Daniel Mantey - 'Ductia & Saltarello' - (Medieval, 3 hurdy-gurdy version!!! descargar videos gratis

'Ductia & Slatarello' - Italian anon. , 13th century - arranged and performed by Daniel Mantey - Music All Sorts; 3 hurdy-gurdys!

I have known and played these pieces since 1972! I had just started studying music at university, Cleveland State Universty, and joined the Collegium Musicum, and these were the wild kind of musical things we got to play! I was then currently in a rock-band (Phalanx), and all my friends had a band (Little Mort), and I kept trying to get them to play this stuff, and I was only laughed at. A lot has changes since then, eh?

Here they are on a trio of hurdy-gurdys! Now, a few things: I found this, listening through my first home-made CDs from a few years back, and though I have since 'canned' that CD, and would NOT re-release this version, it is rather wild and crazy and cool! It isn't that bad. I think it was in fact, the VERY FIRST THING I recorded in my just-built studio late 2005ish? I played hurdy-gurdy part-1, put on the head-phones and played hurdy-gurdy part-2, and then did hudy-gurdy part-3, and here it is. Pythagorian tuning probably?

I then, and for a good year or two afterwards, knew NOTHING about editing, cutting and pasting, or anything in the studo (just like the videos I am now making!!!). This is raw, un-edited, first time in the studio, joy-of-recording musical ecstasy! It is too fast, and very rushed, and not always so perfectly in tune...but it was so fun, and I had to share it with you.

What I did learn from this piece, and many since, is that playing on 'drone' instruments (hurdy-gurdy, bag-pipes, etc.) the constant drone makes it very difficult to hear one's phrasing and articulation, and one too easily rushes along way too quickly without breathing. My first 3 years of recording have been plagued with this challenge, and not sure I have completely remedied it? The music: normally the Ductia is done with only two parts, and I expanded it into a trio, and I 'wrote' some pseudo-improve parts for one of the hg to play during the Saltarello, which is normally monophonic throughout.

It has been decades (!) since I have otherwise used these dances, and don't recall ANY of the historical background...do your Google search!?! (after listening...) I will certainly try to do better versions of these one of these years, and probably with a more varied ensemble of instruments (?), but hope will enjoy these wild versions in the meantime? Oh, the hurdy-gurdy in use back then (13th century) was a very small rectangular 'symphonium.' Exactly the same in terms of principle and hardware, but smaller and a bit (even!) wilder and noisier. I use Orldando, my noisey-enough Mozart-period hurdy-gurdy built by Neil Brook of Preston, England.

******This is a new version of a piece previously on my channel; a better sound and video.*******