The open notes correspond with the long black keys of the instrument;
the black notes with the short white keys.
The sound is produced by the vibration of the strings, maintained by the friction of a wheel with which they are brought into contact, the function of the rotary movement being analogous to that of the fiddler's bow, the wheel being also prepared, like the bow, with rosin. Sympathetic strings are not unfrequently attached.
The Hurdy-Gurdy here drawn has within the sound-body the maker's label, "Louvet, Luthier, à la Vielle Royale, rue de la Croix des Petits Champs, à la côté de la petite porte Saint Honoré à Paris, 1757." The length, without the head, is 19½ inches; the breadth being respectively 81/8 and 10 inches across the belly at the wider measures. The carving of the head in this and many other vielles and viols is a message to us from the past of loving care bestowed.
Baton, a luthier of Versailles, introduced in the year 1716 improvements in the vielle, or hurdy-gurdy, one of which, by reducing it to the size of a guitar, made it more convenient for performance. He even went further by adapting it to lute and theorbo bodies, while he and his successors gradually extended the compass, the highest G being added by Louvet about 1773. It became for some time a fashionable instrument, and representations of the vielle and musette (a refined bagpipe) occur in contemporary French paintings. But after the French Revolution the hurdy-gurdy was relegated once more to the highways and byeways; the last popular street player in Paris was Barbu, who, according to Mr. Louis Pagnerre, was to be heard previous to 1870, in the Champs Elysées and other open spaces, and occasionally in the courtyards of the houses of his patrons. He sometimes gave concerts, for he was an artist, and had taste as well as executive talent; he could make the instrument sing, use it to accompany his own voice, or to take a part in combination with guitar and violin. He disdained to ask for money, relying upon the appreciation of his audiences to obtain his reward. Barbu had also been heard in London, and is supposed to have been shot during the Commune.
