Jen is Marwyn’s longest standing friend from primary school days, and this tune was made for her birthday this year.
Recorded in the park at Gatehouse of Fleet.
I have been waiting for a suitable occasion in nice weather to record this for a month or two. The tune has been on my list of those to learn properly for a while, and I think “Pigopolskan” is a great tune.
Recording near some running water seemed like quite a good idea, and I think it was. I must get a wind shield for the recorder though, there are one or two blowy moments. In fact I used this first proper take rather than the second as that one began with a loud buzzing insect on the microphone!
We’re back again! Another celebration of the nyckelharpa. This photo is from 2016; a lot of tunes have gone by since then. Here’s the main page: http://worldnyckelharpaday.com and my stuff is linked below. Continue reading
A small number of Scandi music enthusiasts, including several nyckelharpa fiends, managed to fit in a weekend of music with Vicki Swan and Jonny Dyer at the end of October in Halsway Manor.
It’s a while since I collected my lovely nyckelharpa from Olle Plahn in Falun, Sweden, in May 2014. This was me trying to get a tune out of it in the hotel in Falun.
Now we have the first World Nyckelharpa Day! There’s lots going on, including people all over the place playing Björnlåten at 12 noon (UK time). I have added some links here to stuff especially on YouTube which is related.
To get us in the mood, here’s a polska! It’s “Polska efter Johan Jacob Bruun” which I recorded a week ago.
When we were in Sweden, I had forgotten to ask someone to bring some nyckelharpa strings to Österbybruk for my stock – I like to change the playing strings every year or so. I was going to ask someone to bring some over to Halsway in September, but duckduckgo-ing revealed that the String Zone now stock them. Excellent!
In Shetland I really wanted to go to a session at the Lounge Bar (famous music pub) and play the tune “Da Lounge Bar” by Annlaug Borsheim, but was just a little thwarted! Continue reading