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Theme Of The Month, Oct 2015: Scandinavian Tunes


Jim Besser

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Here's "Ringnesen," a popular reinlender (schottische) from Norway:

 

http://youtu.be/3-TlG3Ar1fE

 

Hardanger fiddlers play it in E, so I decided to have a go at it in that key on the C/G Anglo.

 

Bob Michel

Near Philly

 

Very nice. I tend to avoid tunes in E on the C/G, but you do it very nicely.

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sadly, due to one reason or another, I have hardly picked the concertina up in the last few months. But am gradually easing my way back in and saw the the thotm as a good way to reconnect. Köiklaten is a beautiful tune and deserves to be wider known. I only know of one version of it on the Norrland CD (it's jazz folks - but very tasteful) - here is my interpretation, I lose the waltz time and a mix of my general poor level of music reading ability and musical incompetence has produced something - err different :-) You need to turn it up - I do not know why this USB mic records so softly on audacity even with mic vol set to high. However, mr whizzy sound engineer is staying this weekend, so perhaps we can get to the bottom of it.

 

https://soundcloud.com/dc12/koiklaten-c-net-thotm

 

g/d morse

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sadly, due to one reason or another, I have hardly picked the concertina up in the last few months. But am gradually easing my way back in and saw the the thotm as a good way to reconnect. Köiklaten is a beautiful tune and deserves to be wider known. I only know of one version of it on the Norrland CD (it's jazz folks - but very tasteful) - here is my interpretation, I lose the waltz time and a mix of my general poor level of music reading ability and musical incompetence has produced something - err different :-) You need to turn it up - I do not know why this USB mic records so softly on audacity even with mic vol set to high. However, mr whizzy sound engineer is staying this weekend, so perhaps we can get to the bottom of it.

 

https://soundcloud.com/dc12/koiklaten-c-net-thotm

 

g/d morse

 

Glad you're back. A fine tune, nicely played.

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sadly, due to one reason or another, I have hardly picked the concertina up in the last few months. But am gradually easing my way back in and saw the the thotm as a good way to reconnect. Köiklaten is a beautiful tune and deserves to be wider known. I only know of one version of it on the Norrland CD (it's jazz folks - but very tasteful) - here is my interpretation, I lose the waltz time and a mix of my general poor level of music reading ability and musical incompetence has produced something - err different :-) You need to turn it up - I do not know why this USB mic records so softly on audacity even with mic vol set to high. However, mr whizzy sound engineer is staying this weekend, so perhaps we can get to the bottom of it.

 

https://soundcloud.com/dc12/koiklaten-c-net-thotm

 

g/d morse

Very nice.

 

You can increase the volume in Audacity using the Amplify Effect or the Normalise Effect. I usually use Amplify to set the volume to a level useful for me to work on the file (usually between -6.0 and -8.0 dB) then when I'm happy use normalise to bring the final volume to an appropriate level. I find setting the peak level in Normalise to -0.5dB works well to get a decent volume and to avoid clipping which can introduce unpleasant distortion.

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About ten years ago (maybe a little more) I went to my first Folkworks Summer School in Durham (UK). I was in the flute/whistle instrument group and our tutor that year was a Swedish flute player by the name of Emma Johansson. She taught us a few Swedish tunes and this Polska is the one I liked best and can remember best - though I did have the dots for it handy.

 

Played on my Morse CG Anglo, soprano ukulele, soprano recorder and low D whistle. https://youtu.be/KTZU0fFpx3w

 

Emma did produce some harmony lines for us which would have been useful to bring out the different instruments more effectively but though I do have them somewhere I don't actually know where among all the of sheet music I have stored away in various files and boxes. I could have written my own but time is running out on the month and my daughter and granddaughter are coming to visit next month and if I can, I would like to get a recording of Red Wing done.

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Sneaking a quick one in before the end of the month. Like Tootler, I probably first heard this one at Folkworks (or was it Burwell summerschool?) about 15 years ago or thereabouts. Carina Normannson may well have been involved. It was all the rage with the Folkworks crowd at the time and Tim van Eyken and Robert Harbron recorded it in 2001.

According to them it's a wedding polska from Halsingland (apologies for the missing diacritic). Rather hastily recorded so a bit of foot-thumping going on under the EC, I'm afraid... but it's a great tune.

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Sneaking a quick one in before the end of the month. Like Tootler, I probably first heard this one at Folkworks (or was it Burwell summerschool?) about 15 years ago or thereabouts. Carina Normannson may well have been involved. It was all the rage with the Folkworks crowd at the time and Tim van Eyken and Robert Harbron recorded it in 2001.

According to them it's a wedding polska from Halsingland (apologies for the missing diacritic). Rather hastily recorded so a bit of foot-thumping going on under the EC, I'm afraid... but it's a great tune.

 

You're right, a great tune, nicely played!

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Sneaking a quick one in before the end of the month. Like Tootler, I probably first heard this one at Folkworks (or was it Burwell summerschool?) about 15 years ago or thereabouts. Carina Normannson may well have been involved. It was all the rage with the Folkworks crowd at the time and Tim van Eyken and Robert Harbron recorded it in 2001.

According to them it's a wedding polska from Halsingland (apologies for the missing diacritic). Rather hastily recorded so a bit of foot-thumping going on under the EC, I'm afraid... but it's a great tune.

I really enjoyed this. It really comes alive.

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Thanks both. I didn't "get" polskas at all for a long time but they're beginning to make some sense now.

 

As I learned it from Dave Kaynor, it's:

 

DownUp.jpg

 

If you're playing the fiddle, "down" and "up" refer to the bow. If you're playing anything else or dancing (and even the fiddle), it refers to the whole body, as controlled from the knees.

 

[edited to shrink the graphic]

Edited by David Barnert
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Sneaking a quick one in before the end of the month. Like Tootler, I probably first heard this one at Folkworks (or was it Burwell summerschool?) about 15 years ago or thereabouts. Carina Normannson may well have been involved. It was all the rage with the Folkworks crowd at the time and Tim van Eyken and Robert Harbron recorded it in 2001.

According to them it's a wedding polska from Halsingland (apologies for the missing diacritic). Rather hastily recorded so a bit of foot-thumping going on under the EC, I'm afraid... but it's a great tune.

Lovely bellows accents and rhythm there. Delightful to listen to.

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  • 2 weeks later...

A late entry here. My buddy had some illness so we couldn't get together. Here are two "American" Scandinavian tunes that are very common in the old time Scandinavian bands ("German" Bands) around Minnesota: "Svensk Anna's Waltz (also known as "Peek-a-boo Waltz), and Halsa den Darhemma (Greet the Folks at Home-Please put up with the probable misspellings in that title). That second tune can still bring tears to older folks in the Norwegian and Swedish communities. It is a singer on a ship at sea singing to a seabird about how he, the singer, can't go home but the bird can fly home so would the bird please "greet the folks at home." That had real meaning for the immigrants to Minnesota and surrounding states who definitely couldn't go home.

 

A quick recording with blemishes using a Zoom recorder like the Hn2 and normalized and a bit a reverb added with Audacity. Wheatstone concertina tuned 1/5 comma mean and hammered dulcimer.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5t5xkv7kyeej1v0/Scand.mp3?dl=0

Edited by cboody
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