Hm. Well, I'm going to be based in the DC area but traveling up and down and all around quite a bit over the next year starting in the spring. I bet we'll be within striking distance of each other at some point or another. I also really like the idea of Skype. I can get William (my husband) to aim a camera directly at what I'm doing re: cottoning and as for tuning we could work that out by talking and listening.

I'm not bothered by the c/g v d/g tuning. I can either transpose or play harmonies to whatever you're playing.

And if you do put your gurdy up for sale, let me know, okay? It sounds like a lovely instrument.

Felicia.

On Dec 22, 2011, at 8:20 PM, Jake Conte wrote:

Felicia, I'm in East Brunswick in central New Jersey. I know there are some gurdy players in New England, but that would be a 3-6 hour drive by car.



On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 11:16 PM, Felicia Dale <[email protected] > wrote: Jake, where are you located? Perhaps someone with a bit more experience could swing a meeting with you and help you out with the cotton and rosin issues. I would be glad to give it a try if we're within striking distance of each other.

Felicia.


On Dec 20, 2011, at 6:42 PM, Jake Conte wrote:

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]> 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

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