Steel Guitar Originated from the Hummel

[Alan Brookes]

In a back issue of the "Steel Guitarist" a case is made for the origin of the steel guitar being the hummel. I have always believed this. The hummel, like the lap steel, is played across the knees and fingered from above. I've built many hummels over the years, and their cousins in the fretted zither family, the epinette des vosges, the scheitholdt, the mountain dulcimer, etc.

Here is a regular acoustic hummel with six double courses, that I built about 15 years ago.



Because the hummel is fretted diatonically, that is, it does not have the half notes, it can only be played in one major and one minor key without retuning, so I designed one with a removable fingerboard. By keeping several clip-on fingerboards handy, with the frets in different modes, you can switch keys.

Here is an electric hummel with a removable fingerboard, that I built about 25 years ago.


And here is the same instrument with the fingerboard removed.

In this condition the instrument can be played as a lap steel, and, indeed, IS a lap steel.
I shall insert a soundclip shortly of this instrument played as a lap steel.

There is a long tradition of the hummel being played with a bar. They call it a "noter".

[Gary Lynch]

I guess somewhere that tradition (the fretted zither family) figured into the Spanish style guitar played on your lap? Which seems to be attributed first to the Islanders according to a number of players like Bob Brozman and Stefan Grossman.

[Bill Creller]

I hadn't heard of a Hummel before. The shape reminded me of the mountain dulcimer.
I have a concert zither, which I haven't yet tried to figure out, but I really like the haunting sound of a zither.

BILL

[Gary Lynch]

I got my start on lap interments with a dulcimer. Here's a photo of me taken in 1970 with a curly maple, hand carved scroll/peghead (like a violin) dulcimer. Healthy fun.

[Denny Turner]

The origin of the Steel Guitar is always and interesting search. Food for thought:

When and where did the Hummel and Zither originate, and was it played with a "slide / bar" technique? Spanish guitar certainly predated Guitar being played with a steel / slide; So it is the technique that would originate the Steel Guitar and not neccessarily the instrument.

African slaves introduced simple hand-made banjo-like instruments into the Americas before Guitar was distributed outside local luthier's range, ...some of those banjo-like instruments played with a stick tone-bar. And I've long suspected that stringed instruments were being played technically with a tone-bar device in India prior to non-local distribution of stringed instruments in the Americas; Maybe a Fo'Bro might know such Indian instruments. A number of authors have said that cowboys commonly played their weather-warped guitars with combs, pocketknives, and such; And I would suppose that similar tone bar techniques were applied to banjos that were rather common prior to the American Civil War; Lending to the possiblility that playing in that manner might have been spontaneous in a number of dates and locales; Although I'd imagine that playing a warped guitar or banjo with a knife, comb, etc ...would more resemble Slide Guitar & Slide Banjo than Steel Guitar. I also think that open tunings would have lent well and not been uncommon in people teaching themsleves to play guitar or banjo, ...and experimenting with a tone bar probably somewhat spontaneous at a number of times and places. So a period-date would also play into when / how Steel technique originated. But until someone can tie down Steel Guitar technique predating Joseph Kekuhu's in 1885; Then I think he stands as the first serious / "technical" originator of the technique we could reliably call Steel Guitar.

Aloha,
DT~

[Denny Turner]

I think a Steel Guitar built like a dulcimer has very good possibilities; And have wanted to build one for a long time. I still have a 4 string mode fretted dulcimer a 15 year old dear friend / kid made from a kit and gave me 39 years ago; And it has marvelous tone (although I think that dear one-off old Friend could touch a bowling ball and make it acquire marvelous tone!). It pleases me deeply to dink around on that dulcimer with a tone bar.

Aloha,
DT~

[Gary Lynch]

The origins may remain a multifaceted mystery. The Island musicians brought the technique to fruition.

I have enough problems with my Martins using humidifiers and in a case. I can't imagine a cow puncher on the open range keeping a guitar together. The hyde glue and temperature/humidity changes all worked against it. The necks must have all warped and the crude strings must have been unbelievably hard to fret. No wonder the slide guitar was born.

[Bill Creller]

I thing you are right Gary. Cowboys and guitars may be mostly Hollywood, just like the "six-shooter" I get a kick out of westerns from the fifties, 'cause everybody is carrying a gun, even the women!

Regards BILL

[Gary C. Dygert]

Here's an interesting link to an article on the hummel: http://www.dulcimersessions.com/feb05/german.html.
The history of musical instruments is fascinating (to me), and I think there was parallel development in different parts of the world, so that similar instruments were born but are not really related. The wooden bar used on zither-like instruments was/is used to fret the strings, not slide across them Hawaiian-style, but it makes sense that instruments influence each other. I'm looking forward to the hummel sound sanmples.

[Alan Brookes]

Here's an interesting link to an article on the hummel: http://www.dulcimersessions.com/feb05/german.html.
...The wooden bar used on zither-like instruments was/is used to fret the strings, not slide across them Hawaiian-style...

I clicked on the link but it didn't work.

In all the Mountain Dulcimer instruction books they refer to the noter as a fretting device, as you say, and you couldn't use a wooden noter as a slide because it would absorb the string vibrations and produce a very dull note. That having been said, there is also a tradition of playing board zithers with a metal bar, and the Appalachian Dulcimer has also a long history of being played with a bow. When I build any sort of board zither I always curve the bridge so that a bow can reach the center strings. With a simple Appalachian Dulcimer with just three courses the easiest way is the build a flat bridge, but cut the slots on the outside strings just a little deeper, so that the middle strings stand higher.
Here are a few more hummels I've built over the years.



Here is a Hummel with a Resonator. (I should add that this is not the type of resonator used with a Dobro, it's the type that makes a buzzing sound like a sitar.)


Here is a boat-shaped hummel...


...and finally, here is a bowed kneeharp..

[Bill Creller]

You sure built a lot of neat stuff Alan. Do Hummels have frets? I've never seen a dulcimer played, and of course not a Hummel either.

[David Doggett]

I'm with Denny. Unless someone can point to a Hummel in Hawaii prior to Joseph Kekuhu's music, it looks like parallel or convergent evolution. If he never saw or heard of a Hummel, it can't be the origen of his music, which is the origen of American steel guitar. There's every reason to believe that playing a fretless stringed instrument with a slide, horizontal or not, is a fairly obvious idea that many people thought of in many different times and places with no connection to each other. There doesn't have to be a single unbroken chain of descent throughout the world and throughout history.

[Bill Creller]

Joseph was just a high school kid fooling with a guitar (open tuning slack key??), and likely hadn't seen or heard of many instruments outside of Hawaii.
I would think info was a little low and slow in 1885, or whatever year it was.

[Alan Brookes]

You sure built a lot of neat stuff Alan. Do Hummels have frets? I've never seen a dulcimer played, and of course not a Hummel either.

Yes, all hummels have frets. I think I'll have to make a video of one being played.

[Bill Creller]

A video of a Hummel would be really cool Alan. Would like to hear one.
Regards BILL

[Tom Pettingill]

A video of a Hummel would be really cool Alan. Would like to hear one.
Regards BILL

Hell Yea, I'd love to see one in action too

[Alan Brookes]

While I'm figuring out the best way to post sound clips, here are some more appetizers !

Here is a hummel with a banjo pot. It sounds like an echoey banjo.


Here is a fretless electric kneeharp. It has an ebony fingerboard like a violin, and you play it by sliding your fingers along the strings as you hold them down. In effect, you are playing similar to a bottleneck style, but with your bare fingers. It has an incredible sound for blues.

This next hummel has a cutaway, so you can play it from underneath if you want, but the main reason for the cutaway is to enable you to fix a capo.

I threw this in for good measure. It's not a hummel, but it's a dulcimer. I built it into the case. You can unclip the lid and clip it beneath, which increases the volume.




Here is a tromba marina (marine trumpet), which is a misnomer as it's also a board zither.

[Dennis Coelho]

This is an interesting discussion. I don't believe that a case can be made for a connection between the hummel and slde type instruments, if only because of the very limited exposure such dulcimer-type instruments, mostly in the upper Appalachians in Pennsylvania. I had not previously seen any reference to cowboys playing distorted guitars with slides. In this area, with some experience with livestock and cowpersons, there is little evidence for use of the guitar prior to the 1920's. Cowcamp inventories frequently show 5-string banjos and occasional mandolins, but few guitars, probably due to the fragile nature of the instrument. Wooden instruments (guitars, fiddles, mandolins) rarely survived the heat and dryness of the inter-mountain west, let alone bouncing around on a horse or wagon. Jack Thorp's classic collection, "Songs of the Cowboys" talks of his use of tenor banjo to accompany songs around the campfire.

Really nicely made hummels and dulcimers.

Dennis

[Bill Creller]

Alan, you must have a warehouse, to hold all that stuff! Really unusual instruments.

[Alan Brookes]

Alan, you must have a warehouse, to hold all that stuff! Really unusual instruments.

That's just the tip of the iceburg, Bill. I've also built citterns, mediaeval guitars, rebecs,tricordias, lap steels (or course!), psalteries, lutes, electric guitars, electric mandolines, guitarinis, etc., and I've rebuilt archtop guitars, ukeleles, pedal steels (of course), 12-string guitars, banjos, autoharps, etc. I've just finished rebuilding a Sho-Bud and a 6-string MultiKord. At the moment I'm building the mechanism and pickups of an 8-string MultiKord into a regular pedal steel, I'm designing an 8-string resonator lap steel with a hipshot trilogy, an 8-string lap steel with palm pedals, and a 12-string lap steel, all of which I shall be building during the summer. During the winter I shall be building a 12-string archtop resonator guitar.
Having been building and restoring instruments over the last 45 years, I've only ever built 3 for customers: most of the others are hanging up around the house. I play them all from time to time, which means I tend to be a Jack-of-all-trades, master of none...
The family can't complain: my eldest daughter is an artist, and we have her artwork, statues and paintings, all round the house.

[Alan Brookes]

...I don't believe that a case can be made for a connection between the hummel and slide-type instruments, if only because of the very limited exposure to such dulcimer-type instruments, mostly in the upper Appalachians in Pennsylvania....

I hope I won't upset any copyrights by attaching a copy of an article by the English-Hawaiian Kealoha Life in the May 1981 issue of Steel Guitarist (now out-of-print.) In it he explains the connection.

[Alan Brookes]

Here I am demonstrating a Boat Hummel at a meeting of the Northern California Association of Luthiers a few years back. (I've lost hair since then !) (but not girth. )

[b0b]

I hope I won't upset any copyrights by attaching a copy of an article by the English-Hawaiian Kealoha Life in the May 1981 issue of Steel Guitarist (now out-of-print.)

Far from being out-of-print, the magazine is still available from The Steel Guitar Forum. Just click "Magazines" at the top right corner of this web page.

[Alan Brookes]

I hope I won't upset any copyrights by attaching a copy of an article by the English-Hawaiian Kealoha Life in the May 1981 issue of Steel Guitarist (now out-of-print.)

Far from being out-of-print, the magazine is still available from The Steel Guitar Forum. Just click "Magazines" at the top right corner of this web page.

Sorry b0b. When I said out-of-print I meant that it was no longer being published. As you so rightly say, what magazines were published are available via the Forum, and I would highly recommend them. They're very interesting, entertaining, and a great deal. It's a shame there are no similar magazines in circulation today.

[basilh]

Alan, The HSGA refused to print Kealoha's article, but between Kealoha Ron Whitaker and John Marsden there would be no more knowledgeable poeple regarding Hawaiian music history.
Kealoha was a good friend of mine and all Hawaiian musicians here in the UK. No doubt he was the backbone of Felix Mendelssohn's Hawaiian serenader's.