Stringed instruments bowed by a wheel cranked by hand have been around for centuries, and come in many shapes and sizes. Inspired by 16th century instruments, mechanical model maker UGears has created ...

Twenty-seven years ago, in search of a hurdy-gurdy master, Donald Heller wandered into a music shop in Budapest. There, he saw a beautiful maiden, an ancient-looking stringed instrument in her lap, ...

The hurdy-gurdy is one of Europe's oldest musical instruments. A kind of mechanical violin, it uses keys and a crank, along with melody and drone strings. Some call it the medieval synthesizer, and a ...

Movies benefit from Oscar exposure--and so do weird instruments. In the week after Sting played a hurdy-gurdy (a wooden stringed instrument with a keyboard and a crank that turns a wheel that acts as ...

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The hurdy-gurdy is the duck-billed platypus of instruments. It has strings but you don’t pick or strum them. It ...

Charles Nelson, left, and David Herrera pose for a photograph at the upcoming Hurdy Gurdy restaurant, located in the old Mudhen building at the Dallas Farmers Market. Jason Janik / Special Contributor ...

Ask Idahoans today what a hurdy-gurdy is, and most will have no idea. A few will probably know that a hurdy-gurdy was a kind of hand-cranked musical instrument popular in the 19th century. But if you ...

Christmas concerts are God’s gift to early music groups such as Piffaro (Philadelphia’s Renaissance wind band). Audience love taking refuge in holiday exuberance from what we imagine as a better, ...