Alina (and hi to everyone else), I play tekero too, and I also second everything Arle says. He knows what he's talking about. You're going to get a whole lot of chatter on this list, so don't let it overwhelm you. As an example of that sort of distracting chatter, I'll add that I usually tune my tekero a step down from the standard tuning Arle mentions. My drones are G, and my melody strings D. This is useful when I want to turn off my drone strings and play in the key of D instead of G, as I'm often in bands that want to play in D. Feel free to ignore this information. Good luck! Melissa www.melissatheloud.com Arle Lommel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Hi Alina,
> Are you guys saying that if my instrument has a certain type of > string, it shouldn't be tuned in certain ways? I'm a little > confused because of all the different advice I'm getting... What you can tune your instrument to depends on the strings you are using. Since you play violin, think of the difference between the various strings. They all have the same length, but they are different thicknesses, and if you try to tune one of them to the pitch of another, you will either break it (if you tune it too high) or have it loose and useless (if you tune it too low). The same applies to your hurdy-gurdy. If your instrument is strung as an A instrument and you tune the drones up to D, you stand a very good chance of breaking them. My advice I sent to you in a personal e-mail was to use E-A-A tuning. This is because it is almost certain that the strings you have on your instrument were selected with this tuning in mind, unless you know otherwise, e.g., if you requested a different tuning or if a previous owner set up something else. This tuning is used because Hungarian traditional music is played in the nominal key of A (with a number of different modes, including natural minor). Since you are a beginner, I would recommend using this tuning until you are familiar with the instrument and know what you actually want instead. Then you can go through the string-selection process and pick what you want. I would really recommend that you not start out with trying to restring the instrument, because (a) string selection is something of a black art and successfully mastering that black art requires that you have some idea of the outcome you want, and (b) having to deal with the vagaries of strings will only add to the initial difficulties you will face. So take a few months to get to know your instrument and then, when you know it well, start experimenting with strings. In terms of getting started, the fact that your big string is broken isn't really a major problem. Learner exercises on the tekerŠusually start out using the two strings you do have and leave the big drone off until you have mastered the other two. You will, however, want the bass drone fairly soon. Perhaps the best option (short of having Béla send you his recommended string) is to go into a violin repair shop with your instrument and the broken string and talk to the person who works on instruments there and ask for help in getting an equivalent string. (I would go to a specialty shop even though you'll pay a little more for the string, because you'll get someone who actually understands strings there. If you go into a general music store -- the sort that caters to schools and hobbyist guitar players -- you're unlikely to get anyone who really knows enough to help you find the right string.) Best, Arle --------------------------------- Now that's room service! Choose from over 150,000 hotels in 45,000 destinations on Yahoo! Travel to find your fit.
