Hurdy-gurdy twenty-three different forms, and there is still no standardized design today. The six-stringed French "vielle à roue" is the best known and most common sort. A number of regional forms developed, but outside France the instrument was considered a folk instrument and there were no schools of construction that could have determined a standard form. There are two primary body styles for contemporary instruments: guitar-bodied and lute-backed. Both forms are found in French-speaking areas, while guitar-bodied instruments are the general form elsewhere. The box form of the "simphonia" is also commonly found among players of early music and historical re-enactors.
Anna Katharina Kränzlein across the hurdy-gurdy in 2000 when she met hurdy-gurdy maker Karl Riedl and built an instrument with him for her specialised course in music at school. Since the second Schandmaul album, she plays the hurdy-gurdy with the band, since the fourth album she also participates in texting and composing and with the fifth album she also contributed viola parts. From 1998 to 2000, Kränzlein read music at the Munich Conservatory with Urs Stieler. In 2001, she moved to the Saar University of Music at Saarbrücken where she studied with Ulrike Dierick. There she played with the University Orchestra under Max