My Step Mother was born in the Vosges Mountains, she had a great passion for folk music, fond memories of the Vosges and the épinette . During the instruments revival in the 1960s she along with her sister commissioned instruments to be made. Michel Hindenoch (a friend of the family) also played the épinette at her home in Nancy.
20 years ago she helped me by translating some information on the instruments background from the French text available (before the days of services like google translate and the internet!) I wrote a short essay and made a simple open-backed epinette at this time.
In 1999 I released the article online on my first website.www.michaeljking.supanet.com, alas no longer there, but you can also download the article here as a PDF document Included in the article are measurements and a minimal plan to guide you in making your own. In addition to the info and links on the pdf there are now many more épinette sites on the Internet,
Here is a wonderful website (updated ) that has sound samples and more info on making
Beatrice King passed away three years ago after a battle with cancer,
I dedicate my 6 string epinette design to her.
Copyright © 2012 Michael J King / Design by Andreas Viklund.