A few years ago I watched one of the Academy Awards shows with my mother. I don't remember what year it was, but it was around the time of the release of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, because Sting and Annie Lennox performed together, and she sang a track from the soundtrack. I think. Or it was Cold Mountain. 

Anyways, Sting performed; he sung, and played an instrument I had never seen before. Only this year have I found out what it was—- —–a hurdy-gurdy.

I know, right, "a what?"

A hurdy gurdy, or a wheel fiddle. I remember telling a friend of mine that he had a box strapped to him, with a handle on the side that he turned very consistently, and it made a constant low, humming noise. Sound a bit boring, but the humming was beautiful. Beautiful enough for me to remember it like 5 years later. It stuck out.

I'd like to share what a hurdy-gurdy is with you, by way of a Wikipedia article.

A hurdy gurdy (or hurdy-gurdy, also known as a wheel fiddle) is a stringed musical instrument in which the strings are sounded by means of a rosined wheel which the strings of the instrument pass over. This wheel, turned with a crank, functions much like a violin bow. Melodies are played on a keyboard that presses tangents (small wedges, usually made of wood) against one or more of these strings to change their vibrating length, and therefore pitch.

Most hurdy gurdies have multiple "drone strings" which provide a constant pitch accompaniment to the melody, resulting in a sound similar to that of bagpipes. For this reason, the hurdy gurdy is often used interchangeably with or along with bagpipes, particularly in French and contemporary Hungarian folk music.

 There we go, basically. Here's a picture (click on it for a bigger one):

Whats funny to me is that someone who plays the hurdy-gurdy is called a 'hurdy-gurdyist". Original, eh?

Well, I wanted to share this fascinating instrument with you, and for more information, heres a link to the Wikipedia article.

Hurdy-Gurdy on Wikipedia 

Part 2 shows the decorating we've done so far, and by we, I mean ME. 

I've used a woodburner so far. The decor is a little thing, so I'm considering going over what I've already done with with a thicker tip. Downfall to that is that I may lose some of the intricacies of it all.

I don't really like the way it looks now, and I think thats because the darkness of the burn and the lightness of the wood is too much contrast for me. Hopefully when the stain is put on the burns will look a bit better.

I freehanded all of it, but I did have to look at the picture of the globe to get the earth down. I'm not that good.

In this second picture, you may be able to see the outline of something around the moon, and further up. It's a pregnant woman. For some reason I'd like to incorporate a that into it somehow, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to.

Theres nothing me and the boyfriend like more than playing with world instruments. By world instruments I mean something besides your standard 5-piece American band. We regularly check this stuff out. Check out literally, actually, the story behind this post started with a trip to the library. There I went to the music section, found some books on making musical instruments, and brought them home. These type of things excite him. 

Anyways, he decided to make something from the book, called a Rumba Box. With some research I've discovered that this isn't a common name for it, and the closest instrument I've found is the Mbira, on Wikipedia.  

Now that hes halfway done with it, I took some pictures of our progress.

The basic idea, I've found is a thumb piano. This is a big bass version of that. It requires wood, music wire, a bridge, and some patience.

The crescent moon you see is the necessary sound hole. The metal strips in the middle are the two layer bridge, similiar to a piano with flats and sharps.

The next steps are to stain it, decorate it, and get the music wire on it and tuned. We'll keep you posted. We're quite excited. I don't think my boyfriend has thought about it WHERE we're going to put it, though….. 

A certain person, who shall remain nameless and doesn't have a MySpazz account, likes to make mixtapes for me.  The start of this exchange was sort of a contest to see who could mix a CD with the most eclectic selection of music, ordered to as to cause audio misdirection.  It was a fun little game we played, I was declared the winner of the first few rounds, and then it became more of a service we performed for each other.  I'd like, at this time, to offer a few pointers for people who endevour to share their taste in music with their peers:

1. If this isn't going to be the only mix you give a person, keep track of the playlist.  Unintentional repeats are both distracting and disheartening.

2. This might just be me being uppity, but if you take joy in putting together collections of music for people, especially if you're shooting for a 'random' feel with contrasting music styles, use a program that will not put two seconds of dead air between songs.  It disrupts the flow and gives you time to mentally adjust to potential genre shifts.

3. Point three is akin to the old "If you don't have anything nice to say…" idea.  If you're trying to impress somebody with mixology, make sure your mix is light on stuff with heavy radio play.  If I wanted Fall Out Boy followed by Justin Timberlake followed by Rascal Flatts, I'd listen to the Kage more often than I do.

4. This is the most important, so I'll make it bold: Know your audience.  I personally believe it is more important to know that a person hates than what they like.  A good mixtape will introduce a person to new realms and varieties of things instead of just regurgitating familiar niceties into a CD that a person could have made themselves.  It's better to be adventurous and use a song that may have a flat reception than to use a song that will be skipped every time.  I mean, it's okay to use a song that you know is bad or otherwise unlistenable for comedic effect, if it will get at least one full listen and a laugh.  However, the use of Nickelback on a mixtape will cause that mix to go largely unlistened to.

5. It's also nice if your mix has a name that would distinguish it from the myriad unlabeled CD-R's in your friend's CD case.

Okay, that's just a few ideas I have.  I hope you'll take these to heart and be able to rise above your peers' "Mix #2".  Happy mixing, and God bless.