Polkas

This week I taught you three tunes from Denmark, Finland and Estonia. The common denominator was that they all were different kinds of polka, or at least 2/4 polka-like tunes. Although there are lots of different types of dance tunes played in these countries, the polka has definitely been very popular in both Denmark and Finland. For those of you who want to here some more music from these areas I am putting together a play list on spotify, which I will add below in the coming days.

The first tune we did was ‘Jysk Fynsk’ ,  a local name for Rheinlænder-polka, from a recording with fiddler Levy Vilsen from Læsø, Denmark. The second one was a polka recorded by the influential Finnish folk group Kankaan Pelimannit, I don’t know much about the tune other than it was called Stövelpolka (Boot-polka) on a Swedish issue of their 1977 LP ‘Kangas Spelmän’ . The last short little tune was a Swedish-Estonian polka-like ‘laik’ (tune) from the bowed harp (talharpa) player Hans Renqvist from Ormsö in Estonia.

Jysk Fynsk

Stövelpolka

Laik

Scandi Course 16th of November

Another three tunes from Hälsingland this week, schottis, polkett and polska. The schottis I learned from Bertil Westling, who also taught me last weeks waltz. He got if from Holger Sjödin in Enånger, and it is fairly well known tune Holger was not much of a musician himself but played some of his father's Kalle Sjödin (1866-1938) repertoire. The polkett, another word for polka, I got from Olle Ollson, know as Vänster ('left') Olle as he played his fiddle on the 'wrong' side. Olle's father Olles Jonke was an important link to the older fiddle traditions in southern Hälsingland and in the late 1970s and early 1980s a number of younger fiddlers learnt tunes from him. Ulf Störling is one of the fiddlers who play a lot of Olles Jonke's tunes today. The last tune is from the famous fiddler Erik Ljung from Delsbo. Erik Ljung's tunes were collected in the early 20th century and included in the big collection of Swedish dance music known as Svenska Låtar. The original transcripts can be seen online here.

Schottis after Holger Sjödin

 

Polkett after Olle Olsson

 Polska efter Erik Ljung

The Autumn's first scandi course session with the Trad Academy

A great first session with the autumn scandi music course at 14 Bacon street, I really enjoyed the evening! The two tunes we did were both collected in Härjedalen and in a style connected with western Sweden and the borders to Norway. The first was a halling from the fiddler Christoffer Tholson (1864-1945) and the second a triplet-based polska from another fiddler, Olof Löfgren (1865-?). This polska is often called Djävulspolskan, the devil’s polska, and my version of it is mostly influenced by a recording on the album Härjedalspipan (you can see the original and slightly different transcript here). Below is my arrangement of the polska and the halling tune. Recordings of both will be up soon.

If you want to listen to some more tunes in this style I can recommend groups and musicians such as Hoven Droven, Kjell-Erik Eriksson, Lasse Sörlin, and also records by Pettersson och Fredriksson, and Ulrika Bodén. You’ll find some of this on Spotify and YouTube.

Looking forward to next week when we’ll play some tunes from Hälsingland.

Halling

Polska

Pictures and video from a performance at the ArtsCafe in Manor Park, Lewisham

A video of me playing a polska from Galven, recorded at my recent Linear Obsessional Live performance.

 

Doing some melodeoning

Me and 'Mr. Linear Obsessional' himself, Richard Sanderson doing some free improvisation on two melodeons.

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...." 

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