Getting the trompette to buzz

[Paul Howland]

Hello all.  I'm the proud owner of a brand-new G/C Siorat hurdy-gurdy which arrived yesterday.  A beautiful instrument with a delighful tone.  It has two trompettes.  The C-trompette buzzes easily, but I am having difficulty with the G-trompette.  The trompette plays OK as a drone, but I am really struggling to get any kind of buzz out of it.  I've obviously played with the tirant, and even if I tighten this to the point where there is a continual buzz, it is very, very weak sounding.  Not a real buzz at all.  The dog moves OK (and I've taken it out and put it back).  I tried re-cottoning the string and rosining the wheel.  I'm sure this must be some kind of set-up issue - maybe induced by the French and Dutch postal services, but I have no idea how to get the dog buzzing!   Can anyone advise what the issue might be and how I could resolve it?

 

Thanks,

 

Paul

[Scott]

Hello Paul,

Sounds like the notch on the dog I is not far enough back or the tail of the dog is slightly to thick and causing it to bind up a bit .

Scott

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[Kazimierz Verkmastare]

I might start out by taking a regular emery board (a nail file) and making one or two light passes on the side of the tail end of the dog where it pivots.  It only takes a bit of humidity to swell wood, and while you don't want a floppy fit, a single pass or two might get it freed up.  Remember, the forces that cause the buzz are small but very predictable, and it is difficult to tell just by feel if the dog is free enough.  this is only one of the many things that can happen when you move an instrument from a location with one temperature/humidity standard to another.

 

Another reason to learn how to carve a dog if you own a gurdy - lots of things might be out of the reach of the average owner to fix, but careful study and some time with some basic hand tools and you will become a pro dog carver in no time.

 

Chris

[MITC...@aol.com]

Is this a g (an octave below the chanter) trompette or a g' (same note as the chanter) trompette? I have two trompettes on my 3-chanter flatback, one of them tuned to the g note an octave below the chanter, and the other a conventional c'/d' trompette with a harp tuner capo.

 

While my g trompette works (unlike yours at the moment), I don't find the g trompette all that useful. It's inevitably going to have a pretty weak buzz with that low a note. I've also setting it up at the same pitch as the g' chanter (my luthier thoughtfully provided strings and dogs for both g and g' trompettes, so I could choose between them), but I liked the high g' trompette even less. In G/C tuning, the only trompette setup I find that I like the sound and feel of is the conventional c'/d' trompette with a capo system.

 

It's all personal preference I guess (I know other players who like having a g or g' trompette), but I for one am not that impressed with the idea of having a second trompette. I could have left that feature off my gurdy, saved a little money, and had a perfectly good g mouche there (which is pretty much how I use it now).

 

Just one player's 2 cents.

 

Mitch Gordon

Guerneville, California, US

 

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[cwhill]

Before actually taking any wood off, I'd suggest a trial using either
pencil lead (graphite) or "slippy stuff" first. A little bit of powdered
pencil lead from a really soft pencil - 4B or better - applied to the
tail of the dog may at least give an indication if that is the problem.
You can't put wood back on after you have scraped it off!
If it makes a difference, then by all means start filing. I only say
this as I'm a little heavy-handed and a few strokes of an emery board
would probably take too much off for me. It would need very gentle
strokes - and even ones as well. It may only be a tiny bit that's
catching. You could also try the carbon paper test (like finding where a
door jams) although the paper may be too wide for that to work but it's
a thought and shouldn't harm anything.
As you can gather, anything sharp near my HG is a last resort, I'm not
that skilled!

Colin Hill

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[Paul Howland]

Thanks everyone for the useful replies!  In the end, I thought it safer to wait a few days until my next lesson and to get my teacher (René Meeuws) to take a look.  He fixed the problem, and it turned out to be a combination of a number of small adjustments:

• Reapply cotton on string
• Light sanding of the foot of the dog to ensure better contact
• Light filing of the notch of the dog to move the string back slightly
• Slight trimming of the width of the foot of the dog to make it smaller

The combination of all of these has resulted in a great buzz!  Not sure I would have risked doing all that myself, but having seen someone else do it, I know what to do in future.

Cheers,

Paul