hurdy-gurdy

Local name: lira, lira kręcona, lira dziadowska, lira żebracza, lira wiejska
Classification: 3 Chordophones / 32 Composite chordophones / 321 Lutes / 321.3 Handle lutes / 321.32 Necked lutes / 321.322 Necked box lutes or necked guitars / 321.322-72 Necked box lutes or necked guitars sounded by bowing by a wheel
Maker: Wyżykowski Stanisław
Village / Town: Haczów
Region: Subcarpathia
Country: Poland
Owner: Franciszek Kotula Ethnographic Museum in Rzeszów
Inventory number: MRE 9787
Description: a guitar-shaped body constructed from flat plates and bent ribs with keybox/tangentbox and pegbox attached to it; four strings: two melody strings (inside the keybox, shortened by two rows of 14 and 10 keys/tangents) hitched to the tailpiece, and two bourdon strings (outside of the keybox) attached to hitches in the upper part of the resonance box; strings are agitated by the rim of a wheel bow (mechanic bow) turned by a crank; resonance holes in the front plate
Decoration: moulded crank knob, decorative carved resonance holes
Materials: wood, metal
Sound compass, tuning: g: d1: a1 – a2 (chromatic scale)
Performance practice: used in the territories of the First Polish Republic by wandering singers, or "dziady", mainly in the east, especially in White Russia and Ukraine, where it survived until the interwar period; in ethnically Polish regions (the areas of Sandomierz, Rzeszów, and the Subcarpathia region) it disappeared completely before World War I; nowadays reactivated in the folk revival, with numerous innovations
Catalog card by: Zbigniew J. Przerembski


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