Thursday, October 3, 2024
Eric Bestul grew up in Iola, traveled the world playing in country bands, and is currently owner of Lessons from the Art in Iola.
Hhis lifelong love of music has given him a new hobby in the building medieval instruments.
Bestul has a wealth of knowledge about medieval and Viking era history and instruments.
Bestul said he first picked up a guitar when he was 14 years old when he and his friends decided to start playing the instrument.
From there Bestul said he was hooked and would play for hours after school and after supper, until his parents told him to get to bed.
The self-taught guitarist moved to Madison and while living there he became acquainted with guitarists in the area and started to learn more of the technical side of the instrument.
Today, Bestul says, he plays about 40 instruments, including a recent foray into bagpipes for one of his students who said they wanted to learn.
He said his interest in medieval music began with Jethro Tull. This the 70s rock band in snpired him to examine different instruments, not just medieval, but unique instruments that are out of the norm.
Bestul said his first midieval instrument was a saz, which is a Turkish folk instrument with a long neck and strings. He ordered it through his former boss at a music store in Madison.
After that he began building instruments, something Bestul said was destined to happen.
“I’ve always kind of liked weird instruments,” he said. “I’ve always thought they were neat. I like the sounds of them.”
Bestul said he was watching a video on YouTube, of someone playing a tagelharpa. a wind instrument that he decided he could make.
Bestul started making friends in the tagelharpa community and learning different ways to make the instruments and what materials to use in the building process.
Tthrough these friendships his collection of instruments continue to grow.
Bestul said his interest is in the Viking era instruments, and the few instruments that have been found intact are small and can fit in one hand.
Most instruments from the Viking and medieval era have not survived through the centuries so Bestul and others in the medieval instrument community use things like texts, carvings and paintings to revive the instruments in today’s world.
“We call a lot of this stuff experimental archaeology because what you’re doing is you’re making the instruments and then you’re learning how to play them and going, well, ‘what could they have sounded like,’” Bestul said. “So you look at the stuff that came before and you look at the geographical areas that they interacted with and then you look at the stuff that came after and you kind of like try to fill in the middle with what it could have sounded like.”
Bestul has also recorded records under the name Skog Troll with the instruments he builds,. He just released a recording called “Trylla” on the music platform Bandcamp.
Bestul also performs with the Wisconsin River Ravens, which is a Norwegian reenactment group. They hold events around the area and he brings his instruments to play. He will also be participating in the Midwest Viking Festival in Green Bay this weekend.
Along with the Viking festival he will be at the Taste of Norway on Saturday, Oct. 5, where he will bring his instruments and perform.
“It’s like weird being thought of as a local expert on the subject when it’s like, man, I feel like I know nothing,” Bestul said. “I’m very lucky I get to do cool things in my life.”
