How To Play The Three-Stringed Diatonic
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3How to play the three-stringed diatonic
HURDY-GURDY
By George Kelischek
December 2010
The hurdy-gurdy described here is of the three-stringed Medieval & Renaissance type, with a diatonic
keyboard, adjustable tangents, and of treble size. Having made and restored hurdy-gurdies of many kinds
and sizes, I chose the three-stringed diatonic type as the most satisfying and pure to play for myself and
to build for others. Tenor and bass pitched hurdy-gurdies have also existed in Medieval times and should
perhaps be revived as well.
Since no instruction book or method for this type of hurdy-gurdy exists today, I shall try to pass on
enough information on tuning, adjusting, and on playing for the novice to get started.
The hurdy-gurdy is perhaps the oldest known stringed instrument with a keyboard. The strings
are activated by a rosined, hand-cranked wheel. A melody and two drone strings (low drone and octave
higher second drone) sound at the same time. A very small amount of cotton is wrapped around the string
to make indirect contact with the turning wheel. As long as the wheel is turned, a tune can be played by
gently pressing tangents against the melody string, The drone strings can be temporalily disengaged if only
the melody is wanted.
On diatonic hurdy-gurdies all tangents are movable not only for “focusing” the intervals, but can
be moved a semi-tone up or down and thus can be set to play scales in modal, in major, or in minor keys.
In addition, the open strings can be tuned to different intervals relative to each other. The diatonic hurdy-
gurdy is in no way inferior to the chromatic keyboard hurdy-gurdies of the Baroque, but offering many
advantages over the six-stringed Baroque type. (MORE is not BETTER!!!)
Three different sets of strings are available. Each set will work on the Minnesinger, as well as on
our Balladeer models. As long as the sounding string length is about 34 to 35 centimeters, the strings will
also work on hurdy-gurdies made by others. The difference is in the gauges chosen for a given pitch level:
The higher the desired pitch, the thinner the string, the lower the desired pitch, the thicker the string.
Unless ordered otherwise, we will supply new instruments with strings for playing in the key of
-D- , or a semi-tone higher in -Eb-. (Same set of strings tuned higher or lower within the range indi-
cated)
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For playing in the keys of -D- or -Eb-
Key of -D-
Tune the low drone to -d’-,
high drone to -d”-
melody string to -a’-,
Key of -Eb-
Tune the low drone to -eb’-,
high drone to -eb”- melody string to -bb’-,
Type of String:
Melody string
Gut (always)
0.028” to 0.029” diameter
High drone string
Monofilament nylon or gut
0.020” to 0.021” diameter
Low drone string
Nylon, wound with silver plated copper
0.030” to 0.031” diameter
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For playing in the keys of -C- or -Bb-
Key of -C-
Tune the low drone to -c’-,
high drone to -c”-
melody string to -g’-,
Key of -Bb- (bagpipes play in that key)
Tune the low drone to -Bb-,
high drone to -bb’-
melody string to -f’-,
Type of String:
Melody string
Gut (always)
0.030” to 0.031” diameter
High drone string
Monofilament nylon or gut
0.021” to 0.022” diameter
Low drone string
Nylon, wound with silver plated copper,
0.033” to 0.034” diameter
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