trumpet marine

Early string instrument with a single string and thus allied to the monochord, played with a bow. It was used mainly for popular music-making, especially in Germany, but also in convents, as its German name Nonnengeige, ‘nun's fiddle’, indicates. The instrument produced harmonics very easily and, like the old trumpet, often restricted itself to them, its normally produced notes being very poor and coarse in quality.

It was also called Trummscheit, ‘trumpet wood’, or Brummscheit, ‘humming wood’, and the Italian and English names connecting it with a trumpet were doubtless due to its penetrating tone. The provenance of the adjective ‘marine’ is unknown.