: FIRST MOVEMENTS

Required Materials :

- a Hurdy Gurdy
- a tuner
- a metronome
- a cassette recorder
- small, sticky labels
- This time number the left hand from "1" for the little finger to "5" for the thumb


THE MOVEMENT OF THE WHEEL :

You must have mastered perfectly the style of turning the wheel taught in the previous lesson. You must be able to do it semi-automatically without looking at your arm.

Today you are going to work on the regularity of the movement.. The aim is to be able to make a complete turn of the wheel at a tempo dictated by the metronome without speeding up. To achieve this you run the metronome and at each "tick" you must make one turn of the wheel. Before starting, try to do it without regulation so that you can asses better how difficul the action is.

• Exercise 1 - Free wheel (easy level) :
  - set 60 as your tempo
  - no string should be touching the wheel
  - start with the handle high.
  - you must make one complete turn for every two beats of the metronome
  
  
• Exercise 2 - Engaged wheel (intermediate level) :
  - engage one melody string (chanterelle) and the trompette (chien), because the trompette allows you to hear particularly well if the wheel is speeding up. It is the principle of the Coup de Poinget, the flick of the wrist (see the next lesson).
  - set 60 as your tempo
  - you must make one complete turn of the wheel for every two beats of the metronome and you must never hear the chien.At the same time the melody string must sound even, without too many variations. You must control your instrument by ear.
  
  
• Exercise 3 - engaged wheel (slightly more difficult) :
  - repeat exercises 1 and 2 at a tempo of 80
  
  
• Notes :
  - record yourself. Often you can hear better on a recording whether the sound is even.
  

THE KEYBOARD

The manipulation of the keyboard (fingering) is quite as important as that of the wheel. The object of this second part of the lesson is twofold: to familiarise yourself with this part of the instrument and to be able to separate the use of the right hand from the use of the left..

• Preliminary Actions :
  - only engage the melody strings and tune them to G (the classical tuning)
  - the piece of music given above is played using only the black keys (naturals). The open string is, therefore, in Sol-fa, So. the first key is La, the second is Ti and the rest follow.
  - for those who do not know Sol-fa here is a little tip: starting from the head of the Hurdy Gurdy call the first natural key "A" the second "B" and the others follow on. The music then reads A B C E D C B C D F E D C D E G F G D C. (using the English notation wherre c=Do...)
  - this air provides two exercises for finger agility: extension of the thumb and crossing over of the fingers.
  
  
• Exercise 1 - Without turning the wheel (Intermediate level) :
  - without taking account of the rhythm, play the notes given above (the number above each note corresponds to the finger to be applied to the key).
  - set the metronome to tempo 60, and play the notes given above at the rate of one note per beat..
  - set the metronome to tempo 120, and play the notes given above at the rate of one note per beat.
  - set the metronome to tempo 60, and play the notes given above at the rate of two notes per beat.
  
  
  
• Exercise 2 - Turning the wheel (More difficult) :
  - repeat Exercise 1 while turning the wheel correctly and regularly.
  - for the parts with the metronome at 60, count one turn of the wheel for each beat.
  
  
  
• Note :
  - for the following, the metronome and the wheel are very closely linked.
  

EXERCISE:

Try to repeat the exercise, without looking at your right or left hand, but looking straight ahead. This is more difficult than it seems, especially at the beginning.


FOR NEXT TIME:

Prepare a series of little labels reproducing the table below. The red line represents the sharps and flats (white keys), and the blue line represents the natural notes (black keys). Each label must be stuck to the rear of the asociated key where you can see it.

Sol#	La#	Do#	Ré#	Fa#	Sol#	La#	Do#	Ré#	Fa#
La	Si	Do	Ré	Mi	Fa	Sol	La	Si	Do	Ré	Mi

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