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  #16  
Old 07-19-2020, 12:37 AM
Wade Hampton Wade Hampton is offline
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I first learned about nyckelharpas when I was on a tour of Finnish and Swedish folk and country music festivals that I played in 1981. The gentleman I stayed with in Solna, a suburb of Stockholm, was Anders Eklundh, who had been awarded the distinction of riksspelman for his playing of nyckelharpa and other traditional Swedish folk instruments.

In Sweden they have the tradition of having traditional musicians play for a jury, and if they're good enough they're designated as a riksspelman, or "musician of the realm."

Here's a photo of Anders taken around the time I knew him:



Anders Eklundh

Here's a photo of him playing the hummel, which is a diatonically fretted zither related to the American mountain dulcimer (which is how he and I connected.)



Playing the hummel

Anders also played guitar, harmonica and an older, archaic version of the nyckelharpa called the silverharpa. I never did figure out the difference between the two, because they looked, sounded and played just the same as the nyckelharpas, so far as I could tell.

One thing I noticed about those videos is that the nyckelharpa player in both of them was using a bow with a violin frog on it to maintain the bow's tension. That's understandable if the player is a touring musician who travels in and out of different climatic zones. But the traditional nyckelharpa is very close to the bows that you see in painting and sculptures of medieval musicians: with a pronounced arch to them and no frog.

Instead, the bow tension is maintained by the player's thumb on his right hand.



˙˙˙

The horsehair on Anders' nyckelharpa bows was actually kind of slack, and he changed tension on it with his thumb for musical effect when needed, much as guitarists will play closer or farther from the bridge, or mute with their palm just to get different tones and textures.

One day Anders decided to give me a nyckelharpa lesson. The nyckelharpa is most often played seated in a kind of awkward position, with the instrument held out at about a 45˚ angle from the player's body.



˙˙˙

Anyway, he and I got set up, and he handed me the bow, and told me it would be difficult at first to deal with it. Instead, I took right to the bowing technique he was playing right away, which astonished him: "That NEVER happens! NOBODY gets the bowing first!"

But I did. Keeping time and playing melodies on the nyckelharpa, though, I found more difficult. A large part of the problem for me as an American folk musician is that Swedish folk music has a completely different pulse to it. When I was in Finland I played along with the Finns with no problems, but Swedish music proved to be more rhythmically challenging for me.

And even though with my fair hair and fair complexion I was usually taken as either a Finn or a Swede in each of those countries, I'm mostly of Scottish and British Isles ancestry, without any Scandinavian heritage more recent than the Viking days. So as much as I liked Swedish music, it doesn't speak to me in quite the same way.

That's the reason I don't have two or three of them, Andy! If I lived in Sweden I undoubtedly would, but I live in the American equivalent - Alaska. Not too many guys in knee britches and double breasted vests playing them here.



˙˙˙

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller
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  #17  
Old 07-19-2020, 06:05 AM
Silly Moustache Silly Moustache is online now
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Got it Wade,

I bet that was a wonderful time. I love Sweden, and my farfar (grandfather) was Swedish -actually, I believe, from Gotland the island between Sweden and Latvia.
He was killed by a German bomb in London 1917 - in front of my father then six years old.

Surely the American mountain dulcimer was developed from the hummel?
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Last edited by Silly Moustache; 07-20-2020 at 03:40 PM. Reason: edited to correct my grandfathers date of death.
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  #18  
Old 07-19-2020, 04:13 PM
Wade Hampton Wade Hampton is offline
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Yes, there’s a probable line of descent there, from either the hummel or the scheiholt, (the German diatonically fretted zither,) or both.

The most likely transmission of the idea of a simple, homemade zither with diatonic fretting comes from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where many of the “Pennsylvania Dutch” were clustered. “Dutch” is what native English speakers in the United States tended to call any group of people of Germanic background, which included people from the Netherlands, from the Scandinavian countries and from the various princely states in what’s now called Germany.

So the Pennsylvania Dutch weren’t a monolithic group at all.

Anyway, there are scheiholts from the 18th Century that have been collected in Lancaster County by various museums, so we know that at least some of people there had them then.

Where the Scots-Irish (my people) came in is that Lancaster County was a hotbed of very fine gunsmiths. So the mountaineers would travel north to Lancaster County to purchase rifles. The generally accepted theory is that some of these gunsmiths had scheiholts and perhaps hummels in their homes, the mountaineers saw them and asked about them, then took the idea back home with them.

Incidentally, when the term “Scots-Irish” gets used in the UK, it’s used in a very specific way to refer to the “Ulster Scots” who traveled to Northern Ireland to settle; indeed, from what I can tell the phrase “Ulster Scots” is more commonly used.

In the US, however, just like “Pennsylvania Dutch” is a general term used loosely to encompass an assortment of different Germanic peoples, over here the term “Scots-Irish” is a loosely applied term that includes not only Ulster Scots but Scottish lowlanders and English emigrants from northern England, all of whom moved across the Atlantic to the colonies in a major migration starting about 1690 and lasting through the 1720’s.

The distinctions between them eroded and then largely ceased to exist as they intermarried and tended to settle near each other. Numerically the Ulster Scots made up the smallest group of the three, with the majority being from Cumberland, Northumberland and Yorkshire in the north of England. The lowland Scots were the second largest group.

But as they intermarried the blended group became known as Scots-Irish. They were all culturally very similar to begin with, and as the years passed became even more so.

So, in brief: Northern European settlers from Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands brought their homemade zithers with them, or made them when they arrived. English speaking “Scots-Irish” settlers traveled north to Lancaster County encountered these simple instruments while purchasing guns from skilled Pennsylvania Dutch gunsmiths, then went home with the idea that they could build these zithers for themselves.

The English speakers called these instruments “dulcimers” because there are several references to dulcimers in the King James Bible, which was the one book that virtually all of them owned. In some of the churches there was a built-in bias against stringed instruments, the fiddle in particular being referred to as the Devil’s instrument.

By calling these zithers dulcimers, criticism of them was small to nonexistent, because of the mentions of dulcimers in the King James Bible.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller
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  #19  
Old 07-20-2020, 04:32 AM
PerryE PerryE is offline
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Really cool reading! Being a Swede and having seen Nyckelharpa a number of times I never really read much about them. Weird learning this on AGF!
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  #20  
Old 07-20-2020, 03:28 PM
Robin, Wales Robin, Wales is offline
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Wade - that's a lovely summary of the history of the fretted zither in the US.

I have never seen a nyckelharpa being played during my trips to Sweden. I was last there last September leading two week long wilderness canoe trips down the Harken river system for people living with cancer. I saw a few Swedes trying to hunt moose but none with weird folk instruments.

I did see a Hardanger fiddle player a few years ago. I was leading a group ski touring across the Hardangervidda and we were entertained at one of the mountain huts by a local fiddler who was staying their. The hut had been open for 100 years and we happened to turn up on its birthday! One of our group was a very good old-time fiddler so she played Coleman's March on the guy's Hardanger fiddle.

I can see why the Scots-Irish copied the concept of European zithers they saw and made their own instruments. The mountain dulcimer is such a simple thing to make. It would have been easy to source both piano wire for making strings and broom wire for making frets at hardware stores in the mid 1800s or through catalogues (the internet shopping of the time!). No special tools were needed and you can set frets in just intonation VERY accurately by ear using two strings.

We have never had a traditional fretted zither in Wales, although many types are found throughout Europe. Well, until now that is. I finished my second Bocs Can Idris (Idris' song box) at the beginning of lockdown:



It is a new traditional Welsh fretted zither (well, tradition has to start somewhere). Just before lockdown my friend (guitarist) and I entered the local Eisteddfod and won! I played old Welsh dance tunes on the first Bocs Can Idris I built with guitar accompaniment. I have built sympathetic drones into the Bocs Can Idris, which give the instrument a bot of natural reverb. Having seen the nyckelharpa it has given me some ideas for future mods!
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  #21  
Old 07-20-2020, 04:25 PM
Silly Moustache Silly Moustache is online now
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Hi Wade, and folks, this thread has widened to ethnics and I find it very interesting.

Surely the term Pennsylvania Dutch was a contraction of "Deutsche" meaning, as you say largely Germanic (or generally northern European).

I remember being "reeducated" by an American acquaintance when I used the term Scots-Irish when discussing Appalachian, old time music origins.

He asserted that the "Irish" all went to the Boston environs and only the "Scots" went to the Appalachians.

However, I believe that most Scots and Irish were from the Protestant community, and as said, (and I'm no expert on this) tended towards the King James version. (KJV).

This is my understanding, and as a fan of old-time music, and the other forms of music that sprang from it, I'd be delighted to be further educated.
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  #22  
Old 07-21-2020, 03:10 AM
Wade Hampton Wade Hampton is offline
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Yes, Andy, you’re correct: the term “Dutch” definitely comes from the word “Deutsche.” One ancestor of mine was supposedly “Dutch,” but whoever he was and exactly where he came from have been lost to time.

As for your American acquaintance, as you might expect the actual history is far more complicated than any simple little one liner can convey. What’s more, there are some Irish-Americans who believe in a simplified narrative that states that the only “real” Irish who emigrated to North America were Roman Catholic, and anyone else wasn’t really Irish. In our high school years my sister and I had to contend with a clan-like family of kids named Fitzpatrick who spouted that nonsense. She and I used to wear orange on St. Patrick’s Day just to aggravate them.

The truth is that the majority of willing Irish emigrants to the American colonies were either Presbyterian or Anglican. There were also some Roman Catholics who made the journey on purpose, but it was expensive, they were largely impoverished and mostly couldn’t pay their own ways. A larger percentage of Roman Catholic Irish were sent as punishment, much as later generations of Irish were “transported” to Australia for perceived criminal violations.

Things weren’t as formalized during American colonial history, but many Irish (and Scottish and English) people were transported and had to serve seven to fourteen year periods as indentured servants. A later manifestation of this was the founding of the colony in Georgia: that included a fairly large group of convicts, many of whom were Irish.

The founding of Savannah and the Georgia colony were the closest forerunners of what England did not all that much later in Australia.

Anyway, many Roman Catholic AND Protestant Irish people, of both genders, served as indentured servants in America in every English colony. In many cases it was voluntary, with people signing up to become indentured simply to pay for their passage.

When those who had been sent as punishment had served their hitches, it’s not as though they were offered a return ticket home, so they tended to stay, get married and become part of the community. Since most of the locals were not Roman Catholic, the Roman Catholic Irish blended in and adapted, and often either converted or allowed their children to be raised Protestant. If they homesteaded on the Indian frontier, in the dangerous country that the established English settlers didn’t want, as many of these former indentured servants did, they were so distant from churches of any denomination that it didn’t much matter.

This took place during the 1600’s and 1700’s, right up to the political break with the Mother Country. After that the Brits had to find somewhere else to stash their “criminal class,” and fortunately for them Australia worked perfectly for that.

Anyway, in most American towns and regions there were Irish of both persuasions almost from the beginning. A large percentage of George Washington’s army was Irish, which is why they livened up their abysmal winter stay at Valley Forge with the first St. Patrick’s Day parade and celebration.

Most of them were probably Presbyterian, but they were Irish nonetheless, and commonly referred to as such.

The emigration pattern your acquaintance described is truer of the 19th and early 20th Centuries, but even then is woefully inadequate if it leaves out New York.

Anyway, it’s obvious that whoever you talked to didn’t know diddly squat about the Scots-Irish. Your instinct was correct. Speaking as someone of Scots-Irish descent, we’re used to this.

Since the hard core of the Scots-Irish group resulted mostly from the emigration patterns of a roughly thirty year period between 1690 and 1720, it’s so far back in time that anyone who hasn’t sought out that information is likely to be unaware of it. There were also numerous later emigrations, especially among the Scots as they left in waves after Bonnie Prince Charlie’s rebellion failed and again during the Highland Clearances. Those muddy the waters a bit from a historical standpoint, especially since many of these Scots arriving later intermarried with the Scots-Irish who were already there.

So the story isn’t as widely known than if it had occurred more recently.

Short version: you were right when you mentioned the Scots-Irish, but your know-it-all American acquaintance was wrong. The Scots-Irish mostly arrived on these shores long before later waves of Irish Roman Catholics did. But both Protestant and Roman Catholic Irish were present in all of the American colonies from at least the 1640’s onwards. Simple as that.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller

Last edited by Wade Hampton; 07-21-2020 at 03:17 AM.
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  #23  
Old 07-21-2020, 04:33 AM
Robin, Wales Robin, Wales is offline
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Originally Posted by Wade Hampton View Post
...She and I used to wear orange on St. Patrick’s Day just to aggravate them.
Ouch!!! That would still cause issues on the streets of Glasgow today, let alone in Derry. The tribalism and miss-representation of history you refer to hasn't gone away over here.
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  #24  
Old 07-21-2020, 05:54 AM
Wade Hampton Wade Hampton is offline
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Oh, I don’t think it goes away anywhere. But wearing orange on St. Pat’s just to annoy the Fitzpatricks was definitely gratifying - they’d essentially froth at the mouth whenever they’d see that, never realizing that if they’d just shrugged and maybe even laughed at it that we’d stop yanking their chains for our own amusement.

But they were what my father always called “professional Irish-Americans,” and as such were probably incapable of seeing the humor in it.

Incidentally, when I was making my living playing Irish music I never hid or denied that my own Irish roots were Church of Ireland rather than Roman Catholic. I didn’t shout it from the rooftops, but if asked I never lied about it.

On a few rare occasions belligerent Irish-Americans tried to make an issue out of it, but on every occasion - and I do mean every occasion - Irish people from Ireland shut those loudmouths down. The foreign-born Irish in the crowd seemed to appreciate my honesty, plus it was no big deal to them what church I was raised in.

There were some Irish from Ireland in the bars who hated Irish Protestants, but they were very much the exception. Even those people didn’t give me a hard time, because I was an American and thus to their minds not part of the Troubles in any way, shape or form.


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  #25  
Old 07-23-2020, 01:07 PM
JLT JLT is offline
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Originally Posted by Robin, Wales View Post



It is a new traditional Welsh fretted zither (well, tradition has to start somewhere).
That looks a lot like the traditional "Courting Dulcimer" except that this one has the fretboards in parallel, whereas the courting dulcimer had them opposed; the idea was that two players could play them while facing each other.

When I saw this thread and observed the nyckelharpa in action, I thought: "My god, that's just a wheel-less hurdy-gurdy!"
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  #26  
Old 07-23-2020, 05:08 PM
Wade Hampton Wade Hampton is offline
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Originally Posted by JLT View Post
That looks a lot like the traditional "Courting Dulcimer" except that this one has the fretboards in parallel, whereas the courting dulcimer had them opposed; the idea was that two players could play them while facing each other.

When I saw this thread and observed the nyckelharpa in action, I thought: "My god, that's just a wheel-less hurdy-gurdy!"
That’s exactly what it is. I had the exact same thought the first time I saw one.

Robin’s double fretboard is also very reminiscent of a courting dulcimer, as you stated. The difference with this one, of course, is that it gives the player the advantage of having two fretboards that can be put into two different tunings. So instead of having to retune the dulcimer every time a guitarist idly decides to change keys, this way you can have the tunings that will cover most of the keys that get commonly used.


whm
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  #27  
Old 07-24-2020, 10:42 AM
Jeff Scott Jeff Scott is offline
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That looks a lot like the traditional "Courting Dulcimer" except that this one has the fretboards in parallel, whereas the courting dulcimer had them opposed; the idea was that two players could play them while facing each other.
This courting dulcimer is for a couple where one of the two is a lefty. Who ever said luthiers don't think of them?
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Old 07-27-2020, 01:29 AM
Wade Hampton Wade Hampton is offline
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This courting dulcimer is for a couple where one of the two is a lefty. Who ever said luthiers don't think of them?
Perfect!


whm
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  #29  
Old 07-28-2020, 01:30 AM
otis66 otis66 is offline
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Looks like a manually operated Hurdy Gurdy.
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Old 07-28-2020, 03:57 AM
Wade Hampton Wade Hampton is offline
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Looks like a manually operated Hurdy Gurdy.
Which is what it is, basically, or bow-driven if you want to be precise. Nyckelharpas also sound a great deal like hurdy gurdys, aside from their different sustain characteristics.

For some reason the hurdy gurdys I’ve heard up close are noticeably louder than nyckelharpas. Nyckelharpas are plenty loud on their own, mind you, but there’s a piercing quality to hurdy gurdys that nyckelharpas don’t share.

Which is fine, thank you very much. I’ve never been a big fan or participant of Renaissance Fairs, but I’ve been paid to play at a few. My least favorite of those half a dozen or so gigs over the years was one where a hurdy gurdy player was stationed altogether too close to the spot I’d been assigned to, and the guy was apparently incapable of getting his hurdy gurdy fully in tune.

Which was hideous to be around, frankly.

I tried talking to him one time about getting it in tune with itself, and the guy just gave me a blank look, like he didn’t know WHAT the hell I was talking about.

Needless to say, the torment continued.


whm
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