The hurdy-gurdy is one of Europe's oldest musical instruments. A kind of mechanical violin, it uses keys and a crank, along with melody and drone strings. Some call it the medieval synthesizer, and a ...

The hurdy-gurdy is a fascinating string instrument dating from sometime around the 10th century. There is an active community of modern enthusiasts, but one can’t simply walk into a music shop and buy ...

Stringed instruments bowed by a wheel cranked by hand have been around for centuries, and come in many shapes and sizes. Inspired by 16th century instruments, mechanical model maker UGears has created ...

It never hurts to iterate the phrase “Op-Ed” at the beginning of articles in this section. It may help us (in this case, I) remember that the writer is not an encyclopedia or – to be more current – ...

Bloomington based multi-instrumentalist Tomás Lozano plays one of the most fantastic and mysterious instruments on planet Earth – and for that, he's one of the greatest gems of the Indiana music scene ...

Twenty-seven years ago, in search of a hurdy-gurdy master, Donald Heller wandered into a music shop in Budapest. There, he saw a beautiful maiden, an ancient-looking stringed instrument in her lap, ...

The only difference was, bagpipes usually sound like a polyphonic assembly while this sound seems like a lone voice shrewdly culled from such an assembly, singled out, groomed up and presented to us ...

An error has occurred. Please try again. With a The Portland Press Herald subscription, you can gift 5 articles each month. It looks like you do not have any active ...

The hurdy‑gurdy, often recognized by its unmistakable bellows‑like crackle and rustling rasp, is an ancient European chromatic bowed‑string instrument whose voice predates the very idea of recorded ...

Today's Beautiful Music is an introduction to the hurdy-gurdy. The unusual string instrument is played with a hand crank, and its ancestor -- the organistrum -- dates back at least to the 12th century ...

The hurdy gurdy is one of, if not the coolest old-timey instruments. Great sound, beautiful craftsmanship, not a lot of talent required to get a basic sound out of it, and so on. But David Cranmer’s ...