Cottoning. for me, was akin to some ancient occult art!
I honestly though I would never, ever get the hang of it.
I still don't consider myself as good at it (often takes several tries
and even then, probably too much) but I can at least apply it (and I
doubt I would be able to do that without having spent several hours with
the video).
Two things to consider.
Cottoning and applying rosin are skills that have to be learned and
that's difficult in isolation as you have no yardstick so have to take a
guess at them.
No point is thinking your superb model doesn't sound like what you hear
on a CD. You are listening to professionals who are at the top of their
profession - of course they sound good!
A big problem with cotton and rosin is that you know it's not quite
right but you don't know how or why.
Small changes are the order of the day for a beginner (and I still
consider myself as such).
In some cases, the better the instrument, the greater the expectation!
Remember that a child learning to play the violin is still going to
sound awful at first even if they re learning on a Strad!
Get the DVD and, as said, small steps (one string and get that right).
Bells and whistles are fine but the more that's on it, the more that can
go wrong and the harder it is to get it sounding good (as only one
aspect/string/tangent needs to be slightly out and, with a drone
instrument, it'll sound terrible and, of course, the better the
instrument, the more you get convinced it must be you. (well, it is if
you haven't tuned it but I think you know what I mean).
Get a melody playing on one string and then add the drone and get those
working. Work from there.
Remember, you have to learn to drive whether you bought a Rolls Royce or
an old heap. Same skills required. But once you have
learned....................
You'll get there - eventually.
Colin Hill
On 21/12/2011 04:03, [email protected] wrote:
There's no question in my mind that applying cotton and rosin are
essential skills that a beginning player needs to learn, and that he/she
needs help from another player a couple of times before the beginner is
in a position to figure this out for him/herself. Sure, you can look at
YouTube videos, and watch Neil or Scott throw a piece of cotton from
across a room and have it fly perfectly into place, nicely wrapped on
the string...but the reality for a beginner is that getting the cotton
right is not obvious at all at first. You don't know what you should or
shouldn't do, how much is too much or too little, how to adjust the
piece that's there, making sure it's tight enough, and on and on. We
just went through this with my student, who just bought my Phoenix, and
she succeeded in turning a very stable instrument into an unplayable
screeching monster in no time at all...we took one look at the high
chanter, said that's way too much cotton, do this, do that, add some
rosin...and voila, she and the gurdy are friends again.
There are all kinds of other levels of how a perfectly good gurdy can
become unplayable in a player's life until they wrestle it back into
control, but as regards the beginner and a well-made instrument (that
doesn't have press-fit tangents) the cotton and rosin issues will be the
main hump to get over.
And as someone else said, if we are blessed to have Over The Water again
this year, Cali and Alden's maintenance class will make you a much
happier human being who shares a home with a gurdy.
Mitch Gordon
Guerneville, Calif., US
In a message dated 12/20/2011 6:42:29 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
[email protected] writes:
Hi Elisabeth and Kevin,
By "high maintenance" I mean the whole cotton issue. Do I put to
much cotton, loo little cotton? Tweaking the tangents. One player
once told me not to worry about whether I put too much or too little
cotton. Eventually I should know how much to put on. Another
roadblock was that I had asked to have it set up in D/G as I play
primarily Celtic music and figured D/G would be better suited for that.
And, not to dwell on Bruno's comments, but I just wanted to add that
this was going to be my one and only hurdy gurdy purchase and I
wanted to get it with all the 'bells and whistles' and I wouldn't be
able to afford a second gurdy. Now, I'm thinking maybe I should have
bought a more basic model instead. They did make a "Symphonie" model
which was a lot less expensive.
Thank you all for your inspiration. I will definitely make a go of
it and, hopefully, will not be putting it up for sale next year.
Jake
On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 2:20 PM, Kevin Hughes <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hello Jake,
I'm curious as to what problems you are encountering in learning
to play. You used the phrase high maintenance in two of your
emails. Could you be more specific as what these issues are?
I was once asked to look an Orca from Olympic Instruments. A
friend had borrowed it from another friend(who been give it as a
gift but never played it) and thought that the bridge needed to
be lowered(or the string notches made deeper) and wanted me to
look at it and see what I thought. It turned out that he was
trying to tune the open chanterelle to D and so the string was
not making good contact with the wheel. I looked at the
paperwork that came with the instrument, found the chanterelle
should be tuned to G, tuned it, cottoned the string, did a bit
of shimming, and the instrument played. (This was a couple of
years ago and I still haven't seen the friend play it.) But it
seemed like the instrument was close to being good to go when
shipped.
When starting out the cottoning and related shimming is the
first hurdle to overcome. Neil Brook has a youtube video that is
helpful for this. Next is getting used to turning the crank and
playing notes. The Muskett book is good for this as are Neil
Brook's DVD tutorials. Aftre that work in trompette technique.
Scott Gayman has a great series of youtube videos on this. And
as with any instrument consistent practice yields best results.
You will of course have to replace the cotton from time to time.
A tangent or two may shift and need to be realigned. There could
be other issues that arise, however once the instrument is set
up it doesn't seem to me to need constant tweaking. Other folks
may have other experiences.
I wish you well in your endeavors.
Kevin
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "hurdygurdy" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected]
<mailto:hurdygurdy%[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.
--
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.
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com <http://www.avg.com>
Version: 2012.0.1890 / Virus Database: 2109/4692 - Release Date: 12/20/11
--
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.
-----
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2012.0.1890 / Virus Database: 2109/4694 - Release Date: 12/21/11
-----
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2012.0.1890 / Virus Database: 2109/4694 - Release Date: 12/21/11
--
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.
