At some point long before the 19th
century, Mühlbach mountain miners or
farmers, the exact details of which are
difficult to ascertain, felt the need to
make music together. Since obtaining
musical instruments was not easy at that
time, they carved their own instruments.
Wooden flutes alone did not suffice for
them. They wanted to form a proper
"Banda“ (orchestra). This included, in
addition to the flutes, which carried the
musical theme, a bass accompaniment
(tubas). Drums and tambourines kept
the beat. But they also had cymbals.
However, all the instruments were carved
from wood. The only foreign sound in this
wooden world of tones was brought by the
triangle. The metal rod was familiar to the
miners from their work.
It signaled the beginning and end of shifts
in mining.
In 1911, a strange object was found in an
old chest on the roof of Bernhardbauern in
Mühlbach am Hochkönig: a wooden tube
about one and a half meters long, tapering
on one side, roughly hewn from a trunk,
with a kind of bung hole in the middle.
Next to it was a similarly pierced peg that
fit into the bung hole. An old community
member remembered: "There used to be
a Banda with wooden instruments among
the mountain miners...“ That was the
revival of the Mühlbach Holzmusi! Two
market women were added as an optical
enhancement to the music group.
Today, the Holzmusi is an indispensable
part of every celebration and a true
Mühlbach original.