Patty Gurdy is one of the first artists that I discovered while going down some YouTube rabbit holes while working at home during lockdown in 2020.
Looking at Patty and indeed listening to her songs, especially her earlier Celtic ones, you might think that she is Irish, but no, she is actually from Germany and her real name is Patricia Büchler. She does have fomr Irish ancestry in her blood though.
Patty took her performing name from her main instrument, the Hurdy Gurdy, which is a medieval stringed instrument which is hard to describe if you have never seen one, but just watch the video (or all of Patty’s videos) and you will get the idea.
I came across Patty having seen her collaborate with Faun and instantly fell in love with her music. This song I Am With You is a duet with Marko Hietala (ex vocalist/bassist with Nightwish) and is from her 2024 album Tavern.
Please let me know what you think of Patty and this song in the comments below, I hope you enjoyed watching an listening.
Did you spot the foreign language section in the middle of the video? This is a mixture of German and Finnish lyrics (Marko is from Finland) and they have a very powerful meaning:
- Ich bin bei dir: (German) “I am with you”
- En lähde mä pois: (Finnish) “I won’t leave (or go away)”
- Bitte glaub’ mir: (German) “Please believe me”
- Jotta yksin et ois: (Finnish) “So you won’t be alone” (literally: “That alone you would not be”)
Patty has collaborated with other artists fron Europe, including Faun, dArtagnan, Scardust, Alestorm and she is currently (December 2025) part of the Legendary Orchestra touring in Europe with Sabaton.
You can learn more about Patty on her Official Site and also on Wikipedia. She has a lot of great videos on YouTube, both official videos and live performances.
If you enjoyed this song “I Am With You”, have a listen/look at this video for “Melodies Of Hope” that Patty submitted to qualify for Germany in Eurovision 2023. Unfortunately although it’s a great song and she reached the national finals, the judges didn’t agree and voted her 8th out of the 8 finalists. I think had they selected her she could have well won the hearts of the public. What do you think?
You can be sure that I will be adding more posts that feature music from Patty, as well as from some of the other artists mentioned above.
Very sadly I missed seeing Patty supporting Sabaton in concert in London in December 2025 as I didn’t know about the concert until it was almost sold out. Patty is confirmed.to be performing at the Renaissance Faire in the UK in September 2026.
What Is A Hurdy Gurdy
To quote from Wikipedia:
The hurdy-gurdy is a string instrument that produces sound by means of a hand-cranked rosined wheel which rubs against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin (or nyckelharpa) bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar to those of a violin. Melodies are played on a keyboard that presses tangents—small wedges, typically made of wood or metal—against one or more of the strings to change their pitch. Like most other acoustic stringed instruments, it has a sound board and hollow cavity to make the vibration of the strings audible.
To find out more about this fascinating instrument, see the full Wikipedia article on the Hurdy Gurdy.
I thought my musical journey had ended years ago as I really don’t (or didn’t) like modern music (pop, hip hop, rap etc) and there is nothing that I like on mainstream radio. My love since my teenage years has been Classic Rock and Prog Rock, although I had added to that some World Music, Latin and New Country through living in the USA and working in Central/South America in the 1990’s.
Nothing really changed until Covid hit in 2019 and I ended up working from home. While working (Analyst/Programmer) I would listen to YouTube to help me focus and once YouTube started suggesting new artists to me, I soon went down a lot of rabbit holes on a musical discovery journey that is still ongoing.
I am now a huge fan of a number of bands in genres that I didn’t know existed, including Power Metal, Symphonic Metal, Nordic/Viking, Japanese Metal, European Pagan Folk and more.
In this suite of posts I am hoping to help enlighten more people who are only aware of the artists that they hear on mainstream radio, as there are so many other amazing artists out there that they have never heard of.
I have some live videos from concerts that I have been to on my YouTube Channel. You are invited to take a look and if you like what you see, please do subscribe to my channel.
If you would like to leave me a comment to let me know what you think of Faun or to suggest an artist that I might like, I would appreciate that.
