Swedish Masquerade barndance

I recently posted a tune called “the Old Man of Jutland”:

https://thesession.org/tunes/12266

.. being a tune that is suitable for use as an alternate tune for a dance called: “Swedish Masquerade”.

Session.org member Weejie commented that he knew of yet another alternate tune, his source being Jens Peter Dam, Brønderslev, Jylland.
He also supplied the ABCs, and commented that it needed a little tidying up.

So I’ve tidied it up (and simplified it in a couple of places) and also converted the third part of the tune to the session.org ABC meta standard.

And here is a link the the “Swedish Masquerade” standard tune.

https://thesession.org/tunes/8092

Thanks for doing this, Mix. Jens Peter Dam was a farmer in Stenum, near Brønderslev, Vendsyssel in Nordjylland (North Jutland). He compiled ten volumes of tunes from Vendsyssel, and this is one of the tunes. He mentions in his notes that he got the tune from a Niels Christensen in Brønderslev.

Thanks, Weejie - as always, you are a veritable mine of information.

“… he got the tune from a Niels Christensen ,,,”

Hmm .. I wonder who Niels Christensen got it from … 😉

Very interesting to see and try the different tunes for this dance. I still haven’t managed to dig out the multi-part one I’ve danced to in the paste, but in all the forms I remember it always had the chorus of the march. I think that in some instances it was the march as chorus and then any well known dance tune as the verse… I will get to searching again, especially now that much of our libraries are back in our possession, if some of it still boxed up. Mind you, for good causes we’ve also given some prized sources away… 😏 😉

Is there an online resource to the Jens Peter Dam volumes?

The Swedish Masquerade dance still crops up quite a often at ceilidhs and barn dances in my area (Bristol, England).

It’s a lot less common though than it was in the 1970s when it was pretty much “de rigueur” at every dance.

I believe that its popularity in my area back then is attributable to an exchange visit in the late 1960s made between Bristol Morris Men and a dance group from Denmark.

The Bristol men brought back lots of Danish tunes and dances, and included some of them into their annual Christmas ceilidhs. Some of those morris men were also callers or played in ceilidh bands, and thus perpetuated it at other ceilidh events …

… and here is another tune that they brought back from that exchange visit, which is still occasionally played in my area:

https://thesession.org/tunes/11113

I can’t believe this didn’t come to mind way back when. I’ll have to try to remember or find music for this to add for comparisons’ sake. It is the same basic structure, a chorus that is a march and marching, with verses that are different dance tunes & the dances, and the waltz and polka are two that always feature…

I’m shaking my head and kickin’ myself, but there’s nothing new there… There’s also a grin and a chuckle…

Chicken or the egg anyone? Maybe it’s the Poles again?, that Austro-Hungarian influence?, which would not surprise me… 🙂

“Is there an online resource to the Jens Peter Dam volumes?”

Yep - Danske Folkmindesamling (Danish Folklore Archive):

http://www.kb.dk/da/nb/fag/dafos

There are other Swedish Masquerade tunes on the site too.

Thanks Weejie, appreciated…

You need a fairly good smattering of Danish to find your way round there. I’ll give you a shortcut (with some guidance in English):

http://130.226.229.125/grundtvig/spmEnglish/nBogListe.cfm?max=73&start=1

I was about to admit that failing in me, thanks… We’ve had friends in Denmark, into the music and dance and beyond, but never have picked up any Danish except for tune and dance names, and steps and figures…