Hello all,  What with all of the discussion about hurdy-gurdies and
their sound and tolerability, I thought you all might be interested in
a video of a virtuoso hurdy-gurdy performance that I found on YouTube.
Apparently, there are many, many videos of bagpipes and hurdy-gurdies
there, amongst more conventional solo instrumentalists and groups, (as
well as many clips of automatic instruments, too).  Here's the link:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZKQf-JIvRU

Remember, this is a _manually_-played instrument, and thus takes
a great deal of skill to be able to play like this.  I am kind of
reminded of the sound of a Violano-Virtuoso or Phonoliszt-Violina,
since both of these instruments play their violins with circular wheels
or bows (which move in one direction only), which produces a slightly
different sound than an actual violinist, who moves a bow back and
forth across the strings.

I also think that this particular hurdy-gurdy has a feature where you
can disengage the drones, allowing some single-string work more like
a violin or viola.

Andrew Barrett