The Smallpiper Blog

The nyckelharpa has arrived! We picked it up from Olle on Sunday afternoon (after a couple of days of skiing). We made sure we prepared for taking it home, by booking Mr Nyckelharpa Instrument a seat. It's a wonderful instrument and I just hope that I can do it justice! RIght now it sounds a bit scrapy, but fingers crossed with some practise it'll be better. I have my tuition DVD now, so I should be able to hold it correctly by this evening! I played my first tune last night, which was really exciting! I've put myself in the situation of being a remote learner and it's amazing! It's been a while since I took up a new instrument and had that pleasure of not being able to play it and then after half an hours hard graft, there is a tune coming out. Fantastic!! I'm having such fun!
For those people that don't know what a nyckelharpa is, it's essentially a keyed fiddle, held like a hurdy gurdy. Click here to see a video clip of the master of nyckelharpa playing himself Peter Hedlund. This is an extract from the teaching DVD. He is seriously good! It'll be a while before I get good enough to perform in public on it, so watch this space!
(^_^)
Vx

Morning!
I am soo excited! Not only have we finished recording our new album, but we also finished recording for Hector at the weekend. We had such a good time with Doug and Hector, I feel quite sad that it's finished. I have an idea for a project with Hector though in the future, involving some poems in the Lowland Scots dialect that my great-great-grandad wrote. So watch this space on that front. We've had a pre-mix of the album playing all week on the CD player and with the final re-records this weekend we're pretty chuffed. Once we get a mix back I'm sure we'll put some teasers up into Myspace for you.

On a different note, we're going to go and see Olle at the weekend, my new Nyckelharpa is nearly ready and as we happen to be passing his neck of the woods we're going to pop in and see him. There is a slight chance that my instrument might be ready, but I'll try not to get too excited. Just seeing and hopefully having a go on a Plahn harpa is going to be amazing! I'll make sure we take some pictures when we're over with him. We've got some really cool songs lined up to include the harpa, so again, watch this space!
(^_^)
Vicki & Jonny

Hello!

Great news from the world of new albums. We've just returned from the studio having spent an intensive five days of recording. The tracks are chosen, the layers all layered and now we're waiting for the first rough mix. We're totally excited about it! Eleven tracks, 6 songs, 5 tune tracks. Several layers, subtle layers. We've not used any guest musicians this time, so it's just the two of us. The double bass was again brought out and added some deeper notes. We've got next weekend to tidy anything up that needs it and at the same time finish off a track or two for Hector's album. It's a truly album filled time. This wouldn't be possible without Doug's fantastic recording skills or Sue's fantastic hospitality. They are two truly wonderful people! Once we've got the mix we might put up a tiny snippet or two to whet your appetites. Another couple of pictures should go up too. Now the most pressing quandry is what to have on the album cover!
Hope to post more news soon!
:)
Vicki & Jonny

Hello!
It's been a couple of weeks since I last wrote. Loads of news though! The most important thing in a funny way is that my (Vicki) masters dissertation result has come through and it seems as if it has passed. I'm still waiting for confirmation of the entire award, but initial indications are good! (Hurrah!) It seems a very, very long time ago that I embarked on the Masters and boy am I glad it's finally over! I do plan on continuing with the online teaching and am developing an online community area. It just sits in the corner of our lounge at the moment and is very slow and very often falls over (we have power cuts several times a week), but if you're interested in seeing how it progresses visit ThumbTwiddling. It's the same address we've used in the past for putting our dots online, was a shame not to continue using it!

Anyway, onto more important matters. We had a great January playing at the Ram Folk Club in Surrey (who won best folk club in the BBC2 folk awards, hurrah for them and totally deserved!) and also the Dartford Folk Club in Kent. We had the longest distance traveller come and see us, not only had he travelled from Carlise that morning to come, but was on holiday from Japan!!!! Thank you and hello Asai, it was lovely to meet you in person! We also found the best beer ever, Bagpipers Bitter, brewed in Maldon. I couldn't try any, but it had the greatest name ever!

We're keeping am eye on the weather as we're due at the Topic Folk Club tomorrow night. Typically the only day of the year that it is due to snow we're playing up north. We'll do our very best to make it, even if it means leaving now to get there!

:)
Vicki & Jonny

We're back in the studio this week, again backing for someone else. We playing for Hector Gilchrist, a wonderful Scottish singer with the most chocolatey, mellow voice you've ever heard. Fantastic! The real bass has come out of hibernation to record and we've been busy writing flute parts, accordion parts, we even un-screwed the piano from it's base and hefted it into the campervan ready to go into the studio. So watch this space! Working with Hector reminded me of my (Vicki) Great, great Grandad who was a poet of some re-known up in Ayrshire, so a project we'd love to do is to set an albums worth of his poems to music and record them. We're hoping that Hector would help us out! Again, watch this space! In the mean time I'm dreaming of Nyckelharpas and trying to translate a Swedish ballad to add to our repertoire!
:)
Vicki & Jonny

Hurrah! I've finally, after a long 3 and a half years finished my Masters. It was handed in last week, after many, many long hours of writing over Christmas! It's not online yet, it's a bit too large, but I'll precis it and put something up on my masters website. Now I can get on with youtubing some tunes! In celebration, I thought, hmmm, I've not realy taken up a new instrument for about 10 years now, so why, not, yes, let's do something really wild! As you probably know, I'm half Swedish, but don't really know all that much about Swedish music. So I've decided to join the ranks of Nyckelharpists. I've ordered a nyckelharpa from the Swedish make Olle Plahn and I get to pick it up in April sometime. Yup, I've pretty much chosen the most obscure instrument for learning from deepest Essex, but hey, at least I can speak Swedish (a bit). I'll let you know how I get on! Wish me luck, I think I'm going to need it!
:)
Vx