World Nyckelharpa Day

Just in case the details of the occasion may have passed you by, I’d like to mention that today (24th April ’22) is this year’s World Nyckelharpa Day. (See: http://worldnyckelharpaday.com/)

I’m sure many of us feel that, regrettably, the nyckelharpa is not as adequately represented in sessions as it might be, but there is a good deal in the Irish repertoire where it can make an excellent contribution. With this in mind, I’ve posted a 2-part setting of O‘Carolan’s ’Princess Royal’ as a case in point. If any Nyckelharpists out there would like to give it a try . . .

https://youtu.be/U1DX7eyUfv0

play video

Er . . Thanks, yhaal house. Perhaps not THE most representative example of nyckelharpas playing a session tune but, well . . . you know. I guess it shows you’re taking an interest.

Thank you for the music, Yhaal House…. 🙂

Is it not a very beautiful tune/ recording featuring nyckelharpas?
And in the 70s inadvertently (and probably unknowingly!) introduced the sound of the instrument to millions of people with this album track?

You are right, of course, Yhaal House.

Anyway, Gavin Pennycook has done some nice things with the instrument

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mI8Gr7qI8Gg&list=RDEMu_JSf1nw8ptz4ULJFzCQGA&start_radio=1

play video

There’s more clips available but you could always buy the album too.

Ah yes! I didn’t mean to sound sniffy about the Abba clip, Yhaal House, and I’m sure it’s done a lot for nyckelharpa-awareness. (And I understand that Benny Andersson went on to be a leading figure in the Swedish folk music community) . It’s just that Mr Pennycook’s tunes (and excellent playing) are more the sort of thing that would be good to hear at sessions.

Bazza! You didn’t seem ‘sniffy’!

Mind you, if Arrival was suddenly played on fiddles and pipes and stuff enough at sessions, it could become the new Ashokan Farewell or wotteffah!

Well, well, well: I say it 3 times as we had 3 THREE nyckelharpas in one session this afternoon, in “Da Lounge Bar” (which I played on my box) : namely John Cooke, Donald Ross and Elizabeth Kaufmann McLay.
This was as part of the annual “Northern Streams Festival” in Edinburgh, which hasn’t been able to happen in full since 2019, and this was a scaled-down model with the only live “performance” being this 3-hour session this afternoon, in association with the Edinburgh Scandi Session group - the first time we’d met live since before Covid. Ok, it wasn’t Da Lounge Bar in Lerwick, but in The Lounge Bar of Edinburgh University Union.
We did have some ABBA: I believe in Angels, and Dancing Queen, but the rest was mainly tunes.
There are some archive recordings of 2 concerts from recent previous years and three workshops available to view:
http://www.northernstreams.org/
If any problem with the links (as I had), just go to YouTube and type Northern Streams 2022 in the search box

Just listened to the ABBA track; superb! Thanks YH!

https://alexkehler.bandcamp.com/track/mr-oconnor

I have never seen one show up at a session.

Well, PB, maybe there’s an opportunity to see if there are any harpa players in your area who’d want to take part in a local session. There’s always a first time. Perhaps a quick check with the US nyckelharpa association (http://www.nyckelharpa.org/) would turn up a contact or two . . .