Chautauqua Series Summary
Community Band Members Share History of Instruments
Emmeline Elliott
Several members of the Madison Community Band presented short talks and demonstrations of their instruments at the Madison Area Arts Council’s second Chautauqua Series event on Wednesday, August 12 at the Madison Public Library.
The musicians included Dennis and Barb Hegg, Gale Pifer, Diane Plack, Donna Mathison, Ashley Krogstad and Gene and Marilyn Hexom. Each one brought an instrument, talked about its history – both of the instrument in general and their personal stories with their instrument – and showed how it is played. Thirteen people attended the event.
Pifer played the saxophone. His mother bought him his first sax in the 1940s and is now considered an antique. Pifer led the Gale Pifer Orchestra in Madison for nearly two decades.
Krogstad, who will be a junior in high school this fall, has played the alto saxophone for seven years. She credits her dad for getting her into the instrument.
Plack got the audience warmed up for her presentation of the trumpet by having people try to make a buzzing type sound with their lips. She said one can likely play the trumpet if one can make this sound. Her parents bought her trumpet while she was in college in the 1960s. Plack is a retired music teacher.
Mathison showed how to play the flute. She is a music teacher at Oldham-Ramona School and also a former student of Plack.
Barb Hegg demonstrated the French horn. She said the instrument started as a hunting horn. The sound of the French horn, she said, depends on the shape of the musician’s mouth.
Dennis Hegg, director of the Community Band, talked about the baritone, a brass wind instrument. Hegg said the instrument is also known as the euphonium, which is derived from a Greek word that means “sweet-voiced” or “well-sounding.” He is a retired band director.
Gene Hexom exhibited a stringed instrument called the dulcimer and an Irish drum called the bodhran. Hexom became interested in the dulcimer in the 1970s and said it is a popular instrument in the Ozarks. The Bible mentions the dulcimer in Daniel 3:5 in the King James Version, he said, and is translated in Latin to mean “sweet sound.” The bodhran can be traced to the 14th century and came back into favor with musicians in the 1960s, Hexom said. He and his wife, Marilyn, demonstrated how to play the dulcimer.
Dennis Hegg encouraged anybody who wants to play an instrument to try it. Pifer agreed and said that playing music is something one can do throughout life and even into old age.
“You’re never too old to learn something new,” Gene Hexom said.
