On Sunday 18th March 2007 I became the proud owner of a Swedish Nyckelharpa. I know not many people are familiar with this instrument so I figured that I should write a little diary of meeting and getting to know this fantastic instrument! I decided that I wanted to play the Nyckelharpa to learn some more about the music and culture from my Mums side, the Swedish side of the family. I also wanted something that I could sing and play at the same time. I know that technically you can sing and play with the smallpipes and the bass, but I wanted something different. So after thinking about what I should play for a year I discovered that my Swedish great grandma (gammel mormor) played an instrument akin to the autoharp, the cittra. Combining that with seeing a small video clip of Ranarim (a swedish group) I'd made up my mind. Much googling later and hours spent on the American Nyckelharpa association I knew it was for me.
Back in August of 2006 I contacted Olle Plahn to find out costs and logistics and finally in January 2007, having handed in
my masters dissertation, got round to ordering on. I picked it up one cold
weekend in March (combined with a quick visit to see my sister and ski weekend
at Romme Alpin. The box was totally huge! I've got a soft case which fits in
a larger flight case .Luckily I booked a seat for: Mr Nyckelharpa Instrument
on the ryanair flight, just as well, I really wouldn't have got away with that
case as hand luggage, a little larger than a guitar case in all directions!
We had no problems bringing the nyckelharpa back, the hostess even came over
with an extra length of seat belt and strapped it in safely in the window seat
next to me. Finally we got home and I was itching to try and play something.
I worked out the fingering for a tune and actually managed to get through a
tune! I now have the instruction DVD of Peter Hedlund, Now it'll be weeks and monthts of practise ahead of me to make it sound like
a nice instrument and not just a scrapy scratchy thing! I just hope I can do
Olle and Peter proud!
April 07
The nyckelharpa had his debut at a session recently. It held the room in silence,
but I think that might be because it's still hit and miss as to whether I hit
the right note or not! I'm working hard everyday on it, so it's only a matter
of time before he hits the stage!
May 07
I've now dared to put a tune up of me playing .... Valtz and me playing about with two tracks, jungfru. I probably shouldn't be putting these up as they're really not great. But hopefully
it'll be a record of my progress and I have been asked for some sound!
End of May 07
We debuted our Swedish song and nyckleharpa this weekend. It was so fantastic
to finally sing our version of "TheRoses Three" (or Jungfru as we call it between ourselves). Hopefully I'll have some photographs
from Chester coming soon!
End of June 07
After three months and five days the nyckelharpa has made it's debut into the
folk club set. Unfortunately because of the pouring rain the keys have become
a little bit sticky, so last night I finally took the plunge and took it
apart to shave some of the keys down a little amount, wipe of any rosin and
re-apply some graphite. Because I only wanted to remove the top few keys
I didn't need to slacken off the strings, I'm dreading the day when I have
to do that, the fear of the sound post falling over is a bit scary! I think
maybe when I need to do that is the day I shoot over to Sweden and give the
instrument an overhall!
July 07
I'm still practising hard. I've purchased the second DVD in the lesson series.
I've not quite finished the first one yet, but I thought there might be some
scales and exercises on it that would be useful. F major is ok, G major and
minor are ok. C minor isn't too bad, but Jonny wants to sing a song in Eb major
and it's really tricky! I so need this scale practise! This is a picture kindly
taken and e-mailed to me by Elspeth of us playing at the final gig on our session
tour, the hottest/longest gig ever. (Thus the flushed cheaks! Gower was just
the hotest!). More news soon!
August 07
The and of the summer of festivals and we've managed to add another tune to our
set list and my song is coming on well. (The one using the words of a poem
written by my Great Great Grandad) We've been uploaded to YouTube. It's not
the greatest tune in the world, well it's a lovely set, but it wasn't really
ready for being filmed and then uploaded for the world to see. Jonny had just
broken a string and was changing it, so the guitar was out of tune and I was
a bit nervous, but here it is as a reminder of where I'm pretty much at, but
hopefully improving away from all the time! There be more updates soon, maybe
when I've finished the song, I'll record it and upload it! Having joined the
American Nyckelharpa association I was asked to put pen to paper and write
something for their quarterly journal, wich I duly did. It was cool to see
a picture of me playing away on the cover of the Fall edition. I'll upload
a copy of my article soon.
March 08
It's now exactly a year since I took up the nyckelharpa. How have I got on? Well it's difficult to say really, I'm working through my tutor books, we've got three songs with the nyckelharpa, but I really feel like there is further to go than ever. So far that I've decided to take the plunge and book some actual real lessons with Peter. As soon as we can book a date and some flights I'll be meeting my first nyckelharpa player face-to-face (other than the ones I met when I was little at the Swedish Church, they don't count). I'll keep you informed!
April 08
I've had my lesson with Peter and it was amazing! It was great to have some of the things that I'm doing confirmed as being correct, some things that I should have known better pointed out and some things I hadn't realised correct. I came back with some exercises, some tunes and what I am suspecting is slightly changed bow technique. It was a tiring weekend spending 5 hours driving from Skavsta to Vallsta and back, but the Swedish roads are so empty! I hired a car, the cheapest one (don't hire from Ryanair btw, go straight to Hertz, it was £22 cheaper for the same car!! Ryanair are very cheaky calling it cheap car hire!) and I got upgraded from tiny car to Volvo V50 estate, very nice! It kept my nyckelharpa and pipes quite safe! Now I need to practise and practise and practise!
July 08
It's time to take the nyckelharpa over to Sweden for a service. I noticed a small bulge above the sound post. So I hastily took the nyckelharpa to my friend Jamie to move it and see if that fixed it. The sound was quite different, but the A string felt as if it had been given a new lease of life, it didn't sound out of place with the other string anymore (I'd thought it was just my playing!) It took us an hour to slacked the strings, move the sound post and tighted them all up again. I need to aquire a string loosener that fits my harpa, I'm not going through that again!!! All was fine, until four days later, the bulge is now above the new positioning of the sound post, I have two bulges. There's nothing for it we're both going to have to fly over to Olle and get him to give the instrument it's MOT. Sigh. Fingers crossed it'll be ok! In the meantime, I've made a page to put all my nyckelharpa tunes. Click here!
August 08
We flew over to Sweden again and had the nyckelharpa looked at, the sympathetic strings replaced and a patch put over the sound post. Fingers crossed. Olle did a grand job and I must get myself the kind of string whizzer that he has, an electric drill with special home made attachment, strings undone in about 2 minutes flat!
May 09
We finally have an album with the nyckelharpa on it, infact it's the front cover of it! Ive changed the audio links on the nyckelharpa page 2 so that they're extracts from the album. I'm still working with the DVD and am long overdue for a lesson, but the album has taken over. I've also got myself a new bow, made by J.C. Condi. I've only had it a few days, but I love it already! It responds in the way that I'm used to as a double bass player. I don't know if that's a good thing, but I'm finally happy that my quest for the perfect bow for me is ended! You can now download one of the articles that I wrote for the American Nyckelharpa association when I first took up the instrument. It's in Nyckelnotes Number 39. There is also one in edition 43, but that won't be available for general reading for another 6 months or so.