¼” plywood, maple, red oak, poplar, zither pins, screws, polyurethane, aluminum, brass, monofilament nylon fishing line

This crank box instrument is modeled off a 13th century predecessor of the hurdy-gurdy called a symphonia, a secular one-person version of a 10th century church instrument called an organistrum. The symphonia and later hurdy-gurdy were known as the vielle à roue (“wheel fiddle”) and were primarily played by street musicians.

This symphonia features a rosined wheel which activates three strings tuned to a major third and perfect fourth from the lowest string. The symphonia can be played either by touching the strings, or indirectly through a set of modular surrogate fingers. These “fingers” are called noses, mounted into keys called tangents which divide string sounding length. The noses can be placed in any one of three holes on each tangent which correspond to each of the three strings.