Awesome Hurdy-gurdy

Musician Bonnin Gabriel connected a hurdy-gurdy to the spinning wheel from a vintage Singer sewing machine to maximize its playing speed. In this first clip, he shows off just how badass the thing sounds with a performance of Daft Punk’s Aerodynamic. Bonnin has also posted some hurdy-gurdy tracks by The White Stripes, DJ Snake, and Die Antwoord.

A hurdy-gurdy is a musical instrument that makes sounds by rubbing a spinning bow against its strings. Vinheteiro made a low-budget approximation of the instrument by combining a fishing reel with an acoustic guitar. His version only has one string, and the sound it produces is like a kind of traditional Asian music.

Michalina Malisz has made a name for herself by performing rock and metal songs on a hurdy-gurdy. In this video, she performs a medley of riffs Muse tracks, including Pressure, Supermassive Black Hole, and Hysteria, which sounds super cool on the instrument. Need more? How about some Rammstein or Black Sabbath?

The Eurythmics track Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) is one of the best and most memorable songs of the 1980s. While nobody can pull off vocals quite like Annie Lennox, we’re still mighty impressed by Patty Gurdy’s cover version which replaces Dave Stewart’s synth sounds with the medieval drone of a hurdy-gurdy.

Combining bowed, keyed, and mechanical elements, the hurdy-gurdy is definitely one of the stranger musical instruments. Enjoy as musician Michalina Malisz shows off her hurdy-gurdy skills with a little medley of System of a Down riffs. If you haven’t heard it before, her guitar riffs compilation is worth a listen too.

The hurdy gurdy is already an unusual instrument, with its keyboard, strings, and cranked bow-wheel that rotates across them from underneath. But for the track Break Your Crank on his album Visions, musician Guilhem Desq took his hurdy gurdy to the next level, adding electronic distortion, and giving it a rock edge.

The hurdy-gurdy makes its distinctive sound by turning a rosin-coated wheel across strings as its keys are pressed. Now you can make your own with this flat-pack kit from Ugears. It looks like a very challenging build, but the end result is a functional musical instrument.

Furby Gurdy is a twisted take on a medieval noisemaker known as a hurdy gurdy. Twisting a hand-crank forms and breaks circuits; the result… well, just watch the video above.