Gurdy by Robert Mandel available

[Arle Lommel]

I have information on a hurdy-gurdy by Robert Mandel for sale. For some reason I cannot post information about it to the list: I've tried twice and both times it simply vanished. If someone is looking for a unique gurdy from a well-known maker, let me know and I'll email you more details. And maybe later my posts will show up if it's just a matter of Alden authorizing it.

-Arle

[Rob]

hi all

here is a blog post that includes a sound clip / more photos to come!

http://hurdygurdyweekly.blogspot.com/2014/04/for-sale-renaissance-vielle-by-robert.html

cheers!

  Rob Cherwink

The Hurdy Gurdy Weekly • #HGWeekly > http://tinyurl.com/HGWeekly

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* to contribute to the paper: please tweet URLs using #HGWeekly, like and post to the page on facebook, or email (see newsletter or blog) - please share your events and favorite articles, photos, and videos! ~ thank you - please enjoy!

On Apr 25, 2014, at 9:22 AM, Arle Lommel wrote:

I have information on a hurdy-gurdy by Robert Mandel for sale. For some reason I cannot post information about it to the list: I've tried twice and both times it simply vanished. If someone is looking for a unique gurdy from a well-known maker, let me know and I'll email you more details. And maybe later my posts will show up if it's just a matter of Alden authorizing it.

-Arle

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[Arle Lommel]

Thanks. For whatever reason if I included a link to the sound file it wouldn't post, so thanks for posting information. By the way, his asking price is 3200€. 

Arle

--

Arle Lommel

Berlin, Germany

Skype: arle_lommel

Phone (US): +1 707 709 8650

Sent from a mobile device. Please excuse any typos.

[Rob]

you are most welcome / always a pleasure!

[Ulrich Joosten]

Arle,

I thought you might be interested in a power point presentation I did some time ago. I would need somebody to check if this is all correct musically.

I’s based on a Weichselbaumer Viola scale, that means it has two semitones below the regular G string scale.

If you look at the presentation in presentation mode you can use the hyperlinks to navigate.

Let me know if you find any mistakes and if this thing is of use for you. One remark: I made this one with Microsoft PP which I do not use any longer. In Libre Office it seems that the program does not follow the hyperlinks correctly. It is intended that a click on the small circle of fiths icon in the lower left corner brings you to this slide, a click un the HG icon in the lower right sie should bring you to the overview and on the circle of fiths slide a click on a scale name should bring you to the linked scale.

I’m curious about your opinion.

Best regards,
Ulrich

[cwhill]

I'm not that musically literate but is there a particular reason why the
note b is shown as h?

Colin Hill

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[Dave Holland]

I believe that German-speakers (used to) write the note B-flat as B,
and the note B-natural as H.

Bach wrote a piece based on the note name sequence B-A-C-H (i.e.
B-flat-A-C-B-natural)

A German will now correct me. :)

Cheers,
Dave

[Christa Muths]

Hola,

Yes, the German scale is as follows: cdefgahc, whereas the English scale is: cdefgabc!
It's been driving me mad when the English and Spanish teachers spoke of b and I had to go through the whole scale to find where the b is in "your" scale.

Saludos

Christa
Sent from my iPad

[Christa Muths]

No, that's correct Dave.
-:)))

Christa

Sent from my iPad

[Ulrich Joosten]

Dear all,

sorry, it wasn’t intended to confuse somebody. I made a mistake. Initially I wanted to send the scales just to Arle asking for his opinion. Of course, for an international „release“ the H should be replaced by B and the B by Bb. And yes, in Germany it still is common to use H.
Also for international use I would have translated the rest of the German stuff.

Interesting: quite some reactions regarding the German B-H-Bflat etc confusion, but no opinion if somebody thinks my chart may be of any use anyway… ;-)

Hope you enjoy it.

Best,
Ulrich

[Christa Muths]

Hi All, hi Ulrich,

well, I looked at the charts and thought how advanced you are in understanding the hurdy compared to me. I also went to my wall chart comparing "your" scales with the once I have on my wall chart poster. Just out of curiosity. They are identical. So I thought how interesting that you can play all these different scales covering a few centuries on the hurdy too.

I also thought that I should try out at least some of them, to get a feel for different sounds.

That`s all I can say. I am still a beginner playing the hurdy but play other instruments too and have always been very interested in music theory and especially different scales, hence my wall chart poster.

That`s all I can say I am afraid. Not a lot but it got me very interested indeed. I spent some time looking at your presentation.

Saludos

Christa

(P.S. Ulrich:BTW: Papyrus is fantastic, although 400 footnotes got lost. :-)))

On 25 July 2014 15:49, Ulrich Joosten <ulrich....@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear all,

sorry, it wasn't intended to confuse somebody. I made a mistake. Initially I wanted to send the scales just to Arle asking for his opinion. Of course, for an international "release" the H should be replaced by B and the B by Bb. And yes, in Germany it still is common to use H.
Also for international use I would have translated the rest of the German stuff.

Interesting: quite some reactions regarding the German B-H-Bflat etc confusion, but no opinion if somebody thinks my chart may be of any use anyway... ;-)

--

Voltaire

Every man is the creature of the age in which he lives; very few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the times.

Jeder Mensch ist das Wesen der Zeit, in der er lebt; nur sehr wenige sind in der Lage, sich über die Ideen der Zeit zu erheben bzw. hinwegzusetzen.

Cada hombre es la criatura de la edad en la que vive; muy pocos son capaces de elevarse por encima de las ideas de la época.

[Dave Holland]

On Fri, Jul 25, 2014 at 03:49:58PM +0200, Ulrich Joosten wrote:
> Interesting: quite some reactions regarding the German B-H-Bflat etc
> confusion, but no opinion if somebody thinks my chart may be of any

> use anyway... ;-)

Hi Ulrich,

sadly my computer crashes after the first few slides so I can't read
all of it, and my German is pretty terrible anyway...! Is it possible
to create a PDF version please? Or is the chart interactive in later
slides?

Cheers,
Dave

[Ulrich Joosten]

Hello everybody!

Dave, sad to hear that your computer crashed. I will provide a pdf version later. My initial thought was that it is interactive: In presentation mode you can e.g. click on a mode name in the overview slide of the circle of fiths and the hyperlink brings yo to the scale you chose. Clickin on the circle icon brings you back to the overview, click on the litte gurdy brings you to the start.

BEst,
Ulrich

[cwhill]

Unfortunately I can open and view but can't interact with it as I don't
have the software. My powerpoint program is something included with
another program and trying to get presentation mode asks me to buy
Office so can't really pass comment and my German is limited to passing
school exams some years ago..

Colin Hill

On 25/07/2014 14:49, Ulrich Joosten wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> sorry, it wasn't intended to confuse somebody. I made a mistake. Initially I wanted to send the scales just to Arle asking for his opinion. Of course, for an international "release" the H should be replaced by B and the B by Bb. And yes, in Germany it still is common to use H.
> Also for international use I would have translated the rest of the German stuff.
>

> Interesting: quite some reactions regarding the German B-H-Bflat etc confusion, but no opinion if somebody thinks my chart may be of any use anyway... ;-)

[Rob]

hi all

Nigel Eaton has been kind enough to give me permission to post up his dropbox -- "here's some of my new tunes on pdf, (partitions gratuit) those that aren't here are in the 2 tunes books published by Blowzabella" -- i have also included a link to his soundcloud, and a youtube playlist which includes all of his uploads. -- thanks Nigel!

PDF downloads include: Come When He Calls, Conspirators, Firestarters Of Leiden, Goldcrest, Halsway in D the Original and best, Lysander, Lyvet, Merry Maid A, Merry Maid B, Napoleon in Morocco in G, Napoleon in Morocco, Swan at Upton, Vergers C drone, and Vergers.

http://hurdygurdyweekly.blogspot.com/2014/07/nigel-eaton-music-new-tunes-on-dropbox.html

:|: #HGWeekly :|:

cheers!

Rob Cherwink

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http://tinyurl.com/HGWeekly

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[Rob]

hi all - another nice gift - this one from Neil Brook - -

Neil Brook has graciously offered up his CD "Rambles Through The Park" for free download on The Hurdy Gurdy Weekly!

thank you Neil!

DOWNLOAD "Rambles Through The Park" (July, 2006) | Neil Brook

http://hurdygurdyweekly.blogspot.com/2014/07/rambles-through-park-neil-brook-cd.html

:|: #HGWeekly :|:

cheers!

Rob Cherwink

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* to contribute to the paper: please tweet URLs using #HGWeekly, like and post to the page on facebook, or email - please share your events and favorite articles, photos, and videos! ~ thank you - please enjoy!

[Ulrich Joosten]

Hi everybody,

Colin, there are free alternatives to office on the internet, e.g. Libre Office or Open Office. As I wrote, I either don’t have Microsoft Office with which I have produced the slide. But Libre Office for example does it for me. The slides do not look as fancy as in MS office, but presentation mode works.

Anyway I plan to provide a pdf version to be sent within the next days.

Cheers,
Ulrich

Best,
Ulrich

[Ulrich Joosten]

Dear all,

finde enclosed a new version of the Power Point presentation Hurdy-gurdy scales.

I translated the notation to the English system (and hope I made no mistakes). U fortunately the Libre Office program is totally crap - I was not able to give names to the slides and I could not enter hyperlinks. I treid several times and it drove me mad because after
saving and re-opening the file all hyperlinks were gone. If somebody is able to help out - any hint is very welcome.

Please, if somebody wants to proofread: this would be very good.

Oh, yes, I deleted all the redundand information of the first version (that means: not used notes were grayed in the first version, now I totally removed them, so one can concentrate just on the relevant notes).

Your thoughts are very welcome.

And: I enclose a pdf verison.

Have fun,
cheers,

[Ulrich Joosten]

Hello Tom,

I know that the hyperlinks do not work in the English version. I copied the German version (which was done in MS office) within Libre Office. Then I reworked all the entries to translate them into English. When everything was done I realised that Libre Officee does not store hyperlinks - I really tried hard to do so. It was very frustrating: I re-entered all the links. Then I saved the file. As I re-opened it all the links were gone.

So - I decided to send it anyway. Even if you do not have the functionality to navigate through the file - at lest you have the information.

Once anybody can he give me a hint how to get the links working I will do so.

Any help is welcome.

Best,

Ulrich 

Am 27.07.2014 um 19:29 schrieb tka...@verizon.net:

 Hi Ulrich:

In you first (German) version, these links work in PowerPoint: F-C-G-D-A, a-d-g-c-f, all church modes (Ionisch etc), Thierry Nouat.

 In your second (English) version nothing works.

P.S. I do have Microsoft Office running on an Apple computer.

Regards,
Tom

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[Arle Lommel]

Hi Ulrich,

I apologize for taking a few days to respond. We just moved (within Berlin) and I’ve had a lot of work to do.

This is a valuable resource, especially as many musicians have no formal training in these aspects of music theory and I think it can really help expand their horizons. There have been times I would have used something like this when I’m trying to remember what a particular mode is.

One of my first thoughts is that this would make an ideal online (HTML) resource, since that solves the clickable problems. A lot of the complex things I mention below could be easily addressed in a single web page using JQuery + Javascript to allow tunings and modes to be changed while staying in one page. While I couldn’t do it in the next month, I’d actually be interested in programming an online single-page version of what you’ve done that would calculate and show different modes for any tuning people choose. We should talk in mid-September or so when some of my pressing projects will be over.

But for now, I’ve looked though the latest version and have a few minor comments.

• To emphasize the connection between the parts, you might consider adding “(Aeolian)” after “major” and “(Aeolian)” after “minor” in the slides that you start with.
• Slide 5: typo, says “C major” instead of “C minor”
• Slide 14: typo, “Inonian” instead of “Ionian”
• Slide 18: still in German
• After 19: Would you add Locrian as well? It’s not commonly used, but for completeness it would make sense to include it. Similarly, if you ever want to get more ambitious, there are a lot of other modes that could be of interest. The obvious ones to add would be the melodic minors (although the fact that they are actually a pair of matched modes for ascending and descending passages would complicate describing them). Going a bit further afield, scales such as the Double harmonic scale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_harmonic_scale), which is one I use a lot in my playing, might be interesting.
• Slide 20: this one I find interesting because the numbering is the reverse of piano practice. Given the centrality of piano fingering for many musicians, I think it might make sense to reverse the numbers, i.e, 1 = index, 2 = middle, 3 = ring. (And I’d note that this is French/older U.S. style for piano; for full correspondence with current U.S. and German numbering, I think 1 would equal the thumb. but I think this doesn’t make sense for your purposes).
• More generally, the Weichselbaumer instrument you have has an unusual tuning. If you move this to a web resource, you could have an option to show it with the Weichselbaumer (open F), C/G (open G), and G/D (open D) tunings for the various scales. Then people could adapt it to their instruments. Of course this adds some complexity to what you are doing, but in the web interface I’m thinking of it would be really simple…

I’ll try to look at it a little more in coming days and get back to you with anything else, but I hope the above helps.

Best,

Arle

Ulrich


Am 26.07.2014 um 02:10 schrieb cwhill <cwh...@santa-fe.freeserve.co.uk>:

<Hurdy-gurdy scales 2.7.pdf><Hurdy-gurdy scales 2.7.ppt>--

[Ulrich Joosten]

Dar all,

thanks to everybody fpr your comments/suggestions. Especially to Arle who enabled me to correct some typos.

So find attached an updated version. Still without hyperlinks, I shall investigate on that topic.

[Ulrich Joosten]

Hello Arle,

no apologies necessary. I think one of the worst developments in being online is that everybody thinks everyone HAS to be available at any moment and HAS to respond in the wink of an eye. I don’t. ;-)

Big thanks for your thoughtful remarks.

One of my first thoughts is that this would make an ideal online (HTML) resource, since that solves the clickable problems. 

I would be grateful for any support. Unfortunately I’m an old fashioned guy without any html programming knowledge. I did my homepages with a mac website editor by Sandvox, but I do not have any detailled coding experience. I nearly died trying some „code injection“ on this pages. So every help would be very welcome.

• To emphasize the connection between the parts, you might consider adding “(Aeolian)” after “major” and “(Aeolian)” after “minor” in the slides that you start with.

My notation knowledges is a bit limited, so what do you mean with adding Aeolian after „major“ and „minor“? I’m not sure if understand.

Slide 5, 14 and 18 are corrected in the updated version I’ve sent to the list.

• After 19: Would you add Locrian as well? It’s not commonly used, but for completeness it would make sense to include it. Similarly, if you ever want to get more ambitious, there are a lot of other modes that could be of interest. The obvious ones to add would be the melodic minors (although the fact that they are actually a pair of matched modes for ascending and descending passages would complicate describing them). Going a bit further afield, scales such as the Double harmonic scale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_harmonic_scale), which is one I use a lot in my playing, might be interesting.

Of course I could add these scales. I’m not quite sure which one to use. I saw that locrian has different versions, starting on different notes. Hm...

• Slide 20: this one I find interesting because the numbering is the reverse of piano practice. Given the centrality of piano fingering for many musicians, I think it might make sense to reverse the numbers, i.e, 1 = index, 2 = middle, 3 = ring. (And I’d note that this is French/older U.S. style for piano; for full correspondence with current U.S. and German numbering, I think 1 would equal the thumb. but I think this doesn’t make sense for your purposes).

That was a major mistake I made. I reverse that in an upcoming verison. These fingerings are jus an example (inserted this word). Note: Thierry spares the pinky to use it as basic note finger to block a note while his other fingers  are used to play higher notes (e.g. chords)

• More generally, the Weichselbaumer instrument you have has an unusual tuning. If you move this to a web resource, you could have an option to show it with the Weichselbaumer (open F), C/G (open G), and G/D (open D) tunings for the various scales. Then people could adapt it to their instruments. Of course this adds some complexity to what you are doing, but in the web interface I’m thinking of it would be really simple…

On the first hand I made the file for myself. But I think if this shall be published to a broader community I should remove the first two semitones to come up with a regular scale. But maybe the Weichselbaumer kyeboard layout may become more commom. I have to capos on this tones (on f# and g#) that can easily be unlocked while playing. In combination with drones in G/A, E/F and C/D (both capoed drones and trumpets) plus 2 mouche in C and G this gives you a wide variety of possibilites.

I’ll try to look at it a little more in coming days and get back to you with anything else, but I hope the above helps.

Thanks for everything!

Best regards,

Ulrich

[Ulrich Joosten]

Dear all,

sorry, please dump version 2.8!

The attached version version contains the correction of a major mistake regarding the (mistakingly) reversed fingering numbers.

[Ulrich Joosten]

[Ernic Kamerich]

Hello Ulrich,

Nice work, thank you for that!.

But why would one base all church modes in c only? For instance, if you have the luxury of an extended range down to F and a bourdon in G, dorian mode can be played easily based on G and, supposing that the tuning of the tangents is adapted to a bourdon in G, this will work well in the many cases where the melody does not go lower than F. Medieval hurdy gurdy players will have done the like, because most hurdy gurdies were diatonical or almost diatonical (C-D-E-F-G-A-Bes-B-C-..., where I suppose that a bourdon in D and possibly a bourdon in G/A was available).

Personally, I prefer not to play some of the proposed scales. For instance F major if the tuning of the tangents is based on bourdons in C and G, because the third F-A will be much too large, unless the fifth D-A is very small, in which case a mouche / alto drone in D for playing in G is unacceptable. However, when the tangents are adjusted to bourdons in C and G, the D major can still be used by  avoiding the low A and pressing sufficiently hard on the high A-key. But again, I would not play in A major or minor with this tuning because of the bad fifth A-E. But if one does not care about pureness of the third, all these scales can be used. It is a matter of taste.

Best regards

Ernic

Best regards,
Ulrich

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[Arle Lommel]

I’ve mentioned to Ulrich privately that after September I might be able to program an online tool that would show the modes starting on any key for any tuning of instrument. That would be the easy way to accommodate what you want, Ernic.

So I’ll consider this for what I have in mind.

-Arle

[Arle Lommel]

Hi Ulrich,

See below:

On 2014 Jul 28, at 10:43 , Ulrich Joosten <ulrich....@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello Arle,

no apologies necessary. I think one of the worst developments in being online is that everybody thinks everyone HAS to be available at any moment and HAS to respond in the wink of an eye. I don’t. ;-)

Big thanks for your thoughtful remarks.

One of my first thoughts is that this would make an ideal online (HTML) resource, since that solves the clickable problems. 

I would be grateful for any support. Unfortunately I’m an old fashioned guy without any html programming knowledge. I did my homepages with a mac website editor by Sandvox, but I do not have any detailled coding experience. I nearly died trying some „code injection“ on this pages. So every help would be very welcome.

• To emphasize the connection between the parts, you might consider adding “(Aeolian)” after “major” and “(Aeolian)” after “minor” in the slides that you start with.

My notation knowledges is a bit limited, so what do you mean with adding Aeolian after „major“ and „minor“? I’m not sure if understand.

What I meant is that when your slides reference something like “C minor”, it would help reinforce the later section on modes if it read “C minor (Aeolian)” or “C minor (= Aeolian mode)” or something like that, so that users see that minor = Aeolian. I made a mistake in what I wrote, since it is “Ionian,” of course, should be inserted after “major”.

Slide 5, 14 and 18 are corrected in the updated version I’ve sent to the list.

• After 19: Would you add Locrian as well? It’s not commonly used, but for completeness it would make sense to include it. Similarly, if you ever want to get more ambitious, there are a lot of other modes that could be of interest. The obvious ones to add would be the melodic minors (although the fact that they are actually a pair of matched modes for ascending and descending passages would complicate describing them). Going a bit further afield, scales such as the Double harmonic scale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_harmonic_scale), which is one I use a lot in my playing, might be interesting.

Of course I could add these scales. I’m not quite sure which one to use. I saw that locrian has different versions, starting on different notes. Hm…

Locrian is the only one of the classic church modes you don’t have listed already, so that would be the priority. For C, Locrian would be C Des Ees F Ges Aes Bes C. It’s really not a useful scale in most cases because the diminished fifth makes the scale want to resolve out to something else.

• Slide 20: this one I find interesting because the numbering is the reverse of piano practice. Given the centrality of piano fingering for many musicians, I think it might make sense to reverse the numbers, i.e, 1 = index, 2 = middle, 3 = ring. (And I’d note that this is French/older U.S. style for piano; for full correspondence with current U.S. and German numbering, I think 1 would equal the thumb. but I think this doesn’t make sense for your purposes).

That was a major mistake I made. I reverse that in an upcoming verison. These fingerings are jus an example (inserted this word).

Ahh. OK. I thought Thierry did it this way. I could see a very nice logic to it, actually, but just through that the centrality of piano knowledge argued to go another route.

Note: Thierry spares the pinky to use it as basic note finger to block a note while his other fingers  are used to play higher notes (e.g. chords)

That is a nice technique I use a lot in my playing.

• More generally, the Weichselbaumer instrument you have has an unusual tuning. If you move this to a web resource, you could have an option to show it with the Weichselbaumer (open F), C/G (open G), and G/D (open D) tunings for the various scales. Then people could adapt it to their instruments. Of course this adds some complexity to what you are doing, but in the web interface I’m thinking of it would be really simple…

On the first hand I made the file for myself. But I think if this shall be published to a broader community I should remove the first two semitones to come up with a regular scale. But maybe the Weichselbaumer kyeboard layout may become more commom. I have to capos on this tones (on f# and g#) that can easily be unlocked while playing. In combination with drones in G/A, E/F and C/D (both capoed drones and trumpets) plus 2 mouche in C and G this gives you a wide variety of possibilities.

Neil Brooks actually has a very nice system he’s designed for this. His F# key is connected to a harp sharping mechanism that normally keeps the string capoed at G, but when the key is pressed the mechanism rotates and opens the string to F#. The F key does the same thing but is coupled to the F# key so that it rotates two mechanisms and opens the string to F. I’ve not tried playing one like this, but it’s a great idea.

I’ll try to look at it a little more in coming days and get back to you with anything else, but I hope the above helps

Thanks for everything!

No problem.

-Arle

[Ulrich Joosten]

Arle,

this time only for you (for the moment)

- included „Aeolian“ and „Ionian“ behind C major and minor

- included new slide with „Locrian“ (I confess I did not know this scale before)

REgarding fingerings: I would like to include some more. Unfortunately I lost my notices from a course with Gilles Chabenat - his approach is quite different. Maybe it is not really compliant to use the fingerings some people taught. I have written an e-mail to Thierry and he did not even answer… Maybe I go ask Anne-Lise Foy for her fingering …

We’ll see.

I am glad that I could provide a useful source … 

It was itching me to also include a tuning recommendation. My friend Volker Heidemann and I found out a tuning compromise that made my gurdy sound together with his bagpipes (northumbrian small pipes, musette bechonnet and bohemian bagpipe. Finally I decided not to publish this chart to avoid a shit storm. This is a very senstive area and different people have different tastes. Anyway I attach it for your personal info. Nowadays I personally tend to tune the single notes as „clean“ as possible so I can e.g. play together with a saxofone (which sometimes caused mistones). 

That’s it for now,

all the best,

Ulrich

[Felicia Dale]

Hi, all,
My friend Pierre Rose is selling his Hackman gurdy. I think it's an Orca but I'll ask him to be sure. I have pictures and more details if anyone is interested. It's located in the Seattle, WA, USA area.

Thanks!
Felicia.