Mühlbacher Wooden Band

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.