Nordic-AmericanPsalmodikonforbundet

A Society dedicated to the educationand preservation of the Psalmodikonand Sifferskrift Music.

As we begin a new year many of ushave thoughts of what we can do tomake some things better.

One of those “things” for me is whatmore can we do to enhance the tradi-tion of psalmodikon history.

When it comes to the high tech worldof the computer, I just cannot keep up.I feel so helpless. I’ve had so much sup-port during my life with the psalmodi-kon and often doors open at the time Ineed it most. Maybe something willhappen soon!

I am so thankful for the Psalmodikonwebsite. For those who made its exis-tence possible and for those who main-tain it. I’ve seen many very informativeand attractive websites and so my wishfor this year is to update and assist inmaking the Nordic-American websitewill become even more informativeand alive. There is a lot of history andmusic that is available to add towebsite.

I want to thank Peter Ellertsen ofSpringfield, Illinois for his contributionto this Newsletter. Upon his retirement,Peter has become a free-lance writerand amateur musician with interests inthe dulcimer and psalmodikon. You willfind it interesting to pull up his blog:hogfiddle.blogspot.com.

May you always have a song in yourheart and music at your fingertips!

Note$ from

MUSIC-ON-A-STRING

Nordic-American Psalmodikonforbundet | Tel: +1 952-934-4535 | E-mail: enstrengb@gmail.com | Web: www.psalmodikon.com

Vol.

19, I

ssue

1 –

Spr

ing

2016

Beatrice Hole

W hen we visit my wife’s family farm innorthwestern Illinois, we like to eat out

in nearby Bishop Hill where we can get Swedishmeatballs with lingonberry sauce and a cup ofgood, strong coffee. Founded in 1846 as a Swed-ish religious colony, Bishop Hill nurtures its eth-nic heritage, so one day after dinner we visited amuseum in the town’s “Steeple Building,” a land-mark built in colony days. There, in a glassdisplay case flanked by a Swedish bible, an 1819copy of the Svenska Psalmboken [the Swedishpsalmbook or hymnal] and Luther’s SmallCatechism, was a wooden box zither with a singlestring running from nut to bridge up a diatonicfretboard.

Whoa, I thought, what’s this? This thing lookslike a dulcimer.

According to a card in the display case, it wascalled a “psalmodikon,” and it was made around1870 by a local farmer. This is the story of how Ilearned what the instrument was, and how toplay it.

The psalmodikon, it turns out, is a bowedzither. It’s sort of a first cousin to the Europeanhummel and the Appalachian dulcimer. Swe-dish and Norwegian pastors used it during themid-1800s to teach country church congregationsto sing new hymns. But as the immigrantsprospered and bought organs for their churches,it fell out of use before 1900 and remained half-forgotten for a hundred years.

While it wasn’t primarily a folk instrument,there has been a revival of interest in the last 25or 30 years, both in Sweden and America, whereclubs called the Nordiska Psalmodikonforbundetin Sweden and the Nordic-American Psalmo-dikonforbundet in Minnesota play ensemble

arrangements in four-part harmony. Several yearsago I visited the Minnesota group, bought apsalmodikon and wrote up the experience in DPN(“Psalmodikon: Joyful Revival of a Stern, Square-Jawed Ethnic Heritage,” Fall 2010). But the folksup there played a slightly different kind ofinstrument – Norwegian instead of Swedish – andit’s too far for me to get to their meetings from myhome in central Illinois. So instead of ensembleperformances, I decided to use my psalmodikon asa teaching aid and recreate pioneer singing schoolsas an immigrant pastor might have taught them.

So I started researching Swedish-American his-tory in Illinois, and things started to get inter-esting.

In Andover, 10 to 15 miles over county blacktopsfrom Bishop Hill, a museum in the Jenny LindChapel has a psalmodikon that belonged to theRev. Lars Paul Esbjörn, the first Swedish pastor intown and a founder of Augustana College in RockIsland and the old Swedish-American AugustanaLutheran Synod, one of the ethnic denominationsthat merged into today’s Evangelical LutheranChurch in America. In time, I had a replica made.

Esbjörn was quite a guy. A theology graduate ofUppsala University, he came to America in 1849and settled in Andover. In 1851 when his littleimmigrant church was about half built, cholerastruck and the lumber set aside for the buildingproject was sawed up instead to make coffins. SoEsbjörn traveled to the East Coast, where the Swe-dish opera star Jenny Lind was performing on awildly successful tour of America. He was persis-tent and persuasive, and he came back to Andoverwith $1,500, a considerable amount of money inthose days. In gratitude, the church was named forJenny Lind.

Esbjörn was quite a musician, too, and he musthave been a good teacher. In 1853, before his

Pastor Esbjörn’s Box Zither: Reinventinga Swedish Immigrant Tradition

Peter Ellertsen

cont’d – Pa�or Esbjörn, P.� (photos, P.�)

congregation had a permanent roof on theJenny Lind Chapel, he reported he was con-ducting singing schools once or twice a week.We are fortunate enough to have a remini-scence of those early sessions.

“As long as [Esbjörn] sang along, the hymnwent well, but when he paused, they allstopped,” said an early settler, recalling a mo-ment familiar to anyone who has ever practi-ced singing choral music. “Singing the nextverse, they stopped at the same place, so againhe had to help them.” As they sang through all16 verses of the hymn, they caught the melody.Esbjörn told them they didn’t just sing it once,they “sang it 16 times as all 16 verses were thesame. Then everyone laughed heartily. He wasalways in a good mood.”

So, at least during choir practice, were hissingers.

Later, as a professor at the little seminarythat eventually became Augustana College,Esbjörn held services in his home “both foredification and for practice … with Swedish orNorwegian sermons and simultaneous singingout of both hymnals, using the same melody.”

In the special collections at Augie’s library inRock Island, we even have little homemadenotebooks in his handwriting, stitched toge-ther with needle and thread, with psalmodikontableature for several dozen Swedish andAnglo-American hymns in four-part harmony.

Esbjörn’s psalmodikon also offers mutetestimony that he was no ordinary musician.THE INSTRUMENT

When Esbjörn died in 1870, his familymoved back to America. And his son, JosephOsborn (who Americanized his spelling of thefamily name), was the organist and choirdirector at a new brick church next to his fath-er’s old chapel in Andover. Apparently theybrought Pastor Esbjörn’s psalmodikon withthem, and donated it to the church. Now it is ondisplay in the original Jenny Lind Chapel,which has survived as the “mother church” ofthe old Swedish-American Augustana Synodand now as a shrine of ELCA’s northern Illi-nois synod.

Esbjörn, who could be self-deprecating attimes, once suggested he learned the psalmo-dikon because he wasn’t a very good singer.“After my first sermon, my hostess asked mewhy I didn’t sing the [Swedish] Mass,” he tolda youth named C. O. Hultgren while they weretraveling across the prairie toward Rock Is-land. “I said to her, ‘I cannot sing.’ She said Ishould buy me a [musical instrument].” Hult-gren didn’t record the conversation until 50years afterward, and the reference to a musicalinstrument is ambiguous, but it sounds likewhat Esbjörn obtained was a psalmodikon. “I

got a few pieces of wood and made one,”Esbjörn continued, winding up the story. “Ilearned to sing and play. I also taught music.Now, in God’s Name, we shall continue ourjourney.”

Patterned after the monochords used totune European organs, the psalmodikon wasdeveloped in the 1820s and 1830s by the statechurches of Sweden and Norway to help ruralcongregations sing in four-part harmony. Theycould be put together from a few pieces of wood,like Esbjörn said, by anyone who was handywith tools. They were easy to play and, mostimportant of all to immigrants who hadexhausted their savings in getting to America,they were inexpensive.

Most psalmodikons were practical affairs,but Esbjörn’s is more sophisticated than you’dexpect. The fretboard is chromatic, but it isstained in a diatonic pattern with the lighterwood marking whole steps and the darker,stained wood marking the sharps and flats –rather like the white and black keys on a piano.The sides and top are well joined, and insteadof one string it had 11, a single catgut melodystring over the fretboard and 10 unfrettedmetal strings – the Swedes call themresonans-strängar – that can’t be reached by a bow.Instead, they were designed to resonate orvibrate sympathetically with the bowedmelody string.

All but a few of the metal strings onEsbjörn’s instrument are gone now, but theends of the gut string are visible where it waswrapped around a woodscrew attached to thebody of the instrument. The melody string wastuned with a wooden peg, and the resonantstrings were tuned by tightening pins similarto those on a hammered dulcimer. All in all,Esbjörn’s psalmodikon was more elaboratethan what the Forbundet folks are playingthese days up in Minnesota.

So I taught myself a little Swedish, brushedup on my German and hit the books. Accordingto Swedish ethnomusicologist Stig Walin’s DieSchwedische Hummel, the psalmodikon wasinfluenced by that diatonically fretted boxzither. I suspect that’s why a chromatic fret-board would show a hummel’s – and a dulci-mer’s – diatonic pattern. At first I had no ideahow the resonant strings were tuned, but bysurveying Swedish museum catalogs on line, Idetermined it was not uncommon for a Swed-ish psalmodikon to have from two to 14 reson-ant strings.

At this point I was getting really interested.A 21ST-CENTURY REPLICA

Since I had an invitation to demonstrate thepsalmodikon at a Founders Day celebrationearlier this year at Esbjörn’s church in Ando-ver, I got permission to measure his instru-

ment and take photos. With that information inhand, I got in touch with luthier Steve Endsley ofCanton, Illinois, and asked him to build me amodern replica.

Steve decided to replace the gut melody stringwith a 0.023 wound string and to add two moreresonant strings so they make up a full chromaticscale. “The Jenny Lind replica has 12 sympatheticstrings about an eighth of an inch above thesoundboard on each side of the finger board,” heexplains. “With these strings at a low tension,whenever the wound 0.023 is bowed and fretted,the sympathetic strings will vibrate and sound.For example, the bowed and fretted D will causethe sympathetic string tuned to D to vibrate andsound as well. All the unfretted strings are tuned ahalf step above each other to make them chromaticand correspond with the fretted notes on the fingerboard.”

Steve’s replica is a sophisticated instrument. I’mstill experimenting with different bows andgenerally getting used to a bowed instrument, butit has a deep cello-like tone and it rings out loudlyenough, with the resonant strings sounding, that a19th-century congregation could have heard it.

Greater volume, I am certain, was the reason forthe extra strings. One pioneer Swedish pastorrecalled the time a chicken flew in the windowduring a communion service, scattering the breadand wine. Today we don’t have clucking chickensto contend with, but in a small room, or a chapelthe size of Jenny Lind, my psalmodikon doesn’thave to be miked.

In the early days of Swedish immigration, thepsalmodikon became sort of an icon for plantingthe pioneers’ old church in a new land. And theinstrument was perfect for Sunday services inpioneer homes and rented rooms before the immi-grants could afford to build churches.THE MUSIC

Today’s Lutherans often look back with nostal-gia to a day of red, blue and black hymnals andcongregations that sang confidently in four-partharmony. But it wasn’t always like that. In LarsPaul Esbjörn’s day, the 1819 psalmbook, or hymn-al, was still relatively new. At the same time, a“pietist” revival, stressing individual piety insteadof Lutheran doctrine and inspired in part by Eng-lish evangelists, was sweeping Sweden and bring-ing with it a new kind of gospel music. Thepsalmodikon was made to order for untrainedmusicians who had to learn a lot of new songs.

Esbjörn was heavily involved in both move-ments. Before he left Sweden for America, heedited music for Johan Dillner, a Swedish pastorwho published a version of the 1819 psalmbook intablature for psalmodikon, and he taught his ruralparish choir to sing in four-part harmony. Yearslater they remembered how grand it was to singrevival songs from a church balcony in the oldcountry. Dillner’s tablature, called sifferskrift

cont’d – Pa�or Esbjörn, P.�

Pa�or Esbjörn, From P. �

[numerical writing], matched numbers to thedegrees of the scale, and it enabled Swedeswho didn’t read standard musical notation topick out the melodies.

It also enables 21st-century Americans tolearn the old Swedish psalms, since some of thebasic sources are available online.

Dillner’s 1830 edition of Melodierna tillSwenska Kyrkans Psalmer, Noterade medZiffor [Melodies of the Swedish Church’sPsalms, in Notation with Numbers] is avail-able in Google Books under the inaccurate title“Psalmodikon.” Also available online in stand-ard musical notation are the Augustana Syn-od’s 1892 Swedish-language edition of the 1819psalmbook, titled Svenska Psalm-Boken af år1819: Förenad med Koral-Bok och SvenskaMessan [Swedish Psalmbook of the year 1819Together with the Chorale Book and SwedishMass], and the synod’s English-languageHymnal and Service Book for Churches andSunday Schools published in 1901. The 1901hymnal has many of the older hymns, as wellas a table that correlates its hymns with the1819 psalmbook and other songbooks.

When Swedish immigrants came to Amer-ica, the books they were most likely to bringwith them were a Bible and the 1819 psalm-book. It was put together by a gifted poetnamed Johan Olof Wallin, who wrote or trans-lated 151 of its 500 hymns, or psalms. (TheSwedes use the same word, psalmer, for bothtypes of religious poetry.)

Wallin’s words-only psalmbook was supple-mented by a chorale book by Johann ChristianFriedrich Hæffner, who arranged melodies forthe hymns. A native of Germany who studiedin Leipzig before moving to Sweden, Hæffnerfollowed the style of his day by favoring simpli-fied, isometric arrangements of the old Luther-an chorales, in which all the notes had thesame duration and the hymns were sung veryslowly. Like many hymnists of his day, he alsoswapped melodies and texts around freely.

So when Johan Dillner arranged theMelodierna till Swenska Kyrkans Psalmer forpsalmodikon, he was actually working withHæffner’s chorale book. As the title implies, itonly gives the melodies without harmony.

Since it doesn’t include the revival songs,Dillner’s tablature covers about half of whatSwedish immigrants would have sung in achurch like that in Andover. Some of thehymns are very old, going back to the first daysof the Protestant Reformation and earlier. Thechants for the communion service are included(pages 198-200), as are Martin Luther’s “AMighty Fortress is our God” (No. 124) and hisChristmas chorale “From Heaven Above toEarth I Come” (No. 63), as well as pre-Reform-ation Christmas songs like “All Praise to Thee,

Eternal Lord” (No. 62), which dates to the1300s with added verses by Luther. Choralesby Philipp Nicolai and Paul Gerhardt are alsoamong those included.

Other hymns in the 1819 psalmbook arepurely Swedish, or strongly associated withSwedish history, including Swedish KingGustavus Adolphus’ war hymn “Be Not Dis-mayed, Thou Little Flock” (No. 378); “Now isthe Time of Flowers,” best known by itsSwedish title “Den blomstertid nu kommer”(No. 394); “Again, Thy Glorious Sun DothRise,” or “Din klara sol” in Swedish (No. 420);and the Advent hymn “Prepare the Way, OZion” (No. 53).PASTOR ESBJÖRN’S WORKSHOP

In April, Esbjörn’s old church in Andovercelebrated the 165th anniversary of JennyLind Chapel and the 155thanniversary of theAugustana Synod. It was a gala two-day event,attended by dignitaries including ELCA presi-ding bishop Elizabeth Eaton and radio person-ality Orion Samuelson of the nationallysyndicated U.S. Farm Report show. As one of ahalf dozen workshop presenters on Swedish-American and Lutheran history, I played thepsalmodikon for a sung table grace at theSaturday night smörgåsbord (“Be present atour table, Lord …” to the tune of the doxology)and demonstrated it in workshops billed as“Pastor Esbjörn’s Singing School.”

In my singing school workshop, I chose threepsalms, or hymns, from the 1819 psalmbook,18th-century German and Swedish chorales“Again, Thy Glorious Sun Doth Rise” and“Blessed Jesus, at Thy Word” [Hit o Jesu!Samloms vi in Swedish, No. 328], as well as aChristmas chorale by German composer Phil-ipp Nicolai known to Swedish-Americans as“All Hail to Thee, O Blessed Morn.”

Basing my presentation partly on hints Ifound in Scandinavian immigrant histories,and partly on my knowledge of 19th-centuryAmerican shape-note singing schools, I intro-duced each hymn by playing it on the psalmo-dikon and leading my audience in singing thenumbers. (If you’ve ever wanted to know, “AMighty Fortress” begins “8-8-8-5-7 8-6-5” insifferskrift.) Since I figured most of us wouldn’tknow the Swedish, I cheated a little – I broughtin copies of the old “black” Augustana Synodwith the words in English.

And, I was relieved to discover, it worked.We didn’t repeat the melodies 16 times, butafter a couple of run-throughs with the psalm-odikon and the sifferskrift numbers, we weresinging the hymns. Pastor Esbjörn’s teachingmethod, as best I was able to reconstruct it,actually worked.

Then something happened that I hadn’texpected.

Also sung to Philipp Nicolai’s chorale melody inthe 1819 psalmbook was a Swedish new year’shymn known as “Vår tid är ganska flyktig här”[our time here is very fleeting]. I quoted it in thehandout I prepared for the workshop sessions,because the fourth verse was sung at theorganizational meeting of the first Swedish-American Lutheran church in Chicago in 1853. Itfollowed a prayer and a sermon on Jeremiah 6:16,“Stand at the crossroads, and look and ask for theancient paths,” and it asked God’s blessing on thenew congregation in what then was a rough-hewnboom town of 30,000. The pastor who wrote it upfor the history books said the occasion wasemotional, and it “brought tears to the eyes ofmost” that day in the little church on the NorthSide of Chicago.

Since we had the words in my handout, some-one in the audience suggested we sing it. I wasn’tsure we could pull that off – the quotation was inSwedish, my translation (which was mostlyGoogle’s translation anyway) didn’t scan and mySwedish is worse than awful. But it was a goodaudience, and everybody was game to give it a try.So we began singing:

O Gud! ditt ord och sakramentLåt aldrig bliva från oss vändt.Sjelf din församling skydda.Vår kristeliga öfvhetGif helsa, lycka salighet;Bevara slott och hydda.Låt sist, O Krist!Oss i friden, Rätta tidenTil dig fara.Evigt nyår shall der vara!

[O God, let your word and sacrament never beturned from us. Protect your congregation. OurChristian powers give to us health, happiness andbliss; preserve palace and hut. Let us finally, OChrist, go in peace at the right time: Eternallyshall there be a New Year.]

And as we got into the song, our voices rose andwe came to a lovely passage where I like to play themelody with a little bit of hesitation between “Låtsist” and “O Krist” [let finally … O Christ], and wepaused for maybe half a beat and went on with ourvoices swelling to the end

And for a moment, just for a fleeting momentthere, I felt like we experienced a little taste ofwhat it must have been like for Pastor Esbjörn andhis Swedish immigrant congregations of 160 yearsago to stand at a crossroads and seek the old pathsin a new land.

Reprinted with permission from DulcimerPlayers News, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Fall 2015).

Peter Ellertsen is a regular contributor toDulcimer Players News. He coordinates dulci-mer-friendly slow jams in Springfield, Illinois, anddemonstrates the psalmodikon at churches in thenorthern part of the state.

Pa�or Esbjörn, From P.�

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PSALMODIKON SONGBOOK (revised edition) written inSifferskrift and 4-part harmony for psalmodikons

$19.00 pp

PSALMODIKON QUARTET CD $15.00 ppSend orders to: Singsaas Lutheran Church Attn: Music CD’s P. O. Box 87,

Hendricks, MN 56136http://www.countrychurchmusic.com/

PSALMODIKON COMPONENTSPsalmodikon Pattern $10.00Tuning Peg 3.75String 1.25Fine tuner w/tailpiece 17.75

Maple fret board w/frets 30.00Sitka spruce top material:

small psalmodikon 17.00tapered psalmodikon 22.00

Cherrywood violin bow 28.00Rosin 5.00

Send orders to:Floyd Foslien567 High Ridge DriveHudson, WI 54016www.ffoslien@sbcglobal.net

This month again there were no Letters from Readers. I think Iwill mention a couple of items then.

One of the items I was going to put above per Floyd’s request.Hopefully folks read this in addition… That way I can leave“Floyd’s page” as-is and still get the “news” out. Floyd wanted topass along that there is a psalmodikon available for purchaseby whomever is interested. It is one that he had made last year forsomeone else who will no longer be able to enjoy it. It is SerialNumber 56, and it is being listed as “$350 or best offer”. Pleasecontact Floyd if you are interested.

What I also wanted to mention is that this edition has a very nicearticle contribution from Peter Ellertsen. It is very informative, andI trust you all enjoy reading it as I have. Many thanks to Peter. — Kristen

Letter from the Editor

These are usually the most difficult components for builders to obtain. Ican, however, provide all of the other component parts required tomake psalmodikons, if the builder is unable to make them or find themlocally. You may contact me for prices.

I also sell a complete kit of parts to make a psalmodikon for $130.00.This kit instrument is modelled after an antique Norwegian salmodikon(Norwegian spelling) similar to one used by Lars Roverud. He was the“Father” of the Norwegian salmodikon and is credited with usingtransposition sticks to allow playing in various keys without re-tuning sothis kit includes a transposition stick. The parts are cut to size and needonly to be glued together, sanded, and finished with varnish or lacquer.

Notes from Floyd:

PresidentBeatrice Hole

Eden Prairie, Minnesota +1 952-934-4535

enstrengb@gmail.com

Vice-PresidentFloyd Foslien

Hudson, Wisconsinffoslien@sbcglobal.net

TreasurerJoan Saathoff

Hudson, Wisconsinhar.jo.saathoff@att.net

EditorKristen Åkre

Mount Vernon, Washington +1 253-341-8430

kdakre@comcast.netThe Newsletter is published using PagePlus X8 (www.serif.com) and is printed inEden Prairie, Minnesota.

The Nordic-American Psalmodikonforbundet Newsletter is published in theSpring, Summer, and Autumn. We are always looking for newsworthy itemsand photos that you want to share with other readers.

The $8.00 membership fee helps to cover the cost of printing and postagefor the Newsletter, annual fee for the Psalmodikon Web Site, and annualmeeting expenses.

Check the date on your mailing label which indicates if your dues are current.

Send membership dues to: Beatrice Hole6560 Leesborough AveEden Prairie, MN 55346

† Photographs courtesy of JennyLind Chapel. High-resolutionpictures available in“Psalmodikon” album on JennyLind Chapel website — Click on“Flickr” link in the Photocollection.

In 1995 Pastor Sørensen of Trondheim,Norway, was a Pastor serving Mindekirken inMinneapolis. He found a psalmodikon (pict-ured) in one of the storage rooms of thechurch, and it has been in a prominent displaycase ever since. No history is known about it.

This brings me to the thought of anotherlarge psalmodikon that has been displayed formany years at the Chisago Lakes LutheranChurch in Center City, Minnesota. The follow-ing is an excerpt taken from an article, “Grand-father’s Psalmodikon”.

The psalmodikon in Center City was madein 1868 and signed on the bottom by itsmaker, James Lindstrom of Carver, Minne-sota, and later owned by Earl Porter of Minne-apolis. When Lindstrom left the Chisago Lakecongregation, where he hadbeen a parochial teacher,he sold his instrument to Mr.Porter’s uncle, WilliamLongquist.

Earl Porter writes: Isalvaged the psalmodikonfrom my grandmother’s atticback in the 1930s, wherewater from a leaking roofhad dripped on it and abouta dozen ground cherryshells had found their wayinto it. In spite of this neglect,

my instrument is in the best condition of thefive or six I have seen.

It is 40” long, 8” wide at the bottom, 5” at thetop, and 4” deep. Originally it had eight dronestrings, but Mr. Porter prefers to use just acello A-string tuned to C below middle C. Withlittle squares of masking tape he marks thenotes, E, G, C, and E as an aid in finding hisway around the long finger board and rests hispsalmodikon on a table. Both Mr. Porter andDr. Emeroy Johnson took part in the annual1971 Swedish Communion Service at Chi-sago Lake, their home church. Dr. Johnsonpreached the sermon and Mr. Porter playedHymn No. 66 in the 1819 Koral-Bok (“SeJesus är ett trostrikt namn”) first alone andthen accompanying the choir as it sang thefour verses. This was the first time thoseattending the service had heard a psalmo-

dikon. Later a tape wasmade of Mr. Porter playingtwo Christmas hymns.Hearing the slight buzz ofthe string as he played thewell-loved No. 55, it waseasy to believe that suchdeep, rather cello-like musichad led early immigrants asthey sang “Var hälsadsköna morgonstund” (AllHail To Thee, O BlessedMorn) at Julotta on a coldChristmas morning.

SALVAGING HISTORYfrom Beatrice Hole

On November 15, 2015, the West CoastPsalmodikons and Joan Paddock on Lur andTrumpet, from Linfield College, were invited togive a demonstration and play for the Sons ofNorway’s Young Adventurers Group at NorseHall in Portland, Oregon. There were about sixto ten children from ages 2–15 present. Thevery youngest of the group, Leona Montgom-ery (she is half Norwegian, as her mother isfrom Norway), decided she would like to playthe psalmodikon. She did not want to stopwhen time came for the players to pack uptheir psalmodikons.

We will keep her in mind in the future whenshe gets old enough to stand and reach thetop of the psalmodikon.

from Jean Akre

WEST COAST REPORT

Photos from Pastor Esbjörn’s Box Zither Article

Engraving of Esbjorn in Korsban-eret: Kristlig Kalendar för 1880.

Replica of Pastor Esbjörn’s psalmodikondemonstrated in Jenny Lind Chapel museum.Original is on top of display case at right ofpicture. †

Tuning pegs of original psalmodikon (below) and replica(below right) show placement of sympathetic strings. †

Jenny Lind Chapel (right) decorated for Adventand Christmas. (Photo by Peter Ellertsen.) †

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MUSIC-ON-A-STRINGBeatrice Hole

6560 Leesborough Ave.Eden Prairie, MN 55346-2823

Psalmodikon website: h�p://www.psalmodikon.com/

Photos above were taken on December 2, 2015 at the West Immanuel Lutheran Church of ruralOsceola, Wisconsin.A group of psalmodikon players got together just to have a jam session of playing only the beautifulmusic of Christmas. We played every Christmas song in the book and had such a fun time doingso. Seldom do we find time to get the psalmodikon players together during the Christmas season.We had such a good time playing that afternoon followed by a Potluck Coffee buffet.