Whats up with the $20 hurdy-gurdy I found on the web?
Yes, indeed, there’s a website that tells you how to make a hurdy-gurdy in a weekend for $20. We used to be polite to Dennis about this, but we gave it up after a while. Let’s speak plainly: that’s not a hurdy-gurdy, that’s a Hurdy-Gurdy Shaped Object (HGSO). If you want an instrument that sounds like that, then that’s your choice, of course. If you want an instrument that sounds like a hurdy-gurdy, you’re going to have to invest much more than $20 and a weekend. We’re not in the business of building hurdy-gurdies for the money – if we were, we would be in some other business instead. We’re here because we love the instrument. HGSO’s do a great disservice to the hurdy-gurdy community: they give people the impression that this terrible sound is what a hurdy-gurdy is expected to sound like, and they waste the time and money of the builder/player. Caveat emptor.
