Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Guilhem Desq plays Omen

Earlier, in the Donovan post, in comments Amartel tells us a hurdy-gurdy is a very old fashioned fiddle that was big in the early Middle Ages in Europe that went out of style when music became more complex and needed more flexible instruments.

If you listen through to the end you can hear the itinerant Slavic street beggar Amartel describes. I'm fascinated by his hands as he plays standard music.They're artist's hands. He winds around and around then halfway through positively shreds the instrument as with an amped electric guitar, using it to make sounds it is not designed to make. From what I can see, he's recorded a sample then plays over it.

Up to 2,000 comments to this video over on YouTube are all deeply appreciative.

And this whole time I thought hurdy-gurdy was a music box with a crank and on wheels that comes with a Rhesus monkey holding a tin cup.

6 comments:

XRay said...

Certainly mood evocative.

Chip Ahoy said...

Apologies. Windbag. I noticed this morning you linked to this same video in the Donovan thread. I found it independently. Didn't mean to give you the short shrift. Thank you for linking. It's a great find.

MamaM said...

My acquaintance with hurdy gurdies comes via SonM who likes the sound and the mechanical aspects so much he'd have one if not for the high price. I myself am not drawn to the sound.

windbag said...

No worries, Chip. So much stuff flies by in the course of a day, it's easy to forget where you happen across something. I rely on my computer history to help me locate things later when I forget. That gets complicated, since I'm liable to use three different computers.

windbag said...

One of my son's favorite bands here. The hurdy gurdy is a normal instrument in their mix. That video is pretty tame compared to some of their other stuff.

The Dude said...

I bet the bridges are made out of sycamore. The tail piece looks more like walnut, but one can never tell without knowing where the instrument was built and when.

Very odd sounding. It makes me appreciate the musical rest. And staccato.