Hammerdulcimer

The middle age name of the instrument means "sweet tune".
Ancient Persia is the fatherland of the dulcimer. From there, the instrument began its journey first westwards and southwards. The Arabs brought dulcimers to North Africa and Spain , Byzantines and Crusaders made them popular all over the Europe. Much later dulcimer got to India, China and Korea, where it has been in common use until now.
The first Polish writings on dulcimer date from the 16th century. Its polish name is "cymbaly"
It has been played till nowadays in east regions of contemporary Poland - Suwalki region, Warmia , especially Rzeszow region and among eastern Poland's repatriants.
Our dulcimer is of Wilno pattern. It is comparatively small and their scale consists of two octaves. We play on it with wooden hammers.

Hurdy-gurdy

The oldest, mediaeval hurdy-gurdy, called the organistrum, was a large, two-person instrument. It was used in churches, and eventually replaced by organs beginning in the 13th century.
The construction was then changed, becoming much smaller and portable, which made the instrument very popular with wandering bards and musicians. In the First Republic the hurdy-gurdy reached the peak of its popularity in the 17th century. They continued to be used by in ancestral commemorations (Dziady) and by Ukrainian guild musicians right through the middle of the 20th century.

The band uses:
a 19th-century Belarussian hurdy-gurdy reconstructed by Aleksander Los
a hurdy-gurdy built by one of the masters of the Kyiv hurdy-gurdy guild.

Kalisz basses

Villages bands around Poland used various kinds of basses. The instrument plays a rhythmic role, not necessarily a harmonic one. The basses had one, two, three or four strings, and were played with bows. They were eventually replaced in village music by accordions and concertinas.
We play on reconstructed three-string basses from the Kalisz region (west-central Poland). A unique technical characteristic is that as with many mediaeval instruments the stand is also the soul of the instrument.

Violin

The violin is the basic instrument in village dance music. In folk playing the sound of the violin differs vastly from the sound found in classical music. This arises from the different way of holding the instrument (by the neck, rather than under the chin), the use of untempered modes, playing in tonations that allow accompaniment by open strings, using intervals such as octaves, fourths, fifths and thirds, and from occasional use of vibrato.

Drums:
Long ago, playing the drums was a skill almost as common as dancing; party guests often accompanied the musicians.

The group plays on two types of drum:

hoop drum with rattles
This small drum, somewhat similar to a tambourine and played with a wooden stick, is still used today - mostly in central and eastern Poland.

baraban
This is a large, two-sided drum whose deep, carrying sound is further enhanced by a metal plate or a triangle. It is played with both hands.