I've been playing the fiddle for 50 years and now into my my third year of playing the nyckelharpa and I can honestly say your presentation didn't waste a word, and not even in your native language too! I was nodding in agreement with your observations all the way through. What a star you are - such a beautifully-balanced, knowledgeable, wise and funny insight into playing this remarkable instrument but actually also as a comment on playing music on any instrument. Thank you so much for taking the time and effort to pass on your wisdom - and that is the right word - in such an engaging and inspirational way. Tack så mycket!
Thank you very much for this nice comment. I did my best to cover points I find important in different ways and to transmit inspiration and tips that can help musicians understand the instrument better and become better at playing it. Glad my words can be applied to other instruments aswell !
I am a violin busker who has transitioned to doing my own bowings fingerings and stylistic changes and some fiddle tunes how hard is it to add nickelharpa to your skill set. Could a nomad realistically maintain one.
@@songoftheblackunicorn666 Maintenance isn't too high on nyckleharpas actually, mostly tuning and a bit of care for tangents sometimes (and accepting the occasional buzzing sounds !)... given that your instrument is a decent one ! Nyckelharpa requires some time to adjust fiddle playing. The two instruments are very close in terms of logic but the holding is quite a nightmare, the left hand changes string in the opposite direction as on a violin and both bow & keyboard are a very different feeling and technique.
Fun video to enjoy. I became a touring gospel choir singer in 1969 as a small boy, we made albums, toured the mountain provinces of Canada and the US from the California Coast to Illinois. Our choir was from the Napa Valley, influenced greatly by Europe, which I have traveled to eight times between '77 and '17 though I did not make it as far north as Sweden since my vacations were influenced by my interest in my Spanish/Italian roots. I do have some Lithuanian in me, 25 pct, on my maternal grandmother's side, hence my interest in your musical history of this instrument. I play a Yamaha DX7 module on a Chromebook--many such old synths can be installed and played for free on modern touch screen laptops and Chromebooks, giving those interested in music a resource to play. Musicians, just plain wonderful, warm people like you, inspire so many. I have been a teacher since 1989, and you are much better than I was at your age--I am learning from your videos new techniques to reach my audience, I am a teacher of hotel business systems and booking systems, and I recommend to those I mentor to watch videos like yours, since musicians have a talent for teaching given their audience is as varied in age as ours is. You speak like my daughter, she is 22 now, a world history major working towards her masters and she hopes to become a foreign diplomat and travel like I have overseas in my career. One thing I loved about having a child, was as she grew, in the modern world I live in, she could teach me new ways a Daddy could cope with the rapid change of our world, while cherishing the wonderful history of our world in which music has woven an incredible beat and story. allpoetry.com/John_Cillis
Thank you dear Hanna, I knew you would prolly nod at several of these =) Missing talking about these and much else with you in person ! And playing ! And dancing !
Hi! I'm not sure that you're going to read this but I found your channel recently and it introduced me to the nyckelharpa for the first time. I'm not a musician but I can imagine how much time and effort you put into mastering that complex yet lovely instrument in order to perform so greatly as you do👍 😎 I agree with you that it's not a nice thing to reduce the history of a whole country to one period or a single ethnic group, which reminds me of how many people in the world reduce the history of my country (Egypt) to the times of the pharaohs as if nothing happened after! Clearly it's called Ancient Egypt because it seized to exist by the end of the ancient times, and since Egypt still exists then it isn't a surprise that lots of things happened in the following centuries! Finally if I may say I like your classic wearing style and long plait, I believe that taking care of one's hair is a sign of a true lady.
Thank you for this nice message ! And yes, I can very much imagine how annoying it can be that people reduce the entire history of Egypt to only the Pharaos' time ! That's so many centuries ago, and there have been Egyptians all the time since then ^^'
Not just the Nyckelharpa gets the Viking treatment. One “maker” (and I use the term loosely) of hurdy-gurdies has tried to market his instruments as simultaneously Viking and Celtic… Sigh.
I know, I'm in gurdy circles too... Why do people have to use wrong labels all the time, instead of appreciating things for what they ARE instead of what they aren't ?? Gurdies are already great, no need to add wrong labels on them...
Do you happen to have a buyers guide for the nyckelharpa? It's an instrument I've always been interested in (and actually got the chance to play over the summer when I saw one at a music shop). I'm not aware of what to look for or what would be a deal breaker with the nyckelharpa, as I've never owned a mechanical instrument
I’ve had the privilege of being able to have quite a lot of carefully considered design input into the construction of my nyckelharpa (I actually took some inspiration from your instrument for the design of the tailpiece and the large melodic tuning pegs). It’s nearly finished and my heart is beaming! Despite being in total agreement with what you said about posting on social media, you can bet I’ll still post a pic on Instagram of my completed nyckelharpa with absolute pride and joy and nerdiness!
Oh so nice that you're soon getting your nyckelharpa !! As said in the video, there is nothing wrong per se about being happy and excited and sharing a pic or three on social media - it's just that for some people that ego-boost comes before and in place of the actual, real-life, musical joy - and I find it quite sad. In your case be sure to send me a pic too (am curious about the design now) ;)
@@EmelieWaldken Yes, this is super sad. I sort of went through this myself with the guitar when I was younger. Got into it for the wrong reasons, because it was ‘cool’. I did still really enjoy it, but there was a bit of ego-boost attached and my desire to make music with that particular instrument wasn’t so strong. It was more an external gratification. I didn’t feel it so much from the inside. In retrospect, I know now that there was a deeper yearning to be able to play folk music with other folk musicians. I didn’t know this until recently, twenty years later. My relationship with violin and nyckelharpa is totally different to my younger self and guitar. Violin and nyckelharpa, I’ve come to realise, are the thing I’ve been waiting for my entire life. They are the reason I am here, my purpose. It took me a very long time to find it and now that I have, I cherish it. So, for me it is something that rises from my feet up through my bones and out from my heart. I almost feel like I can call myself a musician because I really feel it’s who I am, although maybe I haven’t quite earned the title just yet. I’ll send you photos of my nyckelharpa when she is complete (soon!) :) A large part of my ancestry is Italian, so it was really great to hear that the nyckelharpa has sprung up in Italy in its history!
I was hoping that the chat would have stayed open a little longer. I would love to have a conversation with you about the area your from. too bad my brain is not functioning at the moment to type in responses and questions without sounding like an idiot. I love your videos and the work that you do. It has inspired me to get to know more about the folk music in my own country as well as across the ocean
Well you can always write me an email or PM on my FB page. To answer your questions, I am from Geneva in Switzerland, then I moved around a bit and for now settled in Sweden.
Well done! You said what needed saying much better than I could ever say. I play music because I love playing music. I post music of me and my friends on RU-vid to share with friends. I don't worry about sounding perfect as long as we sound like it's fun. I'm always learning. Started when I was 10 and I'm now 67. The first time I saw a RU-vid of yours you were playing Celtic tunes. It was beautiful.
Thank you very much, this video took me a long time to formulate in a good way actually. And yes, playing music should be done and talked about because WE LOVE IT, not because of some cool-effect one gets by showing an instrument around (apparently some study demonstrated that a guy with a guitar case on his back was deemed more attractive by most women than when he was not wearing the case ^^' We're not out of the problem yet).
It was amusing watching it; thank you for posting it! Given that varieties of the instrument were found across all of Europe, Eric Sahlström basically turned it into a Swedish instrument by merely playing a forgotten instrument:)
@@EmelieWaldken Actually, I am quite green when it comes to knowledge about the nyckelharpa. However, I do understand that something from Sweden doesn't necessarily come from either Vikings or IKEA;)
Re climbing up the keys, I notice many Swedish instruments have keys made in such a way that you can recognise "white notes" vs "black notes". Some other people have more simple markings, e.g. they only mark a few notes. My current nyckelharpa is deficient in the it has an inverted keybox and the high string is on the bottom row, so you can't see what you're doing, though I can see from the other end which key is moving, and that helps a bit, but still looking forward to my new instrument.
Yes most nyckelharpas have these markings, I personally have more simple ones (the white/black notes piano-like concept just doesn't work for me). It sounds like you have a Tord Johansson harpa, aka an inverted keyboard, that's really cool, I've heard about these but never seen one in person ! But yes, I guess these have their tricky things too... Open keyboards as yours seems to be (that you can see the key sticking out when you press it, tell me if I got that right) and as I have myself are a great feature, I always recommend it. It's so much better for the neck !
Vikings: An interest I got. Often when I speak with others I have to spend a lot of time crushing a lot of myths and misconceptions people have. Music: I like playing guitar and I agree with what you say. Practice and speak with/listen to people that are better than you. And always check if your instrument are in tune. Teachers can be very good especially in the beginning so you don't learn the wrong technique. People on social media that picture after picture holding an instrument they obviously don't know how to play are so annoying.
Not that we know of. There is a similarity in the way of thinking about the keyboard principle, but the logic is quite different. They might be related (good ideas travel !) but nothing certain.
Nyckelharpa bows come in many shapes actually, the traditional ones are very curved, more modern ones are either similar to a cello's or baroque-typed aka pointy.
@@janehinks6387 I guessed you're a gurdist, for spotting this one in the background ;) Hope you get a nyckelharpa too, let me know when/if it happens !
I think it's more complex than that actually. Historically, Finns and Sami were indeed not of Scandinavian ancestry, as "Scandinavian" denoted a people, not a place. Nowadays however, "Scandinavia" has shifted meaning quite a bit, as it can mean the Scandi peninsula but also the Nordic countries (SE, NO, DK, FI, IS). It is not linked to a people anymore, this also because of the fact that there's been so much mixing (I think of the Swedish presence in Finland for centuries, for example). I personally use the term Scandinavia(n) to refer to the Scandinavian peninsula first, and then Danemark, Finland and Iceland too, as they form a historical and cultural group with the Swedes and Norwegians. But I know, it's a mess ^^
@@EmelieWaldken and then there's Estonia that wants to get into Nordics. 😀 In terms of musical traditions at least, I would say yes. We play Estonian tunes at our scandi sessions.
Wonderful presentation! Thank you so much! It is always a pleasure to listen to you playing and giving information on the history of the songs, their origin etc. I am two years into playing the Nyckelharpa, that I got in person ftom Jean Cloud Condi and I am happy we share the same builder and bow maker .I love playing and have learned many lovely tunes that I try to perfect and working on the best sound possible to create on my Nyckelharpa. I am a gurd it’s as you mentioned in a comment, for 40 years and now I take Swedish tunes and transpose them to fit my Gurdy .. but also the baroque tunes of the Hurdy Gurdy is beautiful on the Nyckelharpa. My husband played the Gurdy these days and I acompony him with the Nyckelharpa. So much to learn!!! You are right about that! Thanks again!🎶💕
