Swedish Pipes' Low-Key Comeback
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SWEDEN Swedish pipes’ low-key comeback ERIK ASK-UPMARK and ANNA RYENFORS ERIK ASK-UPMARK and ANNA RYENFORS … “We are now performing more internationally than in Sweden. In the summer there is so much going on in Sweden because it is such a short summer and it’s a very nice time to be in Sweden.The rest of the year, we go wherever we can to get gigs: North America, Europe… “ OR the past five years, multi-instrumentalists Erik Ask- sound of the drone and, by dropping to the bottom note, a player can Upmark and his partner, Anna Ryenfors, have been taking create the impression of staccato. FSwedish traditional music abroad as the duo “Dram”. Its voice is pleasantly “reedy” and has a moderate volume that lends “Dram” is a western Swedish dialect word for “drone”, and their prin- itself well to ensemble. Distinctive is its Swedish A-minor scale with a cipal instruments both carry a drone: the nyckelharpa — a bowed, keyed, flattened third, with the key note in the middle of the chanter’s E’ to 16-string instrument from the Middle Ages that resembles the hurdy- E’’ range: at the bottom of the top hand. gurdy or French vielle — and the Swedish bagpipe, the såckpipa. Erik Ask-Upmark, who studied musicology and music history at The small mouth-blown såckpipa has a single chanter with six finger the University of Gothenburg and has been a professional musician for holes and an upper hand thumb hole, and, typically, a single drone. more than a decade, came to piping through a friend, Alban Faust, a Drone and chanter both have parallel bores and single-bladed compound German pipe maker who had settled in Sweden. “I’d known him as a reeds, and the drone is pitched to the same note as the lowest note on musician without realising he also made bagpipes,” he said. “I had been the chanter. This makes it possible to hide the chanter note within the to a concert, maybe 15 years ago, that featured the Swedish bagpipes PIPING TODAY • 44 SWEDEN and I, like many others then, didn’t know there was such a thing as Swedish bagpipes. Even today, they are quite unusual.” Today, Erik Ask-Upmark plays several varieties of European bagpipe and the Celtic harp. Anna Rynefors, a musicology graduate with a keen interest in early music and music history, began her musical career playing violin and other string instruments including a variety of historical bowed ANNA RYENFORS plays the Swedish nyckelharpa… instruments like the medieval rebec, the viola da “In Sweden there is more gamba and the nyckelharpa., traditional music than there is a market for. At home, most “It was Erik who started with the bagpipes first of the audience members are but I followed soon after,” she said. Both are now themselves players. But, even though Swedish folk music recognised in Sweden as “riksspelman”: traditional is strong and there are a lot musicians of distinction. of people involved in it, the Swedish pop music industry is The couple met and began playing together at so strong that it kind of owns university. “We began to look more deeply into folk the media, and traditional music remains a subculture. music and into older instruments which have always Many people just don’t know been a shared interest,” said Erik Ask-Upmark. about it.” Their såckpipas are the product of a revival that was presaged by a 1943 academic dissertation by the Swedish ethnologist, Mats Rehnberg (1915-1984), that considered evidence of a bagpipe tradition he found in a reference to the instrument in one of Sweden’s language dialects. There were church paintings of bagpipes in Sweden from the 14th and 15th centuries, and old bagpipes had been found in the Nordic Museum’s collections in 1939, but few experts believed Sweden had recently possessed a piping tradition. That view changed after Mats Rehnberg tracked down the last known traditional piper, Gudmunds Nils Larsson (1892-1949), in the village of Dala- ERIK ASK-UPMARK with his two-drone såckpipa … Järna. A music teacher who had been inspired by “There are a few instruments Mat Rehnberg’s dissertation to try to make a bag- with two drones in the museums but in all or almost pipe, Ture Gudmundsson (1908-1979), also visited all cases, the second drone is a Gudmunds Nils Larsson. When he finally produced blind drone, a mute. So it was there to make the instrument a playable instrument, in 1948, he recorded two look more impressive. There tunes for Swedish Radio. is a tradition that a strong Swedish liquor was used to But the revival was not truly launched until preserve the bag. I don’t know much later. if it’s true, but you’d be able to keep some in the bag and drain “In the 1970s, fiddlers like Per Gudmundsson, it from the false drone.” started to get more interested in the old instruments that survived in museums,” said Erik Ask-Upmark. Swedish cane, Phragmites australis, which is cut the other way, towards a bridle. “I think they now have 15-20 pipes in the museum “With the Spanish cane, you can flatten the reed’s pitch by putting some wax on the tongue of Dala-Järna… various versions of the Swedish because this cane is a relatively sturdy material; the Swedish cane is darker coloured and has bagpipe. shorter inter-nodal distances, and it has thinner walls. It gets out of tune more quickly and “Per Gudmundson, who plays in a traditional breaks more easily.” music trio called Frifot, worked with Leif Erikson, Said Anna Rynefors: “It is traditional when using the Swedish cane that you keep the reed a carpenter in Dala-Järna, to copy of a set of the old slightly open with a hair from your beard. I don’t have a beard, so I use Spanish cane and bagpipes. Essentially, they had to reinvent the way waxto tune the reed.” of making and reeding them: if there were reeds in As well as Leif Erikson who began the popularisation if the såckpipa, there are now a number the old instruments, they were unusable. of makers, including Erik Ask-Upmark’s friend, Alban Faust, Börs Anders Öhman and Bengt “We use cane reeds, Arundo donax, a single-bladed Sundberg. One of Sweden’s most acclaimed traditional fiddlers, Per Gudmundson, would reed, with an upwards cut. This is and there is a sometimes put his fiddle down and pick up his såckpipa, and this helped to foster interest. PIPING TODAY • 45 SWEDEN The origins of the såckpipa are obscure but “The fingering is very like the French bag- people brought pipes from eastern Europe into Erik Ask-Upmark sees eastern European influ- pipes, less closed that then Eastern European Sweden where they propagated and became a ences in the Swedish instrument. “Five years styles,” he said, “but you can play totally open part of the culture of those regions where they ago, we were at a festival in Germany and met as well. You can’t change the pitch by false fin- later came to be found. Or they may have gone Hungarian pipers for the first time, and they gering; you just do this to help with the gracing the other way.” had almost exactly the same instrument,” he and articulation.” Although several well known Swedish folk said. “It was a bit louder but even the key was Some pipes are made with a second drone music groups, like Hedningarna and Svanevit, the same and the scale was tempered the same pitched a fourth below the other, and Erik also present the såckpipa in their line-ups, the way, so we could play together with them in Ask-Upmark has one of these instruments. såckpipa (which is also known in different re- A-major, which is a bit unusual for bagpipes, “There are a few instruments with two drones gions as ‘dramba’, ‘koppe’, ‘posu’ and ‘balgpipa’ and we had exactly the same range.” in the museums but in all or almost all cases, — is still not especially well-known in Sweden “Some of the Hungarian pipes have evolved the second drone is a blind drone, a mute,” he where the fiddle is the traditional musician’s a bit more and some have double bores but, said. “So it was there to make the instrument instrument of first choice. otherwise, the scale was tempered in the same look more impressive. There is a tradition that “You have these fiddlers’ meetings — way and it was quite an eye-opener to see that a strong Swedish liquor was used to preserve spelmansstämmor — and most of the people similarity with an eastern European pipes.” the bag. I don’t know if it’s true, but you’d be there are musicians,” said Erik Ask-Upmark. Several innovations were made in the design able to keep some in the bag and drain it from “Usually, when visitors come, they wonder of the revived såckpipa. A tuning sleeve was the false drone.” where the audience is because everyone is car- added to the drone and the bag was made with There are several theories about the såckpipa’s rying an instrument case. the hair side inwards. origins, said Erik Ask-Upmark. “One is that it “It’s a bit unfortunate that our musicians “The instrument now is pretty standard,” was an indigenous instrument. A pipe resem- tend to stay within Sweden. It would be good to said Erik Ask-Upmark. “The variations are usu- bling the Swedish pipe chanter was found in an see a greater exchange going on between Celtic ally that you can have different keys.