Galloping Gurdies: A $300 Hurdy Gurdy, Tested

Let me establish my ethos before we get started here: I own the video game Sea of Thieves, in which you can play the hurdy gurdy, and I've watched a few videos on YouTube.

But seriously, I am not a professional here. I play brass instruments and the piano, and I've done a fair amount of music composition. I do know music, I can play music, and new instruments are usually easy enough for me to pick up and make a tune on. But I am in no way a professional or even moderately skilled gurdy player. I may be the best hurdy gurdy-ist in my area, but that's probably because I'm also the only gurdy-ist in my area.

But to be perfectly honest, I know what a skilled gurdy player would say about this instrument, the cheapest hurdy gurdy money can buy; it's a pile of crap, and you shouldn't buy it.

And believe me, I get it. There are some serious flaws with the instrument that prevent it from being even a competent music-maker, let alone a great one. For such a niche instrument the only way to get a quality one is to send in an order to one of a few artisans who know how to make one, wait for a few months while they build it for you, and then pay an exorbitant amount of shipping or drive out to them to pick it up yourself. If you want a good hurdy gurdy, the cost is high, and there's only a few people who can build you one in the continental United States. Galloping Gurdies and their $300 instrument do not provide that service.

All right. Now let's kick the purists out of here so I can tell you why you should buy one.

Because quality gurdies also have a serious limitation; the price. You can't track these things down in your average music store, and like I said above they pretty much have to be custom built. If you happen to know someone who has one that they'll let you try out, that's great, but who the heck do you know that has a hurdy gurdy?? Odds are very good that you've heard the thing in recordings, you think it looks cool, and you want to try it out. Maybe this is a quirky hobby you'd like to pick up, who knows? Not you! You've never even been in the same room as one of the dang things, they're so rare!

So maybe you just pull the trigger and get one. Willing to order one from Ukraine? You're in luck! For a cheaper 4 or 5 string model from a builder who makes what look like beautiful instruments on his website you can get your own hurdy gurdy for a mere 600 US dollars before shipping. Which can effectively double the price, depending on how much insurance you want on your custom-built specialty instrument. Does that price seem a little high for an instrument you have no idea whether you'll enjoy playing?

Yeah. It does. You're not wrong.

And that's where Galloping Gurdies comes in. $300 after shipping is still a good chunk of money, but it's also not prohibitively expensive if you just want to try the instrument out before committing more serious means to the hobby. If you've had a chance to play one of these things before and you know you'll like it, probably just save up and get a better instrument. But if you're not sure, this is a pretty good point of entry.

My gurdy is solidly built. I have zero fear that it's going to come apart... ever. I could bean a horse over the head with this thing and the horse would wind up the worse for wear. It also uses standard viola parts. If you need help re-stringing the thing (with extra strings Galloping Gurdies helpfully included in the package), you can get that help at any local music shop. It's got two chanters for a good, loud melodic line, and the drones sit in a lower register that, while not as low as an alto gurdy, helps fill out the sound the way you'd want from a hurdy gurdy. And most of all, the thing is fun to learn on. Pecking out melodies is pretty simple with the single row of keys, and if you don't have anyone to give you actual lessons, this thing is simple enough to be basically self-explanatory.

So. The problems. Because there are problems. If you watched the video above, you might have noticed a few. The knob on the handle is tiny, making it uncomfortable for lengthy jam sessions. There's just one row of keys, meaning you're restricted to a major scale in whatever key you tuned your chanters to. Plenty of great bagpipe tunes share the same restriction, so hopefully you like celtic music. The wheel on my gurdy has the hole drilled ever so slightly off center, meaning that the notes through about half of my crank are louder than on the other side. And the keys weren't actually on tune.

That last one is the biggest issue. Most of them were just fine, don't get me wrong, but I had to re-tune the pegs on several of the keys to actually dial it in so they would sound okay. That had the unfortunate effect of making three or four of the keys unable to contact both chanters at once, and changed the positions of several of my keys in relation to the others. The solution to that is to remove the pegs from those keys, fill the screw holes they were on, and then re-mount them in a more appropriate position and re-tune them manually. If you're even sorta handy with a drill, and you've got a good feel for musical instruments, it's just inconvenient, but still. It's an issue I had to solve myself.

In the end, though, I definitely don't feel like I wasted my money here. I am now confident that if I want to spend $1400 on a nice gurdy from one of the two builders on the continent, I will wind up with an instrument that I enjoy playing. And if I do decide to do that, I'll still have a solidly built, lower-stakes instrument that my kids can goof around with while dad makes actual music. So if you're saying to yourself "gosh, I really want to play one of those things but I'm super nervous I won't like it and I'll never actually play it," and the $300 price is looking good for that exact reason, I'd say go for it.

This thing is just good enough to help you know whether you want to upgrade to a more serious model, and frankly, that's exactly as good as it needs to be to justify that price.