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Based on 13th century designs, with one melody and two drone strings. The Minnesinger sounds beautiful at various tunings and is suitable for solo or ensemble use. The diatonic keyboard has programable tangents. It features a steel shaft, precision gold-plated gear-tuners, trued wheel, brass bearings and built-in cotton & rosin containers.
The keyboard shafts, tangents, keyshaft-guides, keyboard buttons and shoulderstrap buttons are precision molded.
The Minnesinger body is made of beautiful Appalachian hardwoods and/or Rosewood. All models have a Sitka Spruce sounding board.
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Then
From the manuscript
"Cantigas de Santa Maria"
Spanish, 13th century |
Now
From "Kelischek Living Room"
Brasstown, NC, 21th century
(Nena DuPree and Bruce Savage) |
Check out the Media Gallery for a video clip of George Kelischek playing the Hurdy-Gurdy!
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While basically a diatonic instrument, any tangent can be rotated up to a semi-tone to the
left or right for playing in different modes.
(Major, minor, or modal, as the need may be.)
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To facilitate playing, Do-Fa-Do (3rd, 6th, & 10th) Key-Buttons
and Tangents are identified
with contrasting colors and tactile feed-back.
When playing, a slightly downward tilted instrument allows keys to fall back to root position by gravity. Mulberrywood (shown above) and Cherrywood are of similar color and texture. |
| Depending on the string gauges chosen, the Minnesinger Hurdy-Gurdy can be tuned from -D- to -Eb-, -Bb- to -C-, or -G- to -A-. Please state your choice! If not specified, strings for playing in -D- to -Eb- will be shipped. A shoulderstrap is included. To protect the instrument, the optional hardcase is highly recommended. |
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