Miss Bach's Crab Canon

"Of course, this can even buy enough wheat for half a year!" Joanna rubbed her forehead and smiled foolishly, "But it's all my father's idiot's fault, if he hadn't messed with that thing... our savings would be comparable to this A silver coin is much more."

Hearing his daughter's complaints, the head of the family named Karl Nicklaus shrank his head without dignity, with endless chagrin on his face, and he didn't dare to refute anything.

Carl rummaged through the pocket of his linen coat, found the pipe that had already been blackened, and wanted to take a few puffs instead of sighing—but suddenly realized that a noble lady was coming to the humble house, what should I do if I smoked someone?

Resisting his sigh, he made an awkward salute and went to prepare breakfast... Sigh, this is a bitch's job.

When her father walked away, Joanna let go of her restraint, like a little rabbit begging for cabbage leaves, and walked around Gao Yiyu nimbly, looking very excited.

"Do you need anything else? Besides bread." Because Gao Yiyu looked very embarrassed, she could also sense it.

Gao Yiyu hesitated for a second, and took out a handful of copper coins from his pocket.

Those copper coins were ugly, even with the sun burnt on them.

"These."

"Three Finny denominations? That's a lot..." Joanna's eyes shone with envy.

Gao Yiyu breathed a sigh of relief, he made the right bet if he didn't dare to speak first, otherwise it would be shameful if someone lost it again.

She said in a calm tone: "I need some low-key clothes, knowledge about the city, and of course a pair of shoes... Are these enough to pay?"

Joanna stretched out her hand cautiously, quickly took a few copper coins from the palm of the noble lady, and then lowered her head feeling impolite: "This is enough... please put away the rest quickly..." She pouted Mouth, I really want to get a few more.

"Then I'll pay another coin to pass the time while waiting for bread."

Smiling, Gao Yiyu handed her an extra copper coin.

"Since that silver coin is so important, why was it lost in the wilderness?"

"We had a big problem at the time."

Gratefully collecting the coins, Joanna stood stubbornly and refused to take a seat, but kept speaking brisk words.Because unlike before, the loss of important coins is no longer pain, but full of joy of finding them back.

"A musician from the city came to us before, and thought that the wood made by the craftsman used too wet wood, so please dry it again..."

"Uh...doesn't it feel better for him to tan me by himself?"

"That's what we said too, but he thought we were in this business, so there would be more ways...Actually, no, we also took it to dry naturally...But they paid too much money, and we didn't have time to explain it , so I took the job in a daze."

Gao Yiyu thought of his own time, even in the 21st century, it is not uncommon for wooden instruments to crack due to dryness and humidity...In this era...

"I guess the instrument that was entrusted to you cracked?" she asked.

"Ah no, it's our old job to avoid cracking, that's not enough." Joanna shook her head with a smile, but became frustrated after shaking her head, "We used some ancestral methods to get rid of moisture, but the violin The sound that came out became weird and we ruined it."

Uh?If the instrument is cracked and the sound becomes strange, it is understandable, but if it is not cracked, how can it be ruined.

Gao Yiyu speculated about the possibility, it wasn't cracking, or it was deformed due to thermal expansion and contraction?At the same time, she felt that in the gold coins that she carried, Deli Dolly was also full of interest, as expected of a big devil who loves music.

Joanna added: "The musician came over and found that the instrument could no longer play a good sound, and it became very scary. He said that we let the devil pollute the piano or something. We didn't understand this and couldn't solve it. In the end, we could only lose money... …that cost a lot of our family savings.”

And the silver coin picked up by Gao Yiyu was after the compensation, and for the normal operation of the family, they borrowed it from the Jewish lenders to support their lives.But even more unfortunately, it fell outside when I went out to purchase.

"Then your debt..." Gao Yiyu asked worriedly.

"The Finney copper coins you gave us can allow us to repay part of the interest, and the silver coin you brought... we have to use it to maintain our lives, and then work hard to make money. First, make sure that the interest can continue to be repaid. .”

"When the summer is over, the batch of wood outside can be sold for money, there will always be a way!" Carl's loud voice came from the kitchen not far away, "No matter how bad it is, we can always live on potatoes !"

"In any case, we are very grateful for the silver coin you brought back, it is too important."

Joanna regained her previous vitality, and after vomited bitterness, the ups and downs of life were something she was used to.

Gao Yiyu glanced at the kitchen. In order to entertain the important noble lady, Karl lit the stove with fruit wood, and took out a bag of flour, which looked quite delicate with almost no impurities.Next, find out a bag of stored nuts, although the face is full of reluctance, but still ready to use.

Gao Yiyu didn't intend to take out the money in the bag to help them.

Still, she didn't mind asking one more question.

"What did you do with the musical instrument after you made the compensation?"

"The other party said he was cursed and polluted by the devil, so of course he refused to take it, so we kept putting it in the grocery pile together with the cross."

"As I said before, I am a bard, can you let me have a look?" Gao Yiyu's eyes were filled with anticipation.

006·Natural Strings

The strings used in modern guitars are basically made of metal and nylon, all of which rely on industrial and technological progress.

But of course there were no such things in Gao Yiyu's era. The materials of the strings were of course taken from nature.

sheep.

To be more precise, it is the thin and winding intestines in the belly of the sheep.

Of course, gut strings are not only used on guitars, but all instruments that use strings are basically strings made of gut.I don't know who it was in the first place, but with such a strange idea, they recycled this stuff and made it into strings for musical instruments.

The musicians took it for granted and used it to play music praising God.

but……

"It doesn't smell very bad." Gao Yiyu was surprised by this.

According to the historical materials I have seen before, making gut strings requires some complicated processes, including removing the smell. At that time, I thought it was a boast of European white leather, until I saw it in person, and found that it is really so particular...

The five sets of ten gut strings and the baroque guitar with these strings are now in Gao Yiyu's hands.

"A beautiful instrument."

She praised it from the bottom of her heart.

The wood used in this guitar is great, and the traces of handwork everywhere are even better. The sound hole decoration carved out by the craftsman, and the tightly fitted tenon all prove that this is a good guitar—although it is very gray ...after all, it was just pulled out of the grocery pile.

It has no cracks at all, and its thin body like a gourd has no deformation due to thermal expansion or contraction.

This made Gao Yiyu speechless. How could it look like a normal and good musical instrument? How could it be rejected by musicians, and how could it drag down a peasant family with savings?Could it be... There are really demons, devils and the like, polluting it?

Gao Yiyu already believed in this set - after all, he still had one with him and was going to hunt the other one.

"That... what do you think?" Joanna looked at Gao Yiyu nervously, because after getting the instrument, many emotional changes appeared on her originally indifferent face.

Gao Yiyu didn't answer, because evaluating a musical instrument is not only based on its appearance, but also needs to be used after all.

It was the first time for her to play such an ancient thing, but she had touched the modern classical guitar developed from this thing for many years.

The left hand is naturally held on the neck of the piano, as if supporting a girl who is about to fall.

The fingers of the right hand are gently pressing on the strings near the sound hole, as if it is the first shy touch between lovers.

The strings are very elastic without the cold feeling of steel strings.

The musical instrument is so light, poured on the palm of the hand, on the lap, and it is as close as it is to itself.

She found a few simple chords unskilledly, and then plucked the corresponding strings——

The sound was not very good.

"Ok?"

"Just, just this! It's very uncomfortable... This, this is polluted by demons!"

Not only did Joanna look miserable, but her father, Carl, who was making bread in the kitchen, also gave him a embarrassed look, but he couldn't blame the kind noble lady—even though the few notes she played just now awakened the family. Unlucky.

Gao Yiyu felt a little strange.

Why are they... afraid of this?

No, it should be said that the so-called "strange voice" is actually this?

A sense of strangeness filled Gao Yiyu's heart. Across the pocket, she also looked at Deridoli, because in this case, the devil who loves music must have resonance with herself.

The violin was indeed making strange sounds, discordant and uncomfortable.

But... isn't this just out of tuning?

"Are you sure... this is what you feel uncomfortable about?"

"Yes, didn't you hear that just now?"

This... there must be something inside.Gao Yiyu became nervous. Could it be that the piano could not be tuned because of the devil's curse?So no matter how you play it, what comes out is an atonal sound that is hard to hear?

She pulled the hoodie with the Gold Dodleys in it closer to her, thinking that if the demons showed up, she would let her take care of them.With such a sense of crisis, she turned the tuners on the headstock, ready to tune.

It's like taking a bath, turning on the old hot water faucet, more water is hot water, less water is cold water... She was so nervous the whole time.

But... there don't seem to be any demons coming out?

Tuning the guitar is a daily compulsory course. She doesn't have absolute pitch, but she has a lot of experience and habits after soaking in music for many years.

"?~~"

She gently hummed the reference tone, and adjusted the first string according to this pitch.What followed was relaxed and happy, and she even sighed quietly when she had time, her girl's voice was unexpectedly pleasant...

"This, this is? Clearing the devil's curse?" Joanna witnessed the whole process in disbelief.

From the awkward voice at the beginning, it turned into a very harmonious tone.

The sound of the gut string is warm and small, as if it has found a balance between sponge cake and baguette, which makes people feel happy physically and mentally.

Gao Yiyu played another set of simple chords. Unlike monophonic notes, these notes danced hand in hand, as if they were about to propose marriage to each other after dancing.

"Isn't this a pretty good instrument?" Gao Yiyu didn't want to put it down a little bit, "It was just out of tune before, what did the previous owner of this piano do?"

"But...but the musician who asked us to compensate didn't say anything about tuning..."

"Then why are you also from Eisenach? This is the place where bards and court music are the most developed in Europe... Don't you know about tuning?"

"We... are just farmers..." Joanna took a wronged step back.

Gao Yiyu didn't believe that the musician didn't even know how to tune it, and the wood of this violin was just right.It seems that that guy took advantage of the farmers' extreme lack of knowledge about musical instruments, and squeezed a fortune from them in the name of the devil...

"Didn't you ask someone from the church to identify...identify...to see if it is a demon?"

"The musician brought the missionary here, and the other party proved that there was indeed a demon's pollution and curse. Part of the compensation was paid to the missionary, which proved that we did not collude with the devil."

"...It seems that they are in the same group." Gao Yiyu nodded and whispered to himself.

I didn't expect such a scam to exist in the world...

But after thinking about it, in the era she lived in, most of the music teachers would use various methods to extract money from the students' parents...

For example, when teaching musical instruments, when helping students buy musical instruments, they always claim to rely on their connections, their own status and face to get good instruments at low prices.In fact, they are all small brands or even fakes, and the rebates are even more generous.

"It's no different." Gao Yiyu plucked the strings, and covered the words to himself with brisk strumming.

"what did you say?"

"It's nothing, but how much is this piano worth?"

"1 silver thaler."

"Taler... Compared with the one you picked up before, which one is worth more?"

Although Joanna thought it was a strange question, the noble lady probably only knew gold coins, so she explained honestly without thinking: "It's 3 denominations of Kreuz, issued by other local lords, and 1 taler, about It can be worth 4 Kreuz of 3 denominations..."

Uh?There are quite a lot of currencies?

"...Then, what about these?"

Gao Yiyu pretended to be calm, and took out two more silver coins. Of course he didn't dare to explain the source, but it was enough to make Joanna envious.

"This one of yours is Gulden's silver coin, which can buy a lot of flour! And this one with the head of Emperor Charles is a Halbazen silver coin issued by Nördlingen, which costs half as much flour as the other one. Except In addition, there are Mark, Groschen, Kretzer and other types of silver coins... But I have not seen all of them. For copper coins, there are Finneys and Dinars——ah, your face?"

What, is it so complicated? !The value is so complicated and there are so many currencies? !What happened to the Holy Roman Empire? !Is the currency messed up to this extent? !Or is this the status quo across Europe?

Joanna lowered her head shyly: "I often chat with Mr. Tax Collector, so I know more... because I hope this knowledge can make our family... live a better life... and avoid being cheated a few times."

After thinking for a few seconds, Gao Yiyu shook his head and shook off the numbers and currency names that he was not good at, but reached into his pocket again, grabbed a few more silver coins, and put them on the table.

They don't look good, and they are crowded together loosely, but this farmer's small house is stained with a layer of luxury.

"It's a fine violin, and I need it."

"This, how much money is there...Okay, okay! There are also the clothes and shoes, bread and shoes you need! I, I will do it right away! Thank God, thank you for coming!"

Joanna hurriedly wanted to salute, but she stumbled on her numb leg after standing for a long time and accidentally knocked over the table.The dull sound of silver coins falling to the ground one after another covered the pain in his buttocks.

But she grinned, as if in a dream.

No, this is the dream?The noble lady holding a musical instrument in front of her is so beautiful, and the hard ground seems to be an auditorium... She remembered her childhood wish.

"When I was young, my father always said that the wood in our house was dried to make musical instruments and sent to the city... But I've never heard their sound... Well, can you play something?"