Diary

The first Saturday of the month is T&T-evening in Eindhoven. This time I didn't have to work behind the bar nor did I have to have another laser treatment. At first I didn't feel like going there at all! Every month to the same place? Let's just stay at home and relax this time! But we did go and I didn't regret it. I met a new friend tonight.
Ze has only recently discovered that the simple boxes 'man' and 'woman' are too restricted to category everybody. But fortunately ze isn't too upset about the whole thing. Ze does have a life! On Saturday afternoon ze had been out on the street playing music.

So what instrument does ze play?
The hurdy-gurdy!
What is that???
Good question! A hurdy-gurdy is an instrument from medieval times. It is quite unlike the instruments we know nowadays. Its sound vaguely resembles that of a bagpipe, but a bagpipe is a wind-instrument and the hurdy-gurdy is a string-instrument.
It looks a little bit like a violin, but there is no bow. In a hurdy-gurdy the strings are made to sound by a spinning disk. That produces the characteristic sound many people describe as 'whining', but the enthusiasts immediately recognize it and enjoy it. Another difference with a violin is you don't have to adjust the length of the strings with your bare fingers. On the hurdy-gurdy you use keys for that instead.

Well I am one of the 'enthusiasts'. I really like music played on the hurdy-gurdy. The Dutch folk group Pekel is an example of a group that uses the hurdy-gurdy. You can hear it very well in for instance "Jan Mijne Man" and in "Cupidootje"...

I love music. I also love the physics and mathematics involved in musical instruments and the way they work. Unfortunately I cannot really play any instrument at all myself. The only way I can produce music is with the aid of a MIDI-sequencer.

But it so interesting to talk with musicians and people who build instruments. And tonight I got this opportunity just because I came to the T&T-evening!

Someone has pointed me to a better place to hear the hurdy-gurdy in action:

http://www.midcoast.com/~beechhil/vielle/sounds.html

In "short sample" and especially "The dining table" you can hear why the hurdy-gurdy is sometimes called the synthesizer of the middel ages. In these samples you hear only one hurdy-gurdy...

(Earlier T&T-evenings: July, June, May and April).




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