Hurdy-Gurdy

Hurdy-Gurdy, musical instrument, a mechanized fiddle in which the player changes the notes by depressing keys along the fingerboard and sounds the strings by cranking a rosined wheel at the base of the instrument. A typical hurdy-gurdy has two melody strings running under the key mechanism and four drone strings running alongside it. Large two-person hurdy-gurdies were used in medieval church music. Smaller one-person instruments survived among folk and street musicians as late as 1900. The instrument enjoyed aristocratic vogue in the 18th century. The term hurdy-gurdy is sometimes applied to two other mechanized, cranked instruments, the barrel organ and the barrel piano.