Since as a child I glimpsed a documentary on catalan hurdy gurdy maker Sedo in local TV I always wanted to try and play it. So now it was time to make that dream come true. So I started to look into simple starter affordable models under 1000 € to try the instrument.
When looking for that the first alternative I got was building a Nerdy Gurdy but I don’t have a great skill building physical things so I prefered to get one from a maker.
When looking for makers I observed some of them have two affordable models. As I call them:
- The student model
- The minimum viable product
Today I’ll review one of the later type.
An MVP hurdy gurdy is a hurdy gurdy that has the bare minimum things to be called a hurdy gurdy. Some examples of this design and construction approach are:
This are two instruments with the same bare minimum features:
- A chanter
- A drone
- A trompette
However they differ in the design and making being very different in how they finally look like. Let’s focus on Colibri.
As you can see it is an “out of the box” ax and wheel design with and octave and a half keybox. The external ax is easy to oil, a thing that I’ve been to do two times due to the summer humidity in Barcelona.
Because of its unconventional design it’s a bit difficult to tell at first sight whether the string has two trompettes or a trompette and a drone, that’s because of the decision to put both drone and trumpet and chanter on the same bridge and at the same side. The trumpet can be disengaged because the dog has to positions for the string. Other strings have to be disengaged putting them out of their bridge slits.
The wheel took like a week to get properly soaked and varnished with rosing. The material is very absorbent and needs a lot of rosin the first days.
One interesting unexpected behavior of this single bridge design is that while the trumpet is disengaged, if it is not properly adjusted, sometimes vibration from the drone makes the dog vibrate anyway.
I had some issues with the dog and had to adjust the dog slit and tail so it could move completely freely using some abrasive paper. Henri himself gave me that recommendation and also send some replacement dogs to use them if they where needed. After that me and my teacher have been able to practice many coups in triangle and square geometry and accents within them.
It features mechanical pegs that are very useful to fine tune the instrument and adjust the dog.
And adjustable plastic tangents in a nice designed and nicely built keybox where keys slide very well. It’s been a pleasure to play this keyboard comparing with other bigger plastic keyed instruments, also because of being single stringed the keys offer less resistance. Been able to do vibrato and richochet with it. I think it helped me to develop my left hand. It is however short ranged having just and octave and a halve range.
The reason of having drone and trumpet in the same side is so the “sliding clip” capo. That simple and clever idea lets you tune the drone at any note from C to G or even A depending on the strings you have. Very practical if you want to play with diatonic accordions in A minor. However you need to develop a sense to tune by ear from the chanter or have a tuner at hand. Also changing drones in the middle of a song is very impractical and noisy.
It came with a nice bag by Luxbag and a simple leather belt.
The Strings included in the Colibri are:
- Chanter: Helicore Viola G LH (Long Scale Heavy)
- Drone: Helicore Viola C XLM (Extra-Long Scale Medium)
- Trumpet: Nylon 1mm
Due to the little ressonance box it has low volume so I replaced the strigns ot get more punch. My current mix is:
- Chanter: Evah Pirazzi Viola G Strong
- Drone: Eva Pirazzi Viola C Middle
- Trumpet: Savarez Alliance Guitar Sol – G – 3 R543 Unwounded, cutted and tuned to C
I also tried Savarez Corelli Crystal and New Crystal C Medium Tnsion as Drone but it borke (twice!). It has a nice very low volume but very rich sound with lots of harmonics it felt like the chanter notes where being played over a set of already existing frequencies painted by the drone. It made me think and reflect about the spectral possibilities of the Hurdy Gurdy.
This improved the volume in acoustic setting and so I can liesten to myself while play with my teacher and my friends. I’m experimenting with mics and also piezo pickups, but I don’t have a conclusion yet.
My conclusion is that is a very flexible, affordable (for a gurdy) and portable instrument that will help you know whether you like the instrument and a good learning instrument if you’re going to be learning about music (improving shight reading, gaining musicality, interpretation skills) and dissociation while you learn the hurdy gurdy. However I’d recommend to jump to a student model or something more full featured if it’s not your first instrument and specialy if you come from an instrument that has already thaught you hand dissociation like the piano or the accordion.
This is a couple of things I recorded so far. Both with the Pirazzis already installed.
An this the first day after class with the Helicores.
Hurdy Gurdy String Log 