The fourth and last session of this years Scandi music course

A great ending to the course last night! We did a bridal polska from the repertoire of the fiddler 'Olles Jonke' Jonas Olsson from tiny village Galven in the province Hälsingland. I learnt the tune from Olles Jonkes son Olle, or 'Vänster (left) Olle' as he sometimes was referred to as he played his violin with his left hand. It's a three part tune, and the story goes that it was devised by a fiddler to allow the bride to dance one part each with the vicar, her father and her new husband. Traditionally there used to be one separate polska for each dance but in this case the bride was heavily pregnant and couldn't cope with three separate polskas. I wouldn't necessarily claim that the story is true but I like it anyway.

below is also an impromptu recording of myself playing the tune.

I didn't find any recordings of the tune on YouTube but it was recorded by the fiddler Ulf Störling on the LP, 'I polsketagen' in the 1980s. Ulf learnt the tune from Olles Jonke when he was documenting older musicians in the southern areas of Hälsingland, today Ulf is, according to me, one of the best performers of this repertoire. I have attached a YouTube playlist with Ulf in different constellations below.
The music I played after the session was from two albums by Draupner a trio focusing on music from Hälsingland, well worth a listen! At the very end I also put on some recordings of Swedish bagpipe with Anders Norudde, who is most famous for his band Hedningarna but he is also great solo musician and luthier. I would also recommend the classic album 'Tunes from Hälsingland', first released in 1968 but now available on spotify, a bit aged maybe, but some great tunes!


Ulf Störling play list:

 Here is another play list with some other influential musicians from the area, especially Gällsbo Emil Olsson.

Third Scandinavian music course session

Another great session with yet another kind of polska, this time a Norwegian variety. A 'polsdans' from the border area between Sweden and Norway. These dance tunes with a short third beat are generally referred to simply as 'finnskogspols' to separate them from other kinds of polska rhythms.
 In the session I called the tune Black Marits, but it turned out to be a typo on my computer... it is supposed to by Back-Marits.

First here is my own recording of the tune with melody and the two different harmonies we did. The second harmony can be played together with the first one for a three part arrangement.

Here is the dots for the arrangement but as I have said before play with the recording first of all!

 
I found two slightly different versions of the tune on YouTube, the first one is played by the Norwegian melodeon player Ingunn Bjørgo, and the second one a version played by Atle Lien Jenssen and Olav Sæta is from the album '24 polsdanser frå Finnskogen', a CD which I played for you after the session (the whole album is actually available on YouTube).

Atle Lien Jenssen and Olav Sæta

Ingunn Bjørgo

And if you are interested in hearing some older field recordings from this area, I recommend the album "Puken i Kjerketårnet" (also available on YouTube)

The Scandinavian music course, 2nd session

Thanks for another good session last night, I thought it sounded really good at the end!

The tune we did was a polska after Elias Larsson, from Västergötland in Southwestern Sweden. I have recorded the various parts below and added an extra YouTube video with the group Crane Dance Trio (Jonas Simonsson (flute), Mats Eden (fiddle) and Mattias Perez (guitar)) playing their arrangement of the same polska. 

 

If you want to look at the dots for the music arrangement you can see them below but remember to listen and play with the recording as well. If you want to go back to basics you can have a look at the original transcription of the tune in the collections of the Swedish folk music commission here.

Some of the CDs I played before and after the course, was Crane Dance Trio, Härjedalspipan, and the Norwegian group Hått.

See you next week!

First session with the Trad Academy's Scandinavian Music Course

Yesterday was the first of four sessions for the Scandinavian music course. We met at a lovely new venue, the Vintage Emporium on Bacon street and were taken very good care of by Jess who served drinks as well as played the fiddle. Below are the two slängpolskas we played during the session, both from the island of Gotland, 'Gamble Mörti' and Vevlirepolskan (although we only started on the second one). I have also added a few links to other recordings of the tunes.
The music we listened to after the session was played by Gunnfjaun's Kapell, Jidder, 'Löfberg, Björnlert, Pekkari' and Luftstråk.

The polskas:
Gamble Mörti was first recorded by the singer Karl Lithberg for the Swedish Radio in 1956, but I learnt it from a CD with Gunnfjaun's Kapell, a influential folk group focusing on the music of Gotland. Gunnfjaun's also recorded vevlirepolskan, which has become a popular tune on the Swedish folk scene.

Gamble Mörti twice through slowly:

Harmony part (slightly different from the session version, sorry!):

Vevlirepolskan, only melody slowly:

Karl Lithberg singing Gamble Mörti:

Gunnfjaun's Kapell playing the same tune (at 3.15) in a set of short polskas:

Same group playing vevlirepolskan:

CV

At the present, I am a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology at Royal Holloway, University of London, while also working as a freelance musician and music educator. Below is a selection of my qualifications, education, publications and work experience.  

For a full CV please contact me via the contact form to the left of the page.

Work
Since 2011 I have been a returning tutor for the English Folk Dance and Song Society, especially their youth folk music project, Get Your Folk On!. I am also teaching the folk music ensemble at the Centre for Young Musicians in Lambeth together with Laura Hewison, and have been involved in various other shorter projects with both EFDSS and CYM. I have also taught general instrument skills to beginners as well as more experienced students. Before my beginning my doctoral studies at Royal Holloway I also taught clarinet for Newham Council's Every Child a Musician project, as well as teaching private students on melodeon and clarinet. Before moving to London in 2009, I regularly taught music in both primary schools and music services. During 2015 I have been a visiting lecturer and teaching assistant at the Royal Holloway department teaching parts of the Introduction to World Music course. At the moment I am also working with the Trad Academy to do a number workshops focusing on Scandinavian music.
As a musician I have been performing at folk festivals in Sweden both as a dance musician and on stage. I have also performed at weddings, funerals, and other ceremonies and events. Since moving to London I have primarily been teaching, but also performed at open-stage events at various folk clubs. I have played as a supporting act to Brass Monkey at the Goose is Out folk club in Nunhead, and played Swedish music at various events. Until 2009 I regularly played with the Swedish-Vietnamese group [Ojzaioj] performing in both Vietnam and Sweden. 

Education
I hold a Swedish Teachers Degree in Music (Master of Education) from the Malmö Academy of Music, University of Lund (2009), as well as a Master's degree in Ethnomusicology from Goldsmiths, University of London (2010). Prior to my university studies I did a one-year long course in traditional singing at the Malung Folk High School (2002). In addition to full-length degrees, I have also studied, contemporary philosophy (Södertörn University, 2012) and Medieval History (University of Gävle, 2006). Since 2012 I am a PhD candidate at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Publications 
2008, “Tunes from Enånger, Njutånger and Nianfors”. (Self published, copies and PDF's can be bought from me)

2010,  “Thang Long Ca tru Club - New Ways for Old Music”. (Peer-reviewed article in the “Finnish Journal for Music Education”, vol.13, nr 1, 2010.)

2012, “A meeting in Ninh Binh: reflections on Buber and the ethnographic meeting point”. (Book chapter in ‘If I were a Drongo bird: Reflections on yearning, imagination and creativity - a tribute to Håkan Lundström’ (Lund University Press; Berry, ed.))

2015(tbc), “Ca trù: the Revival and Repositioning of a Vietnamese Music Tradition”. (Peer-reviewed chapter in the edited volume ‘Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures: an Ecological Perspective’ (Oxford University Press, Schippers & Grant, eds.), co-authored with Prof. Hakan Lundstrom.)

Awards
In 2005 I was awarded the title Riksspelman [National folk musician] for my performance of traditional music from the province of Hälsingland.

A melodeon polska

I learnt this tune many years ago, but it suddenly popped up again when I was sitting at home playing some tunes a few days ago. Its a sweet little polska from the fiddler Per Westberg's (1886-1975) handwritten music manuscripts. Per's son Arvid Westberg (1918-2013) let me copy his father's tune collection and I often used to play pieces from Per's repertoire when I when went to Arvid's house. If I remember correctly this particular tune, which can be found in many version around Sweden, was dated 1911. When I was little we used to sing one version in school while dancing around the Christmas tree; "Morsgrisar är vi allihopa, allihopa, allihopa...." 

Swedish folk music lecture at Royal Holloway

At the moment I am preparing a lecture on Swedish folk music revival, tradition and heritage, for the undergraduate course in World Music at Royal Holloway, University of London.

The idea is that throughout the course the students should meet different musics around the world, beyond the genres and styles which they may already be familiar with, in addition to getting an understanding of key concepts in ethnomusicology and music research.

It will be interesting to see how the students react to the various takes on three-beat rhythm in Scandinavian dance music, but also I hope to get them to critically engage with ambivalent concepts such as tradition and heritage in relation to music.

I am planning to use my own work as a musician as the subject for the lecture to, in a way, give a face to the real musicians who often hides behind ethnographic descriptions in journals and books.  As such it will be a kind of autoethnographic account on Swedish traditional music; which I think will be interesting for me as well as the students.

The main reading will be an article by Owe Ronström on Swedish fiddle music, tradition and heritage, and the additional reading is David Kaminsky’s article on dancing, gender and eroticism.  It is difficult to find English language academic writings on Swedish traditional music, but I think Ronström’s and Kaminsky’s very different texts will provide some interesting discussion in the seminars after the lecture. In general I find it easier to engage groups if they get to do something else in addition to listing so there will definitely be some student participation in the lecture, maybe singing or dancing, and some live music on clarinet and melodeon from me.

A flyer

Being Laurel

Last Monday (5th of October), I taught Laurel Swift's Monday music session in West Ealing, as she was away for the week. Over a couple of hours we played through some of the group's tunes and I taught them a great if somewhat quirky polska from the repertoire of the Delsbo fiddler Erik Ljung. It was a lovely group of musicians and a lot of fun! This is the tune I taught, 'Persapojkarna' (filmed by Mary Doody).

Syndens Kapell plays Lyckliga Henrik's Polka

Syndens Kapell

A Swedish Folk Musician in London

I am a clarinettist and melodeon player based in Southeast London. Swedish and Scandinavian music has been my main interest for many years, and I have a large repertoire of dance and ceremonial music and herding tunes.

An important aspect of my musicianship has been to research and learn music from my home province Hälsingland, in Northern Sweden. Especially, I spent many years interviewing and talking to older singers and musicians in the area. Most influential for my own music making have been and still is the blacksmith and singer Arvid Westberg (b.1918 - d.2013), and fiddlers Vänster-Olle Olsson (b.1924 - d.2015) and Bertil Westling (b. 1927). I also spent many hours trawling through archives, recordings, manuscripts, and drank countless cups of coffee in various kitchens talking to people about their and others music. I have written about some of this work in another blog (in Swedish), Hälsingelåtar for which I received the Hudiksvall local council’s culture award in 2011. I have also produced a tune book with a selection of pieces from Hälsingland (contact me to buy a copy). 

I was awarded the title Riksspelman, 'National Folk Musician', in 2005. In addition to my focus on music in Hälsingland, I particularly enjoy playing tunes from Älvdalen and Särna in Dalarna, and Värmland towards the border to Norway.

 Although I had played the clarinet in the local music service since I was 10 years old, it was not until my late teens that I came into contact with traditional music. Influenced by a friend I went to Malung Folkhögskola (2001) to do a year-long course in folk singing with Maria Röjås and Anders Larsson, which in turn became a door into the Swedish folk scene and led me on to study traditional music and music education at the Malmö Academy of Music in Southern Sweden (2003-2009). At the academy I studied clarinet with Dan Gisen Malmqvist, one-row melodeon with Mats Eden, and took further lessons with fiddler Tuva Härdelin. 

During a break in my studies (2006-2007) I moved back to Hälsingland to spend more time playing with Olle, Bertil and Arvid. I also played with Bollnäsbygdens Spelmanslag and worked as an archive assistant in a local folk music archive.

 When I finished my studies at the Academy of Music in 2009 I had been involved in an exchange project with the Hanoi Academy of music in Vietnam for several years and developed a more serious interest in ethnomusicology. Influenced by Vietnamese music expert Barley Norton, I moved to London to do an ethnomusicology master with him at Goldsmiths, University of London. At the moment I am finishing a PhD thesis on music and sentiment in Vietnamese traditional opera, at another University of London college, Royal Holloway.

 Parallel to my research in Vietnam, I have continued to teach and perform both Swedish and increasingly English traditional music. In London I have worked with the English Folk Dance and Song Society, the Centre for Young Musicians, and the Trad Academy. I am a musician for the Blackheath Morris Men, and also perform as a solo musician on clarinet and melodeon, and when possible with my Swedish band, Syndens Kapell (see video), or in other constellations.

I am always on the look out for gigs or teaching opportunities, so feel free to contact me if you are in need of some Swedish or Scandinavian music!

Ethnomusicology – Ca trù – Vietnam

Photo by Esbjorn Wettermark

In 2010 I wrote an article in the Finnish Journal of Music Education about the Thang Long Ca tru Club, a traditional music group in Hanoi, Vietnam. This was my first academic publication and the result of several years engagement with the clubs founder Pham Thi Hue, who I first met in 2003. The article (in English) deals with the Hue's and her groups attempts to revive, learn and teach ca trù, a style of traditional chamber music which has been on the verge of disappearing. The issue which contains the article can be found here.

Ca trù and the Thang Long Club also became the subject of my 2010 Master's thesis in ethnomusicology at Goldsmiths, University of London, entitled 'Shifting Mindscapes in the Vietnamese Historical Consciousness and its Impact on Music Revivalism: Ca trù and the Thang Long Ca trù Club'.

Since then I have done further research on the ca trù revival and sustainability within the international research project 'Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures: towards an ecology of musical diversity'. The results from the project is to be published in a edited volume, 'Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures: An Ecological Perspective' (Schippers & Grant) and will include a chapter based on my fieldwork in Vietnam between 2009-2015, 'Ca trù: the Revival and Repositioning of a Vietnamese Music Tradition' (co-written with Håkan Lundström).