Gärdebylåten hornpipe

A Swedish ganglat ,popular in the Sheland Islands .

I’ve actually always loved this tune but, when you talk to Swedish musicians, it’s like their version of whatever your most hated warhorse is. Oh by the way, it’s also popular in the SheTland Islands and Scotland. 🙂

John

I like this tune,but the Swedes hate it.It’s their equivalent of The Irish washerwoman.

as it’s know in my band is played all over the continent with more or more often less understanding of the music!

Yes - I like to annoy Swedes with it whenever I the chance.

…whenever I *get* the chance.

I once played a gig at a Swedish private party in London, and I got all the band to learn this tune. We slipped it in between the jigs and reels and nobody batted an eyelid. Either they couldn’t tell it apart from the Irish tunes, or they were too embarrassed to even acknowledge it. I like it, anyway.

Its name is actually ‘Gardebylaten’, with two dots over the first ‘a’ and a little circle over the second, and means ‘The Gardeby Tune.’ The pronunciation is, very approximately:
yairr’-the-bew-law,-ten

Yeah, that too. We’ve been marching in the Spring sun with this in a set of ‘marches’ to open an annual ‘SpringFest’, as well as playing it in the pissin’ rain for a wedding march. And, we still like ‘The Irish Washerwoman’ and ‘Soldier’s Joy’ - go figure…

There are surely as many versions of this tune as there are fiddlers in Sweden - but this is how I play it on the tin whistle!
It is perhaps not "comme il faut" to like Gardebylaten among the highbrows - but I do! It´s a classic! Don´t play it to fast and try to get a "swingy" feeling!

X:1
T:4b. Gärdebylåten
C:swedish trad
Z:Klas Krantz 1996
Q:"Allgro moerato"
M:C|
L:1/8
K:D
FG | ABAF ABAF | A2 fed2c2 | BdBG BdBG | B2gfe2d2 |
c2>d2c2~B2 | A2g2~f2e2 |[1 dcde fefg | a4z2 :|[2 d4 Acec | d4defg |
|: a4a2^ga | b2~a2=g2f2 | g4 B3d | g2~f2e2d2 |
c3d c2~B2 | A2g2~f2e2 |[1 dcde fefg | a4z2fg :|[2 d4Acec | d4z2 |]

I don’t care how much the Swedes hate it; this is a lovely tune and has long been a favorite of mine. In the recordings I’ve heard (discography not to hand, alas), the A and B parts are repeated twice, so the approximate sequence is A1A2A1A2 B1B2B1B2, with slight adjustments to the connections between the parts as needed, which gives it the same rhythmic structure as a slow 32-bar reel.

There is lots of opportunity for rich double-stopping. Stick to the obvious three-chord harmony if you play this in session, because the Swedish tradition has a traditional second-fiddle part, and somebody in the crowd is likely to know it.

The Swedish name for this kind of tune is Ganglat (with a ring over the second a), pronounced GAHNG-lawt, and it means a walking tune. Its native pace is a stately walk, though in session everyone is going to want to play it faster: try to let it breathe.

Gardeby is a village in Dalarna, a "county" at the heart of the Swedish fiddle tradition.

I’ve been in the company of some accomplished Swedish musicians and dancers and none of them expressed anything akin to ‘hate’… They all had an affection for it. Like comfort food, this is ‘bangers and mash’… But hey, some folks don’t like mash…

Heard this played by a young Scots fiddle group… it was introduced as "A Swedish tune whose name I can’t pronounce but it means ‘bubbling over’" No idea if that’s the true translation, but the name seems apt.

There is a tune in G that often goes after this - among Shetlanders at least. Don’t know what it’s called and have only picke dup a bit of it so far.
I’m told that there was a Faroese group visiting in the early 80s that really made this popular in Shetland - don’t know if that’s true

"Spaellemininir Y Hoydlum" - [ or something similar].

This lot?
http://www.framtak.com/fo_music/spaelimen.html
http://www.spaelimenninir.com/

The pairing we have with this is Appelbylaten - (spelling ?) which is in G and another Swedish walking tune. I’m pretty sure that it’s not on here, but you’ll find it on JC’s tune finder (at http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/cgi/abc/tunefind) as
Äppelbo gånglåt

Thanks spindizzy, that’s it

A somewhat more complex setting of the tune than X:1 or X:2. I’ve also added my own chord setting to it.

Up here in Orkney we usually play Stockholmslaten after it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hYCIKzpTtg

play video