The Making of Musical Instruments in Intercultural Discourse

The making of musical instruments is not only the result of a constructive process in the area of conflict between musical practice and technology, but rather it is also a manifestation of inter-regional, inter-ethnic and international intertwining.

With the assertion of instruments developed for artificial music, which nowadays are fairly standardised, in Eastern Europe – and which are significantly different from those used in traditional folk music –, the demand in this area also increased accordingly. It soon became impossible to import enough of these instruments to meet the demand: Thus production of such instruments started up locally. A phenomenon of migration, of correlation and interference – as the spread of instrument-makers and their production knowledge – are intrinsically linked to this inter-cultural transfer.

This research project thus attempted a multi-perspective networking of historical, geographical, technological, aesthetic, socio-cultural as well as economic factors.

Within the scope of this sub-project, an international workshop was conducted in Bonn from 3-5 December 2004 (workshop programme). – The presentations held there have been published (with one exception) in the first volume of reports from the intercultural research project.