After yesterday’s delights of the Goddesses of Bagpipes, I thought we make take another excursus into the world of another under valued instrument the Hurdy Gurdy. The hurdy-gurdy is a stringed instrument that produces sound by a hand crank-turned, rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar to those of a violin. Melodies are played on a keyboard that presses tangents—small wedges, typically made of wood—against one or more of the strings to change their pitch. Like most other acoustic stringed instruments, it has a sound board and hollow cavity to make the vibration of the strings audible.
Our featured artists today is Patty Gurdy. She is a hurdy-gurdy musician, singer and songwriter from Germany. She took up the instrument in 2014 and describes her genre as “Dark Folk Pop”. She was a member of German bands Harpyie in 2016 and Storm Seeker from 2016–2018. Her Shapes & Patterns EP (2018) included a cover of Over The Hills And far Away. The Rockoutstandout reviewer wrote “Patty Gurdy’s cover with a hurdy gurdy and vocals gives us a completely different take on the song altogether and it works very well. The echo effect on the vocals give this track that well know powerful atmosphere that the original song is able to do. I love this quirky cover and I always feel a sense of warmth when hearing the song.”
In August 2019, Amazon launched the TV series Carnival Row, which follows “mythical creatures who have fled their war-torn homeland and gathered in the city as tensions are simmering between citizens and the growing immigrant population.” At the center of the drama is the investigation into a string of unsolved murders, madness of power, unresolved love, and social adjustments eating away at whatever uneasy peace exists. Patty Gurdy is credited with writing two songs the soundtrack of the series.
In 2019 she joined with three members of Subway to Sally a folk metal band that was founded in Potsdam, in the early 1990s. Their music has clear folk and medieval influences, later also with gothic and metal elements added to the mix. Kalte Winde was their first single together.
