Hurdy Gurdy demonstration

This photograph shows Alana Bennett playing a six stringed Phoenix Standard hurdy gurdy made by Helmut Gotschy in Germany (www.gotschy.com). The hurdy gurdy is a stringed instrument played by using a crank-turned wheel. It developed from fiddles and was first used during the medieval period. The predecessor of the hurdy gurdy, the organistrum, is first mentioned in a treatise found in a manuscript written at Augsburg (Germany) in c. 1100. Alana presented a paper at the ‘Receptions: Medieval and Early Modern Cultural Appropriations’ conference held at The University of Western Australia in August 2012 and gave an impromptu demonstration of the hurdy gurdy during a break.