This song was written by the Austrian composer, Franz Schubert, in 1827 the final song of a cycle called DIE WINTERREISE (The Winter’s Journey) and it is one of the most popular and enduring songs ever composed.
Originally for voice and piano with words by the German poet, Wilhelm Müller, it tells the story of a wandering “drehleier” player, and was consequently called “Der Leiermann”. Schubert is not talking about an organ grinder. In fact, the grinder organ (sometimes called the barrel organ) is not a musical instrument at all. It is a mechanical music box with a crank. The hurdy-gurdy, on the other hand, is an ancient instrument on which tunes can actually be played.
The piano, for which Schubert wrote the original accompaniment to this song, does not do a very good imitation of a hurdy-gurdy, and the hurdy-gurdy does an equally poor imitation of a piano. Consequently, I rearranged the song so that harmonies and chord changes can be played. This was possible because the hurdy-gurdy in the video is a solid-body instrument made by French luthier, Philippe Mousnier, which allows the player to use all the electronic devices and tools that are available for electric guitars (harmonizers, pitch shifters, signal splitters, and all the FX devices in the electronic arsenal).
At two places in this song, I show the pedal keyboard (similar to the kind of thing organists use) which allows me to control the drone strings using my feet.
For singers, another advantage of the solid-body instrument is that, like the electric guitar, it uses magnetic pickups to amplify its sound. This means that it doesn’t make much noise and its sound doesn’t leak into your vocal microphone, so it is possible to sing while playing the instrument without drowning out your own voice! It also means that you can practice the instrument quietly at 3 o’clock in the morning without waking up everybody in the house.
I have wanted to sing this song for years and figured it’s now or never! 😀
21 окт 2024
