Michael Völkel (singer-songwriter)

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Michael Völkel (born May 30, 1961 in Herne ) is a German songwriter , composer and multi-instrumentalist on guitar , flute , mandolin , forest zither , bagpipes , hurdy-gurdy , harmonica , a seven-string variation of the Trossinger lyre and percussion . He appears under his own name or in medieval circles as the minstrel Michel . He is also active as a guitar teacher and author.

Life

At the age of 17, Michael Völkel began to teach himself to play the guitar by himself . Influenced by musicians like Leo Kottke or Werner Lämmerhirt , he turned to fingerpicking , but was also always active with the electric guitar in various rock bands. Michael Völkel took singing lessons in classical bass for five years.

From the 1990s to 2006, Völkel was guitarist and flautist in the reggae group "Flat Fred and the Brains". After the band split up, Völkel and bassist Jürgen Schell stayed together and founded the trio “Krimimusik”, a jazz group that played music from the old Edgar Wallace films. The band existed until Schell's death in 2016.

In 2008 Michael Völkel gave up his job as a social worker to become a musician.

From 2015 to 2018 he also appeared in the formation "Spielmann Michel und Kumpanei". This was a loose formation of musicians who only got together for certain occasions. In 2018 it became a permanent formation again with the name Ensemble Psaltarello.

Völkel is also active as an author and has published several books, including a textbook for guitar in 2017 and his first novel Der Schrecken im Flöz in 2019.

Publications

Print media

Until 2016 he published Spielmann Michels Lautenkunde in the history magazine Karfunkel , a kind of guitar lesson in which medieval music, folk, harmony and guitar playing technique were presented and explained in a humorous way. He took up the idea of ​​this column in his book Tricks for the Guitar .

  • Carbuncle:
    • Spielmann Michels Lautenkunde (Column)
    • Amiens Cathedral (carbuncle n ° 104)
  • Yearbook of Esotericism Volume 4 (Fischer-Verlag): Wanderer between the worlds
  • 2017 tricks on the guitar (EPV-Verlag, Hattingen)
  • 2017 machinations , together with other authors of the publishing house (EPV-Verlag, Hattingen)
  • 2018 Intrigue game , together with other authors of the publishing house (EPV-Verlag, Hattingen)
  • 2019 The horror in the seam novel (EPV-Verlag, Hattingen)

Discography

Albums

  • 1988 Wide Land (LP)
  • 1996 Little Steps
  • 2002 offbeats
  • 2010 The Time Traveler's Songbook
  • 2015 Rattenplage (self-published as a 40-page comic book with CD)
  • 2016 Rattenplage (extended new edition as a book with a longer CD)
  • 2016 Spielmann Michel Live (Live-DVD)
  • 2018 Rattenplage (Revised second edition of the book with revised CD)
  • 2019 Landscapes - Acoustic Guitar Music

Sampler

  • Harmonii (sampler with musicians from Herne)
  • Premiere (sampler with musicians from Herne)
  • Stupa Greece
  • Allied III, IV and V (sampler with medieval music)
  • bluebox (compilation of live recordings by various musicians on an open stage in Gelsenkirchen)
  • various articles on the enclosed CDs of various magazines (including acoustic guitar , Zillo medieval, Miroque, Sonic Seducer)

Community projects

  • 1996 A Summer's Dream by De Yoghurts
  • 2002 Against Fascism (With Flat Fred and the Brains)
  • 2004 Snow in the Desert (With Flat Fred and the Brains)
  • 2014 Crime Music (CD with music from crime films)

Film music

  • Karma-Guen 1994 (Documentary on a Buddhist event in Spain)
  • Thyssen-Krupp (music for a promotional film about track construction technology)
  • Goliath en de Dochters van Es-Sent (music for a Dutch dance film)

Prizes and awards

  • 2018 1st place: Award from Radioplanet Berlin 2018: Anthology of the year for book Intrigenspiel (as one of 18 authors).
  • 2000: Publication of the “Readers Song” in “Akustik Guitar” magazine
  • 1996 2nd place in a nationwide guitar composition competition of the companies, Kaman, Ovation and the Jazz and Rock School Freiburg.

Historical commitment

In the LWL Museum for Archeology in Herne , Michael Völkel gives regular lectures in text and music as the minstrel Michel on historical topics.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ carbuncle Spielmann Michels According customer . Retrieved August 20, 2014 .
  2. ↑ LWL-MUSEUM-HERNE "With the minstrel through times". (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on August 21, 2014 ; accessed on August 21, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lwl-landesmuseum-herne.de
personal data
SURNAME Völkel, Michael
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Minstrel Michel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German folk musician and songwriter
DATE OF BIRTH May 30, 1961
PLACE OF BIRTH Herne