When I started on the nyckelharpa, I
was 68, a bit late for a major change indeed. I had been a violinist for many
decades, earning my living playing Irish and Dutch folk as well as classical music
and improvised rock. And by teaching the violin.
It often takes a lot of effort to
change one’s routines. My routine was to play instruments tuned in fifths:
violin and five-stringed viola. I tuned the second harpa string to D. I was
only half aware of the fact that C was the most common tuning in Sweden. Not
that I intended to play Swedish music, yet I ended up playing a lot of Swedish for
the love of it but that’s another story. First when buying strings I noticed
that Prim marked the second string C. I tried C-tuning at that point. Not very
thoroughly, I must admit. As I said: it takes a lot of effort to change
routines. After some days I hurried back to D.
When a good friend and nyckelharpa colleague studied at Esitobo, there was
a discussion about tuning. The teacher drew the anecdote that when Marco
Ambrosini’s first nyckelharpa arrived after long transportation, he assumed
that the second string during the voyage lost its proper pitch – so he turned
the string “back up” to D. Through this mistake D-tuning came into the world,
for Marco became one of the first very influential nyckelharpa players and
teachers outside Sweden. Indeed, many of the “continental players” nowadays
use D-tuning.
I have long been surprised by the lasting Swedish love for C-tuning. Reasoning back in time I have begun to understand. Both August Bohlin and Eric Sahlström, the creators of the present three row chromatic nyckelharpa, played the nyckelharpa as well as the violin. The standard harpa up till the 1960s was the silverbas, tuned C, with two melody strings (C and A). What Bohlin and Sahlström basically did was extending the silverbas by adding keys to the G, the third string. However, their aim was not to change the repertoire, which was basically from the north of Uppland, their home area. Here C-tuning fits in very well. No reason to take an effort to change routines.
During the 1970s, the era called the green
wave (“gröna vågen”; Thomas Fahlander describes the folk music explosion of the
period in his Gift dig aldrig med en
spelman), building and playing the nyckelharpa became popular all over
Sweden. This was the period when traditional folk music became sort of canonised.
In theory every change, every adaptation could be considered a violation. Here
in Holland, the urbanisation had been so strong that little if any Dutch folk music was
left. We played a lot of Irish and British music however, and we felt the same about those traditions, so I wanted to sound exactly like an Irishman, when playing the fiddle. Hence no wonder
C-tuning survived in Sweden, the harpa being a unique instrument from (a small
area within) Sweden. Even though many who started on the harpa were fiddlers. Actually both Bohlin and Sahlström were accomplished violinists.
However, a number of nyckelharpists chose
D-tuning, not only because of their fiddle backgrounds but even because the
Swedish violin repertoire became played on the harpa. For many, D-tuning
helps when playing that repertoire. In the online Cadence nyckelharpa-book, Emilia
Amper wrote (p.99):
Yet I know quite some musicians who happily
play such tunes in C-tuning. But something else happened. The nyckelharpa became
known outside Sweden. Slowly. First after 2000 something like a scene of widely
spread-out nyckelharpists started to develop in Europe, in America, in the
Far-East. The majority of these harpa beginners played the violin. For them,
the harpa really was a keyed fiddle (or viola). Meanwhile, the strong
ideological appeal of the folk music movement slowly had waned. And: the harpa
found other genres, especially in Europe. Marco Ambrosini was and is one of the
main protagonists of this development. Moreover, though harpa teachers were
scarce, most of the continental teachers used D-tuning, and put strong emphasis on
genres like baroque and other classical music, as well as jazz and folk music from
other areas. All these are factors in a choice for D.
And here I bring in my strong wish concerning
the harpa. It is a fantastic instrument, with an unequaled sound and many
possibilities. Besides being incorporated in Swedish folk it should have
conquered the world and many genres, around 1600 already! Why didn’t it? Historical and technical reasons, which I hope to write about in the future. It should have, and it
still could happen. But here, I think, D-tuning really can help, at least in
helping violinists to start playing the harpa. I mean both violin beginners,
amateurs, as well as experienced, even professionals. The
latter may be used to virtuoso playing, with solo Multi-part harmony
pieces: Bach’s violin solo sonatas, Paganini or Kreisler pieces are just an example. While experienced
Swedish C-players apply brilliant double stops to their tunes, as I see it mastering
a piece with continuous playing in thirds or sixths really benefits from tuning
in fifths. A player like Johan Hedin has
presented good examples of what D-tuning can do in this respect. By the way,
using instruments with four rows of keys, as has become more and more popular,
also would melp to get other musicians to start playing harpa.
I hope all musicians thrive by playing their music
their own way, whatever tuning they choose to use. I still play a lot of Irish
(on my harpa as well as on my viola d’amore, which I largely have tuned in
fifths). But I don’t want to be a copy of Irish musicians anymore. Aren't there enough folk musicians within Ireland? I don’t want to act “Irish fiddler”
anymore - I want to sound like myself.
