A diatonic gurdy has the keys arranged in the step pattern of a major scale. Since most of the modern mountain dulcimers I have seen are diatonic, fretted to a major scale (with perhaps one or two 'accidental' frets), you should be able to work with it immediately. If you play any of the other. more ancient and traditional, tunings for the instrument (the common intervals for a Langspil or Scheitholt are different from our current setup) you will have to determine new positions for your keyslides to get the same tuning.
The Chromatic gurdies (with the second row of 'accidental' keys) is set up to play the entire range of notes in pretty much 2 octaves. But even though the 'keyboard' is arranged in a pattern that looks like a piano keyboard, it is not exactly the same. If the open notes on your chanters are G, then the key tones and positions correspond to a piano keyboard layout. Any other open chanter tuning will give you notes that do not correspond - for example the note just below a cluster of 2 accidental notes on a piano keyboard is C (always), but it is only C if your open chanters are tuned to G. In this way it is more like a guitar or other fretted stringed instrument that you can change keys by changing only the string tuning. As a piano player, I tend to keep my chanters in G, because visually I recognize what I should be doing. But that is not the optimal way to play the HG, you learn it by it's own rules, not by comparing it to another instrument. The movable tangents on the keys allow fine tuning and adjustment, and allow what most instruments with either fixed bridges (like a piano) or fixed frets (like a guitar) don't allow - relatively easy changing of temperament. Yes, the general characteristic of the note is determined in manufacture for every key on the gurdy - the location of the keyslide determines the note (if you tune your chanter to G, the first diatonic key will be placed at the position that a fret would be for a whole step up in tone - in this instance A). Moving the tangents (the little 'fingers' that press on the string) gives you a fairly wide amount of adjustment for each note, so you can tune up or down several cents from the position standard. Several tangent designs are limited by only rotating around their back end, but some new tangent designs also allow the tangents to both pivot and to extend or retract toward or away from the string, to allow you to both change the tuning of each key,and t! o balance the key movement even if you get a tangent angle that is a little extreme on a key or two. This is a machine that is a whole bunch of comrpomises rolled into a finicky nightmare of maintenance and adjustment, but luckily most things are adjustable as individual parts, instead of having just a few adjustments for the whole system. So you can get very close in almost every adjustment, but in the end it is the compormises, the inability to perfectly control every note and sound interaction on this instrument, that gives it it's unique character and it's unforgettable sound, and that gives the player so many options and variables in playing and voicing that other instruments don't provide. Chris *********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** On 5/27/2008 at 8:03 AM George Leverett-Altarwind Music wrote: >Hello: >My, there have been some many wonderful replies to this post. > >On a 12 note model (assuming an HG without the 2nd row of chromatic >notes): >yes, the keys are set up just like the fret arrangement of a mountain >dulcimer (assuming the dulcimer doesn't have the "6 1/2" fret; also >assuming >that the scale length of the HG is accurately intoned). > >George Leverett >Altarwind Music > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Matthew Bullis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: <[email protected]> >Sent: Monday, May 26, 2008 12:43 PM >Subject: [HG] New to the list with some questions > > >> Hello, this is Matthew Bullis from Phoenix, AZ. I discovered this >> instrument >> last week, when someone on the autoharp e-mail list had questions about >> it. >> I did an internet search, found the Wikipedia entry for it, and found a >> demonstration of the instrument as a video presentation. It sounds >> interesting. The pieces I've heard though haven't been the kind of music >I >> play. I've found several builders of HGs, including the owner of this >> mailing list. One builder has a HG which has the keys in a fixed >position, >> with the notes like a piano keyboard. These you'd probably play with your >> left hand, and I'm not even a very good piano player with my right hand. >> Then there are the kits you can build, or buy them finished for you. >These >> say to adjust the keys until they're in tune. The kit one has twelve >keys. >> If you have to adjust them, do they still fall within specific notes, or >> can >> you line them up with the twelve notes you'd like to have? Would I be >able >> to align them so that it played like a mountain dulcimer? Or, could I >> choose >> to skip a note and align the keys to whatever notes I wanted along the >> string for a different sound? >> Thanks a lot. >> Matthew >> >> >>
