![]() ![]() A real-life hurdy-gurdy is a monophonic instrument – one note at a time, apart from the drones – but with ours you can choose to follow tradition or break with it and play chords if you like. The drones can also sometimes be tuned (for example, to a perfect fifth) to add an open chordal accompaniment to the melody. It works by rubbing a rosined wooden wheel against violin-style strings, which include both fixed-pitch drones and playable melody strings, which are often tuned an octave apart. It’s complex and organic and wonderfully evocative. ![]() It can sound brisk and cheerful or hauntingly plaintive it can be driven hard to get a really raw attack to the notes, or eased back for a smoother and subtler effect. The hurdy-gurdy is a marvellous thing: a thrumming, resonating, buzzing box of sound, driven by a hand-cranked wooden wheel and a fistful of keys.
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