Re-Creating The Music Of Medieval Europe With One Instrument

At this time of the year, the Swedish island of Got­land puts on Medeltidsveck­an, or “Medieval Week,” the coun­try’s largest his­tor­i­cal fes­ti­val. Accord­ing to its offi­cial About page, it offers its vis­i­tors the chance to “watch knights on horse­back, drink some­thing cold, take a craft­ing course, prac­tice archery, lis­ten to a con­cert or pic­nic along the beach, while wait­ing for some ruin show or per­for­mance in some moat!” If next year’s Medeltidsveck­an incor­po­rates elec­tron­ic-music ses­sions as well, it will sure­ly be thanks to inspi­ra­tion from the EP-1320 sam­pler, or instru­men­tal­is elec­tron­icum, just released by Swedish elec­tron­ics com­pa­ny Teenage Engi­neer­ing.

Billed as “the world’s first medieval elec­tron­ic instru­ment,” the EP-1320 is mod­eled on Teenage Engi­neer­ing’s suc­cess­ful EP-133 drum sampler/composer, but pre-loaded with a selec­tion of playable musi­cal instru­ments from the Mid­dle Ages, from frame drums, bat­tle toms, and coconut horse hooves to bag­pipes, bowed harps, and, yes, hur­dy-gur­dies.

Users can also evoke a com­plete medieval world — or at least a cer­tain idea of one, not untaint­ed by fan­ta­sy — with swords, live­stock, witch­es, “row­dy peas­ants,” and “actu­al drag­ons.” To get a sense of how it works, have a look at the video at the top of the post from B&H Pho­to Video Pro Audio, which offers a run­down of its many tech­ni­cal and aes­thet­ic fea­tures.

“Even the design of the sam­pler and music com­pos­er looks medieval, from the font style all over the board” — often used to label but­tons and oth­er con­trols in Latin, or Latin of a kind — “to the col­or, pre­sen­ta­tion, pack­ag­ing, and imagery,” writes Design­boom’s Matthew Bur­gos. “The elec­tron­ic instru­ment is portable too, and the design team includes a quilt­ed hard­cov­er case, t‑shirt, key­chain, and a vinyl record fea­tur­ing songs and sam­ples.” Clear­ly, the EP-1320 isn’t just a piece of nov­el­ty stu­dio gear, but a sym­bol of its own­er’s appre­ci­a­tion for the trans­po­si­tion of all things medieval into our mod­ern dig­i­tal world. It’s worth con­sid­er­ing as a Christ­mas gift for the elec­tron­ic-music cre­ator in your life; just imag­ine how they could use it to rein­ter­pret the clas­sic songs of the hol­i­day sea­son with not just lutes, trum­pets, and citoles at their com­mand, but “tor­ture-cham­ber reverb” as well.

via Kot­tke

Relat­ed con­tent:

Meet the Hur­dy Gur­dy, the Hand-Cranked Medieval Instru­ment with 80 Mov­ing Parts

Hear Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spir­it” Per­formed in Clas­si­cal Latin

With Medieval Instru­ments, Band Per­forms Clas­sic Songs by The Bea­t­les, Red Hot Chili Pep­pers, Metal­li­ca & Deep Pur­ple

The Medieval Ban Against the “Devil’s Tri­tone”: Debunk­ing a Great Myth in Music The­o­ry

The Flute of Shame: Dis­cov­er the Instrument/Device Used to Pub­licly Humil­i­ate Bad Musi­cians Dur­ing the Medieval Peri­od

A Brief His­to­ry of Sam­pling: From the Bea­t­les to the Beast­ie Boys

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.