At the beginning of the 19th century, during a period of control through spying and censorship, people sought to retreat into "staid, little domestic happiness." Small musical formations with portable instruments were very popular. Such instruments were the csakan/walking stick flute or the walking stick violin.“Csakan” is derived from the Hungarian word “csákány”, which means “pickaxe”. Initially, this was the name of a battle ax present in the Ottoman area. The csakan was used as a hoe and walker. In the area of Pressburg, Budapest and Vienna, a fipple flute was often installed in the shaft of the csakan.

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In our instruments, the handle of the cane is used as a mouthpiece and the bell is replaced by the walking stick base. The curiosity of walking stick instruments became very popular around 1800.

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The “Flötuse” also enjoyed great popularity. The word derives from the French "flûte douce" and was Germanized. In German-speaking countries, these instruments spread rapidly. The "Berchtesgadener Fleitln", which were used in folk music, are similar in form to this type of instrument.

 

From about 1800, the guitar experienced a boom in Viennese bourgeois music. The guitar was very popular and successful in home-style salons and on concert stages (Mauro Giuliani and Johann Kaspar Mertz were the best known and most sustainable guitar virtuosos). Music publishers Diabelli and Artaria were extremely successful with their guitar sheet music; one could speak of a "guitaromanie". Georg Stauffer was the most influential luthier of the time, and in combining the Neapolitan and French characteristics of guitars, set a milestone in guitar making. Initially, his guitars still had the typical figure-of-eight form of the headstock with simple pegs without transmission in the mechanics (later he created the "Legnani model" with the mechanics on just one side of the headstock).

 

From the second half of the 18th century on, the guitar only had simple strings (previously it had been double-stringed), and from about 1780 six strings instead of previously only five.