Hurdy-Gurdy Tutorials – good quality videos and guides

Hurdy-Gurdy posture

Posture is important not only so you can coup and move around the keyboard effectively, but also so you do not hurt yourself from keeping your wrists, shoulders, and back in awkward positions. Always play with good posture and if something starts to hurt – stop immediately. These tutorials on how to hold a hurdy-gurdy should help:

Hurdy-Gurdy Tuning

Tuning is an important part of the hurdy-gurdy. These tutorials on how to tune a hurdy-gurdy should help you deal with all aspects of tuning:

How to play the hurdy-gurdy

The thing you really came here to do, actually playing the hurdy-gurdy! This is all about building proper technique from the very beginning, and avoiding bad habits. These playing tutorials should help accelerate your playing right at the beginning:

Hurdy-Gurdy Coups

Learning to coup on the hurdy-gurdy is the hardest aspect of playing, especially when you begin to combine coup patterns with a melody. Separating your hands into two separate motions is like juggling on a unicycle. Start slow and work on it a little bit every day! There tutorials on how to trompette/coup should help you train your crank hand properly:

Adjusting the tirant string

Scott Gayman Coup Series

Other Coup Tutorials

Non-English tutorials

Hurdy-Gurdy setup

Setup is one of the hardest parts of playing the hurdy-gurdy at the start. It is key to having a good sound come out of your instrument. Learning the trifecta of cotton/rosin/string pressure is as important as being in tune. These setup tutorials should help your hurdy-gurdy sound wicked:

Cotton tutorials

See our page on cotton, including how to cotton and where to buy it!

Rosin tutorials

Other tutorials

Non-English Tutorials

Maintenance tutorials

Fix Tirant String

Tangents

Having properly setup tangents is important for intonation as well as grace notes and trills. When you have more than 1 chanterelle you need to make sure they hit the strings at the exact same time while activated. The below tutorials will help make sure you have a proper setup.

Make your own Chien

Sometimes you have an instrument with a chien that doesn’t sound quite proper, you lose the little dog and need a replacement, or you just want a different sound out of your trompette. It will take trial and error, so don’t expect to get it right on your first try! These tutorials on how to build a chien should help you get the perfect trompette sound:

Wheel truing methods

The wheel is the most important part of the instrument and needs to be perfectly round and smooth. If you are building a hurdy-gurdy, nerdy gurdy, or just have problems with your instruments wheel – these tutorials on how to true a hurdy-gurdy wheel should help: