Amy Hakanson shows us the sixteen stringed, thirty-nine keyed nyckelharpa

I've been subscribed to Rob since the early days, and this series of videos has been one of my favorites. It's so fun to see Rob exploring unusual or unfamiliar instruments and watching him try to wrap his head around them, while also getting to see someone who is a passionate expert on the instrument get to show off the their expertise.

My first exposure to the Nyckelharpa was a Trondheim Solistene album "In Folk Style" that was featured on NPR years ago, and I thought it was such a beautiful instrument then. It's cool to see Rob discovering it.

Neat! I'd never heard of a nykelharpa before, but it looks and sounds pretty awesome. It reminds me of another of my favorite unique instruments, to which it's clearly related to, the hurdy-gurdy. The hurdy-gurdy has a hand crank as well as the keys to drive the sound though, so unlike the nykelharpa it doesn't really require any bowed instrument skill. Rob Scallon actually did a video on the hurdy-gurdy a bunch of years ago too... which may have even been how I first heard about it, TBH. :P

p.s. My fav hurdy-gurdy song:
Andrey Vinogradov - Reverse Dance
Andrey's channel is chocked full of amazing tracks though.

Patty Gurdy is another popular hurdy-gurdy artist on YouTube, but I personally find her music to be way too overproduced so it's not fav.