painting, carving, etc etc.” The bronze or brass body is in a mediæval pattern, and has a steel fjør made from a watch spring. The hus is marked E to denote its pitch, burned in the lid, and BF, for its original purchaser, is burned on the underside. I bought it from Bernhard Folkestad in exchange for the 1999 year’s subscription to FoMRHI.

Figure 39 Norwegian munnharpa by Bjørgulv Straume (XII 210) and its holder with a detail showing the tongue and its wedge in the back-bow

Iron trump, Munnharpa, in F (XII 210), by Bjørgulv Straume of Brokke, Rysstad, in the Settestal, Norway. It is housed on a shaped wooden block to which it is held by strips of leather. It also came from Bernhard Folkestad who wrote: “I will send you a Bjørgulv Straume trump in F this week. You will notice that it is different from the brass Jakob Lavoll munnharpe you’ve already got (they belong to two different traditions). Some people feel that the Jakob trumps are louder, but the strikers of his instruments too long and cumbersome; very much a point of personal preference. I have tried the F-harp I send you: it’s great for The Soldiers Joy (of which I play a Norwegian variant from this area), and ‘halling’ (=solo dance for macho men, in 2/4 or 6/8).” The frame is made of iron with dentated edges to the edges of the outer curve of the bow, and the reed is of steel, wedged into its slot with a steel slip. Frame L 63.6; OW 25.4; top to bend c. 26; arm L c. 36 (the curves are quite gentle); reed W at slot 3.8. Setesdal style. Bernhard wrote with it: “Even the sturdy tongues of the Norwegian munnharpes may break or come loose, but it has happened only once to my ‘harps’. As you can see, the tongue is fastened to the frame with a wedge and a new tongue is easily fitted. You just return it, say what key you want (usually it’s wise to choose a key close to the one in the original) and the munnharpesmed (trump smith) will fit it into the old frame for around GB £10.” In F. From Bernhard Folkestad in exchange for Minstrels & Angels.

Figure 40 Bashkirian kubiz by Magroupor Ravil Hanifovich (XII 20)

Trump, Kubiz (XII 20), made in 1994 by the Honoured Worker of Culture of the Republic of Bashkartostan, Magroupor Ravil Hanifovich, Bashkir Republic, in the far south-east corner of European Russia, between the Ural mountains and Kazakhstan. “A national Bashkarian musical instrument.” It has a hexagonal thick aluminium body (the inner shape of the bow is circular), with a steel reed fixed to it by a screwed-in block of the same material. The arms are carefully ground to give a close gap. Frame L 74; W 40.2; top to bend 39.5; arm L c. 35; th. 5.4; reed W 6.5 at bow, tapers on a curve to 2.5 at the beginning of the gap, thereafter tapers straight. It was bought from Jeffery Boswall, who bought it in Vienna from Eugene Karev of Ufa, who provided the above information about the maker and area.

Figure 41 Yakutian khomus by Revo Chemchoyev (XII 28) and its case

Trump, Khomus (XII 28) by Revo Chemchoyev of Borogon, Vilyuysk District, Sakha Republic, the winner of the 1991 congress of trump makers in Yakutsk. It is a polished steel, lozenge shape in section frame, and a steel tongue, the wide end of the frame almost circular and filled with a steel resonator plate to which is riveted a brass plate with a repoussé Yakutsk design. Inscribed on a brass plate at the end of the frame is САХА СИРЗ (Sakha sireh — Sakha land, or Yakutia). The distal end of the reed is coiled outwards in a circle and seems to respond best to plucking away from the face. Frame L 101; W 40.4; top to bend 37; arm L 63; reed W at bow 6.5, narrows evenly. It was bought through Fred Crane of Iowa, who had bought it from Ivan Alexeyev, who was visiting him from Siberia. It is in a flat wooden case, backed with mauve felt, red velvet lined, with a swivelling catch to hold it in, and a hoop-shaped brass fitting to cover the reed.

While there will always be discussions as to where the best trumps come from, many people say that the Siberian ones are the best of all. The Norwegian instruments are often thought to be the next best (or the best, depending on taste), and these also have a long history, their use having been revived after the end of the second World War, along with the revival of other folk instruments there.

The enthusiasm today for trumping is world wide and the International Society has been going from strength to strength. Trumps of high quality are now easily available via the worldwide web and a number of reliable suppliers (as well as those less reliable) appear on Facebook and similar sources. Some makers, both those of mass-produced and individually hand-made trumps have been named here, as well as one supplier of normal and exotic trumps, Jonathan Cope; another is Dan Moi, so that trumps of all types from around the world, both idioglot and heteroglot, are now easily available. Antique instruments are rare and mostly in museums, but the results of metal-detectoring and mud-larking do occasionally appear in salerooms and on market stalls as we have seen above here, and sometimes also on sources such as eBay.