Otherlands collaboration #5
Location: Pontecaldelas, Spain • Date: October 13, 2019
Wow. What a day this was—and I mean that with sincere thankfulness and positivity. Master musician and composer Anxo Pintos has shown me the way of the hurdy gurdy, otherwise known as the zanfona in Galician.
*To learn more about Anxo’s music and projects, please visit: Anxo’s Facebook or this Spotify playlist.
Five years ago I briefly met Anxo after a show I played in Vigo. It was a short meeting, but I always remembered. While preparing for my trip to Galicia, I reached out to my fiddle friend Begoña Riobo (see our collaboration here) for some recommended listening. She sent a carefully curated playlist, and I dug in.
While it was full of great material, there was one tune—"K" by Berrogüetto—that grabbed my attention above the others. Wanting to know more about the musicians, I looked into the band...and learned that Anxo was a founding member. I mentioned "K" to Bego, and she said it was also a favorite of hers, and that it was Anxo's composition. There was only one thing left to do, reach out to Anxo. We planned to meet after he returned from gigs in China, at the very tail end of my trip to Galicia.
On the day of our meeting, I woke up early and prepared our room. Anxo arrived mid-morning, and once our instruments were out and the equipment tested, I had to start our session with knowing how this beautiful instrument worked. Here’s a bonus video of a crash course I received, but I'll see if I can summarize below...
The crank is connected to a wooden wheel. It's essentially the "bow" and needs to be rosined. When turned, the wheel makes up to 4 strings vibrate at a constant pitch. This is called a drone. You can also choose to have no strings drone. The low two drone strings are tuned in 5ths.
The two high drone strings (tuned in 5ths one octave above the low drones) have an additional option. They are set on "floating" bridges called a "dog" or "trumpet." When the crank is turned quickly enough, the wider string vibration makes these dogs jump (or bark) with an accented zing in the sound.
There are 3 strings that melodies are played on, also sounded by turning the crank. Anxo tunes his to the same pitch, but in 3 different octaves. You can choose to have 0-3 strings engaged.
On the underside of the neck, there are buttons arranged like piano keys. When pressed, these push wooden pieces called tangents (found under the "fingerboard"), stopping each of the three noting strings in the same place to change the pitch. The wooden pieces can be adjusted for fine tuning.
There are 8 more strings on the top of the hurdy gurdy body. In two sets of four, they are on either side of the fingerboard and are sympathetic strings. They can be tuned to different pitches and whenever that pitch is played on the instrument, they get excited and vibrate along. Think of it like built in reverb.
Anxo prefers his drones in the key of C...which is awesome for my 5-string fiddle, which has an extra low C string.
We began the music with improvisation—combining drones, bending pitches, exploring mixtures of tones we could produce. It was meditative and conversational at the same time. We followed this with a Galician xota-inspired rhythm in 6, both improvising short melodies in conversation. Knowing that his tune "K" was a xota, it was a perfect segue. I asked him to teach it to me, and I was in for a world of brain hurt.
Anxo explained that while K is a xota, it’s a bit unconventional and looks towards the future of Galician music. The A and C parts are in the standard 6 feel, but the B part is full of twists and turns, even leaving the 6 rhythm—like a Picassoesque cubist melody, he explained. [Curious note about the title…xota is also spelled jota and there is no “k” in the Galician alphabet.]
Basically, it took me forever to get the B part internalized. And even when I did, I couldn't let down my guard. As often happens in music to me, as soon as I perform a difficult passage, and mentally stop to be excited about it, I forget the next thing that comes up. This happened many times. But, once I could get through the form confidently (without Anxo playing along), he was able to explore harmonies and other voices and parts for himself.
We took a break for lunch, had brain rest, and came back refreshed learning the old-time American tune Sally in the Garden. This one sounded beautiful and haunting with the hurdy gurdy and I hope to share it later.
And then we came back to K, determined to get our arrangement...and we did. I was satisfactorily exhausted by the end, but I felt a sense of accomplishment and new musical and personal friendship. We finished the day roasting chestnuts gathered from the area and drinking wine with our families.
CREDITS
Song: K (Anxo Pintos)
Music Arranged by: Casey Driessen & Anxo Pintos
Zanfona (Hurdy Gurdy): Anxo Pintos
Fiddle & Audio/Video: Casey Driessen
Production Assistant: Emmette Driessen
Special Thanks: Alfonso Franco
To follow along the Otherlands project, please visit the Otherlands webpage, Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube.
