I'm not going to argue that we should consider this great art, but a bit of context may help explain it and show why it's valuable.
I can pretty much tell you this guy's story in broad strokes just from the recording, which is very typical of ones in the Soviet era from the 1960s–mid 1980s. He was a peasant who had played the instrument in the 1920s or 1930s and then gave up the instrument because nobody wanted that kind of music any more. (My guess is that this particular player had never been particularly good, but he had probably been much better at some point in the past than what you see here.) He didn't touch it for decades until one day in the late 1960s or 1970s a bearded young researcher knocked on his door and asked him if he played the hurdy-gurdy (because someone in a neighboring village thought she remembered that someone had once played it and it might have been this guy). If he was lucky he had an instrument buried in about an inch of dust in his attic, but more than likely he didn't have one anymore, having sold it at some point to buy bread. So he either tried to get his instrument working or was loaned one and asked to perform. He had to try to remember how to do everything without any of the tools he once used and was given little time to prepare. Depending on the circumstances, he may have played for this researcher for a few weeks or only a few hours, and he probably never had occasion to play hurdy-gurdy again, disappearing back into obscurity since nobody but these long-haired researchers wanted this sort of thing anymore. That's why you get an abundance of these terrible recordings of out-of-tune instruments. You really can't blame the players in most cases. I've listened to a lot of these kinds of recordings, and, if you can get past the tuning and the effects of decades of neglect, many show genuine skill that just needs some cultivation. While it sounds bad to us, these recordings are often all we have of once-vibrant traditions that have vanished. I'm glad we have even this, because without this sort of recording we'd have nothing. Under the same circumstances, how many of us would have done any better? -Arle On Feb 20, 2011, at 13:08 , Michael Opp wrote: > Has anyone seen this yet? > > They mic the instrument, but not his voice. >.> > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNF5Daew1Dk > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "hurdygurdy" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/hurdygurdy The rules of posting, courtesy, and other list information may be found at http://hurdygurdy.com/mailinglist/index.htm. To reduce spam, posts from new subscribers are held pending approval by the webmaster.
