Zdeněk Seidl - Hudební nástroje

About Hurdy Gurdies

The hurdy gurdy or organistrum is an ancient musical instrument, which has been experiencing a great rise in popularity since the second half of the 20^th century.
From the point of view of organology, it is actually a string instrument, but played without any bow. At the same time, it is a partially mechanized instrument: the strings are vibrated by a hand-crank-turned wheel and shortened with a simple keyboard.
Written sources suggest that the hurdy gurdy may have formed sometime before the 10^th century in the Middle East. The musical instrument with the wheel is described in the encyclopaedic work of the so-called Brotherhood of Purity in Basra (Rasa'il Ikhwan al-safa') from the 10^th century.
The oldest iconographic document can be found on the portal of the church of Santo Domingo in the Spanish city of Soria and dates back to the 12^th century.
The first hurdy gurdy was one and half meter long and had to be played by two men, with one player only turning the crank and the other operating the keyboard. This great hurdy gurdy probably played a role in the early days of Christianity as an instrument to accompany singing in churches. From the 12^th century, an organ took its place and the hurdy gurdy was pushed into secular music. For this purpose, its size has been reduced so that it can be used by one player.
In the Middle Ages, the hurdy gurdy was popular in court music; it was a typical instrument of wandering bards. Later in the Renaissance, however, a hurdy gurdy became a rather folk instrument, often played by beggars. It was the result of changes in the music, in which the importance of harmony increases, which the hurdy gurdy naturally defies with its constant delay tone. At the same time, however, a considerable diversity of shapes so typical for the hurdy gurdy is beginning to show.
The hurdy gurdy probably reached its peak in France at the beginning of the 18^thcentury, when it became part of the official musical culture at the court of Louis XIV for some time as a result of the fashion passion of the time for everything rustic. Many authors wrote music for hurdy gurdy at this time; suites, sonatas and chamber concerts were created. The compositions for hurdy gurdy were also created by masters such as Antonio Vivaldi and, a little later, even Joseph Haydn and W. A. Mozart. At that time, there was also a lack of design improvements in the workshop of Versailles instrument maker Henri Bâton. In his workshop, classical guitar and lute bodies of baroque hurdy gurdies originate. Hurdy gurdy also got chromatic keyboards, sympathetic strings á la viola d´amour, disconnecting the drone strings and improving the trompette bridge.
At the end of the 18t^hcentury, the hurdy gurdy returned to folk music even in France. In the 19^thcentury, the hurdy gurdy was typically an instrument of village musicians and begging military retirees. In the territory of Tsarist Russia, there were whole fraternities of beggaring hurdy gurdy players, and every adept of this profession had to go through three years of teaching. The profession was passed on from father to son, and there were known cases in which a descendant was deliberately deprived of sight in order to become a member of the Brotherhood of Blind hurdy gurdy players.
The hurdy gurdy was very popular among nomadic puppeteers. Playing the hurdy gurdy, guitar, and drum usually preceded the performance itself and was supposed to attract as many paying spectators as possible. In a simplified (let's say rather begging) version, the musician had puppets hung on a string, which was attached at one end below the knee of the player's leg so that the puppets danced to the rhythm of the song. Puppeteers used to be skilled carvers, so their instruments were richly decorated with carvings. In the Czech lands, these puppeteers still existed in the first third of the 20^th century.
At the end of the 20^thcentury, the hurdy gurdy experienced an unlikely return to prominence, which continued into the new millennium.
Of course, the hurdy gurdy was used by early music ensembles, but such greats as Led Zeppelin (No quarter 1994), Ritchie Blackmore (e.g. Fires at midnight 2001 and others), Lou reed (The Raven 2003) or Metallica (Reload 1997) also discovered it for themselves. In France, the hurdy gurdy lives on folk dance balls (balfolk or baltrad in French), but there are also a number of great players and composers such as Patrick Bouffard or Gilles Chabenat. Classic works for hurdy gurdy are composed and arranged e.g. by Mathias Loibner from Austria. The hurdy gurdy was appropriated by a number of folk-rock and folk-metal bands such as In extremo, Faun, Saltatio Mortis (all from Germany), Eluveitie (Switzerland), Hedningarna (Sweden), Ithilien (Belgium). The hurdy gurdy is used in a number of albums by Canadian world music star Loreena McKennitt. An increasing number of interesting amateur musicians have their channels on Youtube (e.g. Zanfoneando, Andrey Vinogradov, Patty Gurdy, Annie Hurdy Gurdy etc.)

Like bagpipes, the hurdy gurdy has spread to most parts of Europe, so there is a whole range of shapes and local construction solutions, not all of which can be covered here. One of the oldest types is the so-called symphony - the body has a simple square shape, usually only 3 strings, but it can be richly decorated with carvings, paintings, and inlays. One of the most famous shapes is depicted in H. Bosch's famous painting The Garden of Earthly Delights from 1504. In Baroque France, a corpus in the shape of a lute or guitar was popular. Widely rounded shapes are typical for Czech folk hurdy gurdys. Modern instruments, on the other hand, have a mostly utilitarian simple shape, with a minimum of decoration, but with conveniences such as metal tangents, adjustable bridges, capos or pickups.
The gallery of hurdy gurdy shapes from the Middle Ages to the 20^th century can be seen in this gallery.
The most common tuning is G / C: chanterelles g1, g², drone strings C, G, c, trompette string c / d.
In central France in the Berry and Bourbon regions, D / G tuning is used: chanterelles d¹, d², bass D, d, mouche g, trompette d¹.
A special case is the Hungarian hurdy gurdy (Tekerö), it is tuned to A: melodic strings e¹, all other A, a.

Susan Palmer, The Hurdy Gurdy, 1980
Marianne Bröcker, Die Drehleier, Ihr Bau und Ihre Geschichte, Düsseldorf 1973
Pavel Kurfürst, Hudební nástroje, Praha 2002
Bohuslav Čížek, Hudební nástroje evropské hudební kultury, Praha 2002
Doreen and Michael Muskett: The hurdy gurdy method, Hebden Bridge 1998
K. M. Schneider: Die Drehleier, Saarbrücken 2015
F. Baines, Introducing the hurdy gurdy, Early music 1975

How to Order a Hurdy Gurdy

There are a number of possibilities in the production of hurdy gurdy. A careful agreement on the instrument is therefore needed. It is good to choose the shape of the body and also what optional equipment beyond the basic instrument will be useful. The price list published here is for guidance only.
The wheel is made of plywood with pear-wood rim.
Modern instruments often have metal tangents. My opinion is that there is a reason for them only with a higher number of melodic strings, because they take up less space. There is nothing wrong with traditional wooden tangents, and they can serve as well as metal ones on a six-string instrument.
The original instruments, of course, had wooden pegs, not geared tuning keys. Even today, it is a useful option; with proper care of the pegs and the use of a tuning key, the hurdy gurdy can be tuned in this traditional way without any problems. At the same time, wooden pegs are gentler on the strings and the strings are relatively expensive in the case of the hurdy gurdy. However, if the customer wants a modern tuning system, there are two options: either we use banjo mechanics, which is cheaper, but strong bass strings are sometimes destroyed and broken. The second option is more expensive and better and it isthe Wittner Finetune geared pegs.
If it is necessary to sound the instrument with a pickup, it is good to use a system developed specifically for the hurdy gurdy, where the pickups can be controlled under each bridge separately. I use a system from the Czech maker Cejpek - snímace with an XLR-phantom output.
Adjustable bridges and capos are an indispensable but very user-friendly part of modern hurdy gurdies. On the other hand, all metal elements on the top board (i.e. mainly the adjusting screws in the bridges) slightly reduce the acoustic output of the instrument and are thus more suitable for amplified playing. Those who require a loud acoustic instrument should choose a large body and a minimum of metal elements.
The price of the instrument is significantly affected by the number of strings. It is necessary to realize that each melodic string also includes a whole tangent set. The sympathetic strings give the instrument an echo. Without them, the hurdy gurdy plays more specifically, while with them the sound is richer. Sympathetic strings have their supporters and opponents and it is entirely up to the customer which option they choose.
Success in playing the hurdy gurdy depends, among other things, on the ability to adjust the instrument correctly. This feature is of course important for all musical instruments, but a little more for hurdy gurdies.
You can download a pdf about hurdy gurdy maintenace and setup here.
You can see my instruments in the galleries.

Basic hurdy gurdy, 6 strings,maple/spruce, scale 380 mm, wooden pegs, wooden tangents, static bridges	2 100 €
Symfonia, 3 strings	1 500 €
Metal tangents (24 pc= 1 chanterelle)	+60 €
Adjustable chanterelle bridge	+ 35 €
Adjustable bass bridge	+ 35 €/string
Adjustable trompette bridge	+50 €/string
Banjo tuning keys Gotoh	+ 30 €/pc
Wittner Finetune geard pegs (viola)	+40 €/pc
Keyes for lifting chanterelles	+50 €/pc
Capo	+50 €/pc
Sympathetic strings on one side (5 pc)	+ 65 €
Carved head	+340 €
Relief carving of the peg head	+165 €
Mozaic purfling of one board	+120 €
Pick up system Cejpek (3 piezo transducers, preamp, control panel, XLR output)	+350 €

Hurdy Gurdies

About Hurdy Gurdies

How to Order a Hurdy Gurdy

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