By Bob McKillop

Do you know what a Marxophone is?   How about a violin guitar, or a Lithuanian kankles?

Katherine Rhoda knows, and she’s eager to show you these instruments and to let you hear their distinctive tones and timbre.  Katherine is a Maine folk singer and song leader who has taken on an additional role for herself:  that of informal curator of a collection of unique acoustic stringed instruments loosely labeled “fretless zithers”. 

She bundled up her favorite antique instruments, legacies of musical days gone by, and brought them for a visit on a recent February evening.  I was fascinated by the ingenuity of these instruments.  Creativity and careful thought on the part of the inventors resulted in a design that is easy to learn and play, but which still produces a very satisfying and entertaining musical performance.

 

These instruments were sold door-to-door and through mail order in the early part of the 20th century, and provided families with one of the few ways available to them to enjoy the popular music of the day.  There were books and sheets of popular songs that accompanied the instruments, or which could be purchased separately.  They provided “play by number” instructions for producing the songs on the instrument.  Almost anyone could learn to play.

Katherine told me that the Marxophone was invented by Henry C. Marx in 1912, and manufactured in Hoboken, New Jersey.  Marx later moved to New Troy, Michigan, and started the Marx-o-Chime colony, which manufactured other types of fretless zithers and other instruments.

Katherine’s Marxophone had a set of accompaniment strings, arranged in several chords, on the left side of the instrument, and a set of melody strings on the center and right portions of the soundboard.  The accompaniment strings are strummed or plucked by hand.  A cleverly-designed mechanism, suspended over the melody strings, is operated by pressing a set of keys that cause a hammer to strike the melody strings, one at a time, according to the numbers on the keys, and corresponding to the numbered song sheets.  The hammer strikes the strings in rapid succession, producing a bright vibrato effect, as one might hear from a well-played mandolin or dulcimer.

The Marxophone may have been designed to be played by amateur musicians, but in Katherine’s hands, it certainly did not sound amateur.  It is very obvious that Katherine loves these instruments, and she plays them with a lot of emotive expression and spirit.  The Marxophone tone and timbre is a little spooky and mystical, with a touch of the Celtic tradition.

At left, Katherine and her Marxophone.

Katherine demonstrated two other instruments for me:  a violin-guitar, and a Lithuanian kankles.  The violin-guitar is related to the “bowed psaltery”, and is very self-contained; the body of instrument is also part of its own case, with a hinged top that fastens over the soundboard.  It comes with a bow, a built-in rosin pot, and a tuning key.  A rectangle of about 24 inches in length and eight or so inches wide, it has a set of chromatic strings that run the length of the soundboard.  The strings are mounted on an angle to the edge of the instrument, so that their different lengths present a playing surface to the bow at very specific points on the edge of the soundboard. These places are labeled with the note value and a number, for easy playing.  There is even a capo to allow for rapid key changes.  I found this, also, to be a very clever design.

Katherine played a couple of songs on the violin-guitar very beautifully, including “The Quiet Joys of Brotherhood” by Richard Farina.  Her voice blended well with the full tone of the bow on these strings, and the performance was enchanting.

Below, the violin-guitar on the left, and the Marxophone on the right.

The Lithuanian Kankles is very traditional, and is not an example of a “play by number” instrument.  Various manifestations of this instrument are known by different names all over the Baltic region of Europe.  It is made of unfinished wood, with a hollowed-out body and a soundboard set into the top.  It can be strummed and picked like a manual autoharp; the performer mutes the strings not needed for a particular chord or melody with his or her fingers.

Katherine’s Lithuanian heritage is the source of her interest in this instrument.  She has been a member of a traditional Lithuanian folk music group for more than 30 years. Sodauto, the Lithuanian Ethnographic Ensemble of Boston, is primarily a choral ensemble, but it does give her the opportunity to play her kankles in a traditional way, which she greatly enjoys.

Katherine does, indeed, love these old instruments, and she enjoys introducing people to them when she performs around Maine and beyond.  There is, however, much more to Katherine Rhoda than her fretless zithers!

She was born in Milo, Maine, and got an early start in music when her mom bid one dollar for a piano at a local Lion’s Club auction; no one else bid, so the piano went home to six year old Katherine.  She studied piano for the next twelve years.   Her mom made another musical bargain when she bought a guitar for Katherine with those famous “green stamps”.

Below, Katherine plays her kankles.

 

Katherine’s interest in old instruments was sparked at a performance by Tony Barrand and John Roberts during her college years.  A minor part of the show involved a type of fretless zither called a bowed psaltery, and Katherine was hooked.   In the old Northern Kingdom Music Shop in Camden, which at the time was still a small shop on the waterfront, she found a ukelin, which is a very similar instrument.  That was the start of her collection.

Katherine now lives in Hiram, Maine, during the winter months; during the summer season, she can be found on Monhegan Island, where she is very active in the local music scene.  She is a song leader at an event at the Monhegan Community Church called “Songs of the Spirit”, which is a very informal and inclusive song circle.  She also is the host of the Monhegan Jamboree, a bi-weekly open stage of sorts that occurs every other Tuesday at that same church, mid-June through September.   Additionally, all through the year, she is an active performer at folk shows and nursing homes all over the state.

While she is mainly a folk singer, she does write some of her own material.  During her visit, she played an original tune entitled “Wellspring”, accompanying herself on her old Guild guitar.  Both she and the guitar sounded wonderful, and the song is one of peace, fellowship, and sharing.

You can learn more about Katherine, and hear her music at her website, http://www.katherinerhoda.com.  Her self-titled CD is for sale there, and also on

CD Baby. 

If you’d like to learn more about fretless zithers, check out

http://www.fretlesszithers.com/ and

http://www.fretlesszithers.net/

You can catch Katherine in a live performance on Saturday, March 8, 7:00 pm, at the Brownfield Community Church, Brownfield, Maine; it’s part of a benefit concert for the Brownfield Food Pantry, and other performers include Ken and Laurie Turley, the poet Dennis Dunn, and Empty Pockets.  Donations will be accepted, and for more information, mail dahrev@psouth.net, or call 625-4411.