manx celtic music and dance

Manx-Norwegian song and fiddle collaboration

05 Mar 2013


At the beginning of February, fiddle player Tom Callister and singer Ruth Keggin travelled to Voss in Western Norway to begin a musical exchange with two Norwegian traditional musicians – Erlend Apneseth and Margit Myhr. Funded by the Manx Heritage Foundation, the aim of the visit was to share, explore and arrange fiddle and vocal music from both traditions. Below is a short account of their trip, told by Ruth:

On our first morning in Norway, Tom and I left the Bergen Hostel ready to start our journey to Voss. Our first challenge was to locate the train station. Leisurely walking turned into hurried dashing after Tom turned the map I was ‘reading’ the right-way up and suggested we walk in the other direction. From then on, Tom’s navigational skills were trusted implicitly.

Two hours later we began work at the Ole Bull Akademiet in Voss, where Erlend and Margit are BA students. The OBA, affiliated with the Grieg Institute at the University of Bergen, is one of only three establishments in Norway where it is possible to study Norwegian folk music at Bachelor degree level. We firstly presented Margit and Erlend with copies of Kiaull yn Theay 1 and 2 books, donated by the Manx Heritage Foundation, and then the four of us split into pairs in which to work.

Margit began by teaching me Hallings and Springars – songs which, like the Scottish puirt à beul, are highly rhythmic, and can be used to accompany dancing. Some of the dance songs used lyrics, while others used meaningless vocables. The act of singing vocables is called ‘tralling’ and is comparable with Irish lilting, although Norwegians tend to use more rounded ‘ooh’ sounds, which are produced further forward in the mouth. The two of us also shared lullabies and songs with common themes: love, nature, occasionally weaving both Norwegian and Manx melodies together. The languages of the songs proved to be little barrier, and good progress was made: we found that our voices blended well and we highly enjoyed singing together.

Tom and Erlend found that the techniques involved in the fiddle traditions of each country were more complex than they had imagined, with contrasting bowing and ornamentation. Indeed, all of us found that the shapes of the melodies that we were learning were quite different to those in our own traditions, but we were enthralled by them. The four of us worked together to arrange songs with two fiddles providing rhythmic and harmonic accompaniment; this is quite conventional in Norwegian folk music.  

All four of us had a great rapport personally and musically, and we found that our music-making hours, though numerous, passed far too quickly. Outside of work, there was enough time for us to go on a quick cable car trip to the top of a mountain, and Margit and Erlend kindly cooked for us one evening.  

There are plans to bring Margit and Erlend over in Autumn 2013 to continue the musical collaboration.

 

 

 

 

 

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