Actually, those bitty sympathetic strings are steel and very stable. I rarely have to tune them at all. The playing strings on top are Helicores, and they settle down after a few days. I'd never, never never want an instrument like this with standard friction pegs -- what a nightmare. I hear the big joke in the hardanger world is you play a tune, and then tune your instrument for 10 min, and then play a tune, tune up, on and on. It is still my favorite fiddle of the handful I own.
It seems like there is a lot going on, but you just play it like a regular fiddle. The regular over strings are tuned semi-standard ADae. The understrings (you can't reach them with the bow) are tuned adef#. When you play those notes on the overstrinsgs, the understrings sort of sing along. Sounds like you have some great reverb, or you are playing in a tunnel. The Norwegians have perfected these, you can google Hardanger or see vids on the youtubes. I might post up a sound sample, I'll give it a go.
Comments
Actually, those bitty sympathetic strings are steel and very stable. I rarely have to tune them at all. The playing strings on top are Helicores, and they settle down after a few days. I'd never, never never want an instrument like this with standard friction pegs -- what a nightmare. I hear the big joke in the hardanger world is you play a tune, and then tune your instrument for 10 min, and then play a tune, tune up, on and on. It is still my favorite fiddle of the handful I own.
Cool! But I've had it with trying to keep 8 strings in tune!
This is nice. Is it a guitar,violin? Nice detail work.
DANG!
I hope people look close at this and realize what it is and not just think it's a dumb fiddle :(