Building & playing "the Beast"
Eva Kingma and Matthias Ziegler provide a unique insight into the construction of the double contrabass flute and how it is played.
It takes a while, but then you have something special. This saying also applies to Eva Kingma and her flute. The double contrabass, as her brand-new instrument is called, is finally finished after ten years of honing and tweaking.
"This holds my heart and soul," says Kingma as she proudly looks at the flute. The two-and-a-half-meter-tall device – the total tube length is even longer than five meters – stands prominently in the living room in Grolloo. "It's unique. I've never made one this large before."
It has been a process of years, and she didn't complete it effortlessly. "Without my regular silversmith David Kerkhof and the help of Egbert Streuer, I would never have managed," says Kingma. "They ensured I had the space to build this bizarre thing."
During this workshop, Matthias Ziegler will demonstrate and demonstrate how this unique instrument sounds and is played.
