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Hurdy-gurdy

Els Peeters

MABO - Lycée Maria-Boodschap - Rue de la Braie 22, 1000 Bruxelles

The hurdy-gurdy, created during the Middle Ages (IXe century), is a string instrument where the strings are rubbed with a wooden wheel instead of a bow. The wheel is turned by a hand crank with the right hand, while the melody is played on a keyboard with the left hand. As most of the other acoustic instruments, the hurdy-gurdy has a sounding board and a hollow space to make the strings’ vibrations audible.

The class is open to everyone, from beginners to more advanced. The focus is on “chien” technique. In the basics, we work on the one-beat to the four-beat with attention to disconnecting left and right. For those who want a bit more challenge, we can work on the regular three-beat, skip beats, irregular time signatures, playing dynamically with beat. All this using melodies learned by ear or with a score, depending on your own learning style. All levels are welcome!

The professor can help you find an instrument, do not hesitate to ask him for advice.

Els Peeters

Els Peeters is didactically trained. For many years, she was a teacher in a school for children with autism. Besides the violin, which she has played since childhood, she has a love for the hurdy-gurdy. With everything she learned about playing it in courses and workshops at home and abroad, she developed a teaching method that can be found in the practical textbook ‘liere draaie’. This method focuses on disconnecting the left and right hand and guides you step by step. The unique tool she designed for this purpose makes playing the chien visual and concrete. She now teaches hurdy-gurdy in the academies of Genk and Ypres (B), regularly at Stichting Draailier en Doedelzak (NL) and gives children’s hurdy-gurdy lessons in Gooik. In the Genk academy, she is care coordinator and teaches nutology to children from the nut tree.In addition, she performs contemporary folk, together with three other members of Cadansky, she was a member of the music group JEBB and the Spelemannen and collaborated in various projects.