The Artifact: The Walking Stick Fiddle

In this episode of STBYM’s The Artifact, Robert discusses the Spazierstock-Geige, currently on display at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is the Artifact,
a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
focusing on particular objects, ideas, and moments in time. During
a recent family trip to Arizona, I found myself strolling
the halls of the Fantastic Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix

(00:30):
once more. If you've never been to it, I highly
recommend a visit. The museum features thousands of musical instruments
from all around the world to illustrate the rich diversity
of musical instrument design and innovation, as well as the
universality of music, and via a headset and video displays
all over the place, you get to see and hear
many of these instruments in their traditional use, from Polynesian

(00:54):
nose flutes to DJ Cubert's custom QFO turntable mixer. There's
a little something in there for everybody. I snapped numerous
photos and took several notes for possible artifact episodes here
on the show, and today I want to talk about
the spatzerstt Geika, a late nineteenth century walking stick fiddle
for Machnor Kirkeen in Saxony, Germany. This is a famous

(01:17):
musical instrument making region, so feel free to look up
images of the cane, but I'm going to go ahead
and describe it for you here as well. A short
wooden walking stick with a small, functional four string fiddle
built into one side of it. There's also room for
a fitted bow with which to play it. Now. I
wondered at the time, as I was looking at this

(01:38):
in the museum if there was some sort of panel
that could cover up or even hide the fiddle portion
of the cane. And while there wasn't such a panel
on display at the Musical Instrument Museum, subsequent research revealed
that such panels existed. So yes, you could have a
completely hidden fiddle in your cane. So what was the
point of all of this? Was it to sneak fiddles
into places where music was banned? There some sort of

(02:01):
secret musical spy war going on. Well, I'll refer you
back to a previous artifact episode I recorded on gadget canes.
As Michelle Debchak explored in a twenty seventeen Mental Floss article,
you can find various antique walking sticks and canes with
all manner of special gadgety features, ranging from possibly practical

(02:23):
to somewhat ridiculous. So there's a nineteenth century cane with
a coin weighing gadget built into the handle. There's a
magic lantern projector cane, a cider press walking stick, an
architect's cane with drafting tools hidden inside, a spy camera
from the nineteen eighties that fits in a cane, a

(02:44):
nineteenth century cane containing a miniature croquet set, a microscope cane,
and even a nineteenth century eagle headed crossbow cane. I
believe there's also a spitting cane that naturally reminds one
of the gimmick umbrellas favored by the batman villain the Penguin.
So all of these gadget canes most clear novelties. They

(03:05):
extended from the popularity of cane swords and swordsticks in
the eighteenth and nineteenth century in Europe. The basic appeal
of a hidden blade is of course understandable and to
our modernized hey, is there anything cooler than a cane sword?
I mean, I grew up watching Sherlock Holmes, and when
they busted out the cane swords, I got really excited,

(03:26):
But the popularity of sword canes at the time actually
had to do with just how uncool openly carrying a
sword had become in polite society. So basically the message became, hey,
by all means, carry a lethal blood letting weapon, but
be a gentleman about it and hide it away in
a nice walking stick. Then, as sword canes became fashionable,

(03:50):
the idea of hiding various other gadgets and curios in
a cane became the fat It was no longer about
hiding anything or even remotely being practical. In many case,
says gadget canes were just a curious luxury, and we
see that reflected in the musical instrument cane as well.
According to the Musical Instrument Museum, the walking stick fiddle

(04:10):
was more visually impressive than musically gratifying, and this was
largely due to its small sound box. Its maximum volume
was fittingly low for such a stealthy stringed instrument, but
again this was more fashion accessory than practical musical instrument.
Tune in for additional episodes of the Artifact, the Monster

(04:32):
Fact or Animalia Stupendium each week, and Hey go back
into the audio archives for Stuff to Blow your Mind
wherever you get your audio podcasts. If you want to
hear more about gadget canes and how Benjamin Franklin carried
one with oil inside of it, and how one factors
into the death of Edgar Allan Poe, and as always,
you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

(04:54):
your Mind dot com.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
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