Gordon Tracie, Alan Lomax, and Victor Grauer discuss Scandinavian folk music and dance (part 1)

Note: Victor Grauer does most of the interviewing on these tapes. During the conversations it emerges that a beat supplied by the dancers, rather than by instruments playing a figured bass, was a feature of older Scandinavian music that became more or less submerged after the age of mechanical reproduction. Improvisation and syncopation also characterized Scandinavian fiddle music. Northern Germanic languages have common origins and likewise the music also has common heritage. Many musical dialects have survived but only where folk music has survived. Danish melodies have a limited range and regular, simple tempos. Swedish tunes are more buoyant; the older music is modal (sounds minor). Norwegian tunes are more intense, with more contrasts. Ballad dances of the Faroes: an ancient form once common to the whole area, is a living tradition on the Faroes, where there is no instrumental tradition. The whole community memorizes and sings heroic ballads of three or four hundred verses, while dancing. A leader starts the verse with the words "And then," overlapping before the chorus has finished the last verse. This is not call-and-response: everybody learns the verses. The dance is slow, with stamping and dramatic gestures, if it's a war ballad. The leader is an older man who knows thousands of ballads for special occasions. In 1500, the Catholic Church forbade dancing in Norway and the ballad dance went out. Later soldiers returned from war in Poland and may have brought back the violin, which was overlaid and combined with traditional forms. The fiddle was a much older instrument, used to accompany troubadours. Nineteenth century scholars revived the ballad dance in Norway but the tradition is not as vital as in Faroe. Has persisted in northern Sweden, however. Song games: action games mimicking courtship. Miming games, danced around the Christmas tree: "Fox is Running Across the Ice." They sing nonsense syllables, "a-tra-la." In effect, this is vocal fiddle music for accompanying dance. Pietism dealt a great blow to folk music when it forbade fiddle music, but a greater blow was the industrial revolution, which brought the accordion. Unlike the fiddle music tradition, which had its own intervals and ornaments (based on vocal music and cattle calls), the accordion uses poorly tempered diatonic tuning and has taken over all of Scandinavia. The name "polska" (Norwegian "pols"), derives from polka and is a 3/4 time dance resembling the mazurka. Scandinavian dances are predominantly in 3/4 time, and are related to landler. Mouth music. Cantaract. A syllabic way of teaching rhythms (cf. Indian traditional music). Swedish fiddle music characterized by long musical phrases: AABB or AABBCC. One tune can have three separate themes. Weddings usually had at least two fiddlers, a master and an apprentice who started at eight or so and played harmony, preferably more. The instrument is possibly of Nordic origin. It is held to the chest. A bowed harp can't be held by the chin and is only played in the first position. In contrast, in the violin the left hand must be free for shifts of position. Wedding music: two fiddlers riding horses would announce the arrival of the bridal party. Walking music had the most beautiful tunes. There were tunes for every course of the banquet: for bread, cheese, meats, drinking. Other vocal traditions. Singing by women. Old women sing for themselves while working. Nineteenth century romantic songs are sung in harmony by pairs of girls. Examples of Swedish fiddle tunes. Shoe fiddle. Nyckelharpa. The oldest music is functional music. People don?t tamper with it. Harmony essential to Swedish music. It has a resemblance to Baroque music, but is older. Swedish yeomen farmers were never serfs, their land was never enclosed. Village traditions survived. More instruments, the more standardized the music gets. Solo players can be more expressive. Springars are so complex that they have been likened to Bach's cello suites. AAABB standard form of Bach's dance suite and also of American hoedown. One of Bach's teachers came from Scandinavia. Springar rhythm is not clear from fiddler, who ornaments the beat that is supplied by dancers. Greater number of fiddlers result in more straightforward rhythms and less ornament. Double stops (two-strings played at a time) are based on sixteenth notes as in baroque music. Norwegian fiddle has a flat bridge and can play triple stops. Walking tunes are typically syncopated. Fiddlers walk and even can climb while playing. Groups play with no leader. Only very large (100 or more) fiddlers need a leader. Scandinavian fiddling intonation is consistent with what we would expect. Although it uses the natural, not the tempered, scale, it is liked by people who like classical music. Musical examples: Grindstone polka, Swan polka. Discussion of tuning.