Hurdy Gurdy: Contemporary Destinations (II)

Short excerpt from "Nomenclature" section clarifying some issues regarding etymology of the instrument' s name"

"

Nomenclature 

It is believed that the name ‘hurdy-gurdy’ is onomatopoeic in its origin and in Old English its meaning is often  equivalent  to loud commotion, disorder and havoc1.  

The  English term  ‘hurdy-gurdy’ is shared with a musical device known as the barrel organ. These are  often confused by  their superficial similarities, such as crank action or continuous sound. 

For the purpose of this work, the name of the instrument – hurdy-gurdy – has been used exclusively to describe the lute- or guitar-shaped mechanical fiddle, equipped with buttons stopping melodic strings and a rosined wheel touching strings to produce friction and vibrations just like a bow moved across the strings. 

This serves  the purpose of differentiating  the hurdy-gurdy from a barrel organ, even though the latter is commonly called ‘hurdy-gurdy’ in English. 

The English name of the instrument is the only  thing  shared between two different, mechanically unrelated and musically distant entities.2

National versions of the instrument  have  names associated with a specific region or a country of Europe where it  is played. For example,  the Polish hurdy-gurdy  is known as  Lira Korbowa  (lit. lyre with a crank), Ukrainian – Lira (which is often used with variations across Eastern Europe), Hungarian – tekerőlant and German Drehleier. Zanfona is an Italian instrument, while one the most appropriate replacement for English word ‘hurdy-gurdy’ is French la vielle à roue or simply a vielle3.

. 

Since most of those regional names are idiomatically related to specific variants of the hurdy-gurdy, I will be using them interchangeably to outline the notion of  the  international presence of this instrument.  

  
                                                            
1. Oxford English Dictionary - entry for hurdy-gurdy 
2. Robert Green; Hurdy Gurdy in XVIII Century France. Publications of the Early Music Institute,  
Indiana University Press, 1995 
3. Margaret J. Kartomi: ‘On Concepts and Classifications of Musical Instruments’. In:   
Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology, University of Chicago Press, 1990 

"

Hurdy Gurdy: Contemporary Destinations (I)

Below is an opening from my recent paper on hurdy-gurdy in contemporaneity. The entire work will be published soon and is aimed mostly at the enthusiasts of the instrument:  

"The aim  of this dissertation is to  bring  the fact of presence of  a  relatively unknown musical instrument  –  the hurdy-gurdy  –  to reader’s attention  while focusing on the musicality of the instrument and its constant evolution throughout the history to modern times.   

The hurdy-gurdy is often considered a musical oddity – a novelty – often misunderstood due to its inaccurate etymology and – oddly enough – suffering a stigma of marginalisation which originated from outdated social class divisions throughout our history of culture. 

Those who decided to uncover the true past of the instrument often had to confront problems of a logistic or economic nature – e.g. the hurdy-gurdy is not easy to acquire, to build or to purchase. Those conditions  though lead to the creation of a special bond with the instrument, which I as a composer, researcher and hurdy-gurdy player, find unique and very rewarding; a bond which I could not successfully form with any popular and widely available musical instrument. 

While enthusiasm and dedication is necessary to become  a  competent player, the appreciation of the past of the hurdy-gurdy is very satisfying and inspirational adventure taking aspiring players through the sounds and musical idioms which are not easily found in popular streams  originating from past three centuries of popularized tradition.  

By presenting  the  current  status  quo  of this instrument, I am aiming at delivering  an  accessible compendium of information and insight into the plethora of potential musical application for the hurdy-gurdy, – with respect to currently available instruments, performed and recorded music and areas for further experimentation and development.   

In doing so, I decided to utilise  descriptive analyses  of  samples of  existing music representing different artistic approach  to the instrument; interviews with selected players and makers and my own personal experience with technical aspects of the hurdy-gurdy. 

Knowing the instrument without hearing its traditional oeuvre and playing it for the first time without knowing  ‘what to play’  is probably one of the most important moments in one’s own discovery of a new world of sounds.  

While  the  chronological brief included in this work addresses  a  wide historical scope, the main objective is to present the hurdy-gurdy as an able and adequate instrument for music students today, amateur and professional performers and enthusiasts alike, as well as for musicologists. 

The chapters discussing technical solutions allowing the hurdy-gurdy to be adequately incorporated into contemporary styles of music and its idioms require an  intermediate level of understanding of musical terminology and physical aspects of sound-production, conductivity of the sound waves and a basic level of knowledge on instrument maintenance and handling. A certain level of knowledge on electrification, amplification, recording and MIDI equipment is  advised yet not critical  for an understanding of this dissertation. 

The existing knowledge  about  the instrument suffers  from inadequacies in its scope  –  historical treaties are lacking musical application for contemporary player and many modern-day enthusiasts of the instrument are often limited in perceiving their instrument as a passable tool for contemporary improvisation and musical experiments.  I therefore believe that this dissertation will encapsulate the majority of the aspects of the instrument and shed a wider light on its presence in musical culture. "