Hurdy Gurdy

A fellow reader of the Hurdy Gurdy Mail list pointed this out on ebay today. Pretty strange. Even stranger is the fact that the game, New Rainbow Islands: Hurdy Gurdy Daibo, is around 4 years old, and no one I know in the hurdy-gurdy world has ever heard of it. From what I can tell, (it is in Japanese after all) Bub and Bob shoot rainbows from traditional French luteback hurdy-gurdies in an attempt to defeat an evil record label. Something that MANY of us wish we could do, actually. ...

A friend of mine was purchasing a selection of hurdy-gurdy music, and it got me thinking of great Hurdy Gurdy recordings. First of all, a disclaimer: As much as I love traditional French music, the kind of hurdy-gurdy playing that really excites me are the albums where performers create something new and personal, with more relevance (presumably) to the modern communities they live in. This might mean playing with other unusual or underused instruments (clarinet, button accordion), or playing in a band, sometimes even with electronic instruments. Not all of those experiments can be called a success, but some of them stand the test of time. These CDs are becoming easier and easier to find as iTunes and other services begin to take notice. I’ll list Amazon links for the albums when available, since these are DRM free MP3s that will play on any device, and can be listened to before purchase. As an aside, I use an online subscription service that lets me hear just about any recording on demand. ...

  I’ve been wrestling with the challenge of introducing the hurdy-gurdy to blog readers. I’ve lived with and around the instrument for most of my adult life, and simply don’t know where to start. ...