Are you planing on buying a Hurdy Gurdy in Amazon? hold your horses! save frustration and problems reading this article, trust your gurdy teacher.
If you are considering getting a hurdy-gurdy, you might be tempted to turn to Jeff Bezzos as a convenient and cost-effective option. However, there are a few reasons why buying a hurdy gurdy on Amazon might not be the best idea.
Let’s do a little research and see which results do we get when we search for our new instrument.
Ok! not so bad, there aren’t many options, just the infamous uGears, which is basicaly a toy, and well it actually looks like a toy, so you wouldn’t be fooled would you?, let’s have a look at how it sounds.
The tittle is amazing, a real professional hurdy gurdy player is going to delight us with his interpretation on the uGears gurdy toy.
What do you think? well at least they are fair and show you the real sound of it! but how is a real hurdy gurdy suposed to sound like? let’s see the great Sebastian Falke from Sweeden playing a gurdy made by Cesar Loureiro.
Well folks, and that’s why you shouldn’t get a hurdy gurdy from amazon, I think it’s pretty obvious… but what about other famous internet shops?
Hurdy-Gurdy Etsy
Ok let’s go for Etsy, is etsy a good place to buy a hurdy gurdy? Oki, time to make a quick search and see which results do we get…
Workshop Medieval
Hey this looks far better than Amazon to be honest, and we even have a 1600€ ish workshop medieval hurdy gurdy instrument, expensive is suposed to be good, right? Nope, don’t be fooled.
-IN YOUR THE PREVIOUS ONE THEY HAD A 5.000€ DIFFERENCE, DO A COMPARISON OF GURDIES OF THE SAME PRICE RANGE-
My hater is right! And here’s what 1600 ish € get you, if you go a professional luthier like Sedo García and ask for a student model, I think the comparison speaks by itself.
Galdrshop Hurdy Gurdy or Fairygurdy
But there were more options on Etsy! let’s continue our ressearch, now onto the guys of Galdrshop Hurdy Gurdy, are their 500-650€ gurdies any good? we will find out, this is the official demo.
Interesting! and perhaps difficult to judge by somebody without gurdy experience or musical background, it sounds FAR better than the workshop medieval for a third of the price, and maybe… to drone and play some melodies it would work, but not if you want to learn proper technique and how to play for real, let’s see how a good gurdy in the 500-650€ price range behaves.
Take your time, listen to both options and try to hear the differences by yourself
The sellers on etsy and similar, are not knowledgeable about hurdy gurdies. Unlike real hurdy gurdy luthiers who have extensive experience with these instruments, our etsy friends definitely don’t have the expertise needed to help you with the right hurdy gurdy for your needs, unless you want something to hang on the wall or something to carry around a Larp event.
shut up… and what about eBay??!!!
eBay Hurdy Gurdies
Of course in eBay we can find used instruments as well, but lets focus on sellers that offer new gurdies, and my search results are… this, let’s research together!
The two first ones are made by the chinese hurdy gurdy maker Song, he seems to be the top seller Gurdy on eBay, and only around 1000 ish €, let’s find some video!
Song, the Chinese hurdy gurdy after PROFESSIONAL EXPENSIVE REBUILD
I only found this video of Scott Gayman, a hurdy gurdy expert from the US playing the chinese gurdy after a massive rebuild where he changed A LOT of things, so this would probably add 1000-1500€ onto the base price of the instrument just in rebuilding if you go for this option, but let’s see!
I couldn’t find an official sound test of the gurdy before rebuilt, which is an indicator that was next to unplayable, but hey a fair comparison would be a gurdy around 2000 or 2500€ right? 1000 ish euro spent on the instrument, another 1000 ish spent on rebuild… ok look, let’s compare it to a 1700€ ish.
Overall, while this shops may seem like a convenient option for buying a hurdy gurdy, it may not be the best choice if you want a student instrument and a good customer service experience. It is recommended to purchase a hurdy gurdy from a reputable luthier.
Questions? reach out in the contact form 🙂 !