My new Baby - The Nyckelharpa
Hey fellow Steemians,
at the moment I'm a bit quiet as I'm very busy at work and prefer to chill at home instead of blogging. I'm Sorry for that. ;)
Another thing I'm doing at the moment is learning to handle my lovely new Nyckelharpa which I got 2 Weeks ago, which I'm going to tell you about now.
My girlfriend and I traveled two and a half hours east from the place we live to the small village dexbach, which is one of these villages where nobody gets cellphone signal anymore. We visited Holger Funke, a very well known man when it comes to Nyckelharpor (which is the plural of Nyckelharpa) who buys and sells them and also refurbishes old Nyckelharpor.
"OK Chris, that's nice to know but what exactly is a Nyckelharpa?"
Good thing you ask!
A Nyckelharpa is a bowed String instrument that resembles the illegitimate child of a Hurdy Gurdy and a Viola. The Strings are bowed with a special bow that is much shorter than that of a violin and comes in various modern or archaic shapes. Melodies are played by pushing the keys to make these little pieces of wood touch and shorten the vibrating section of the Strings.
There are several setups that are in use nowadays, the most commonly used is the three-row setup where you have three rows of keys that allow you to play chromatically on three strings and then there is one additional drone-string which is only bowed but not shortened. There are also 4-row-models which have a wider range of playing but these instruments are quite heavy and don't sound as rich as a model with less rows.
My Harpa is in "European" tuning which means the Strings are tuned in D G d a which was developed in the 70s by Holger and somebody else whose name I forgot. Traditionally there is also the "Scandinavian" tuning which is C G c a.
Additionally there are 12 Sympathetic strings which are not bowed actively, they vibrate when you play a note and act as a built-in reverb.
I'm happy that I got THIS instrument as it was love at first sight. It was reserved for an American lady who fortunately decided not to buy it in the end, so I took this wonderful lightweight and sweet sounding instrument home with me. :)
I'm making big improvements in playing this Instrument in a rather short time and I'm having the feeling that this instrument is a very good addition to my instrument pool. :)
Maybe I'll join the #openmic contest hosted by @luzcypher in a few weeks. :D
Best Regards
@mrweirdowski