Norden Sackpipa Association of the Americas (NSAA) Forum Index Norden Sackpipa Association of the Americas (NSAA)
Jerry Revelle in memoriam
 
 FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   MemberlistMemberlist   UsergroupsUsergroups   RegisterRegister 
 ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 

age of sakpipa music

 
This forum is locked: you cannot post, reply to, or edit topics.   This topic is locked: you cannot edit posts or make replies.    Norden Sackpipa Association of the Americas (NSAA) Forum Index -> Norden Sackpipa Association of the Americas (NSAA)
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Yuri
Senior User


Joined: 16 Dec 2006
Posts: 149
Location: New Zealand

PostPosted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:41 am    Post subject: age of sakpipa music Reply with quote

As someone who doesn't play sakpipa, but plays other types of pipes and other instruments, I have a question. Just how far back does the music of the sakpipa go? Is there any definite proof of the sakpipa existing prior to the 19th, maybe 18th century? And don't throw things at me, I'm just asking.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Anders Jackson
Senior User


Joined: 28 Nov 2006
Posts: 142
Location: Dalarna, Sweden

PostPosted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 11:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

We ar not in practice to throw tings at people here. Smile

As swedish Säckpipa was in practice dead during mid 20th century, with a revival in 1980ht. So all tunes are older, at least 19th century and older or after 1980 (or so).

Jan Winter would get you more information, becouse he was there in the beginning.
_________________
No MSN or ICQ. Only Jabber at <xmpp:anders.jackson@gmail.com>
Änd sorri får maj misspellingz, inglish is nått maj först language.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Liraman



Joined: 04 Nov 2006
Posts: 26
Location: Uppsala, Sweden

PostPosted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 1:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Anders Jackson wrote:

Jan Winter would get you more information


Right. Many bagpipe tunes survived as fiddle tunes, in fact there is not one single tune out of the 26 or so regarded as bagpipe tunes that were documented directly from a bagpiper. Some of them sound very old. I would say though that most of them probably date from the middle to end of the 19th century. On the other hand there are a lot of text references to bagpipe players active in earlier centuries but really not musical references.

Then of course a lot of people have composed bagpipe tunes since the early 80s. These tend to sound like variations of the mentioned 26, and only a few pipers have made some original work, in my personal opinion. One of these is Anders Norudde (formerly Stake, hedningarna).
The most weird new composition I have stumbled on was when I was asked to perform a bagpipe quartet together with three other bagpipers. On of them gave up and for the concert the non piping composer had to stand in with his clarinet.
The eleven minutes or so piece was a real cliffhanger, musically dramatic in itself and very dramatic regarding if the musicians were going to last for the whole duration of the piece. This was in, I think 1987 or so.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Olle
Site Admin


Joined: 21 Oct 2006
Posts: 435
Location: Uppsala, Sweden

PostPosted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The earliest written record of bagpipes being played in Sweden, as far as I know, is from Queen Christina's 17th birthday. That would be in 1643. But we don't know which kind of bagpipe that was. To me it is more likely that that was some conical continental bagpipe. German perhaps. But that's pure speculation.

There are illustrations of bagpipes in Swedish churches from as early as the 14th century. None of them look like the Swedish bagpipe we know today and should in any case not be taken as evidence that bagpipes were actually played in Sweden at the time. Most church painters were Germans or used German templates. At best it shows that bagpipes were known as an instrument at the time. But even that is not certain - churches were very dark places in those days - small windows, layers of soot from candles on walls and ceilings, etc. I'm not at all convinced that people could see the illustrations. And even if they could, they were probably not encouraged to build and play one, since the instrument was often associated to the devil or similar unholy beings.
_________________
Info on Swedish bagpipes at http://olle.gallmo.se/sackpipa
More about me at http://olle.gallmo.se
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
Liraman



Joined: 04 Nov 2006
Posts: 26
Location: Uppsala, Sweden

PostPosted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 12:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just to add to Olle's comment:
A court record from 1618 about a drinking house brawl in Stockholm is in my view the first known record containing a reference to a real person playing the instrument.

There are in fact much earlier text references to bagpipes in Sweden, like court proceedings protocols, some 15th century tax records and word book entries. If one widens one's search to Denmark there is even more. But the fact that a lady in the second half of 15th century Stockholm is noted in a taxation record as Cecilia Bagpiper /Cecillie sakpiperske/ does of course not automatically mean that we have a woman bagpiper at hand.

Swedish scholars' view on instruments like bagpipes, nyckelharpas etc in church frescos differ a lot with time and trends and the weather on Mars. The paintings are there, all right, but what do they mean? And were they, as Olle points out, even seen?!

Books and written records are in some ways easier.
Whatever the view we have on when and where, Swedish words for bagpipe were well established in the language long before 1618, maybe already in the middle of the 15th century.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Yuri
Senior User


Joined: 16 Dec 2006
Posts: 149
Location: New Zealand

PostPosted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 6:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's a sobering notion that perhaps medieval painters felt free to paint any old thing on church walls, in the safe knowledge that no-one will see them. So they painted these outlandish instruments, some sort of sack with some pieces of wood sticking out of them? Laughable!
Just kidding . The replies are interesting, to be sure. Thanks.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Liraman



Joined: 04 Nov 2006
Posts: 26
Location: Uppsala, Sweden

PostPosted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 8:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yuri wrote:
That's a sobering notion that perhaps medieval painters felt free to paint any old thing on church walls


In fact it was mostly the opposite. They followed rules and above all followed, i e copied, from German or other European prints like Biblia pauperum.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
DRUMALBAN



Joined: 14 May 2009
Posts: 41
Location: Argyll, Scotland

PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2009 12:15 am    Post subject: Age of bagpipe tunes Reply with quote

In cultures that have an unbroken tradition of the bagpipe as a folk instrument (and especially as a pastoral instrument made of local materials with local tools) it is very unusual or at least very recent to have bagpipe tunes, per se. The pipers would generally play songs, and refer to them by the song title even if no one is singing. For dances they would either play songs in the appropriate tempo or improvise from a large stock of short phrases which are deemed suited to that particular dance. Of course, I do not know the Swedish tradition. But even in the case of Scotland, the notion of a specific tune with its own title, but no lyrics, appears to date from publishers paying for melodies; in Scotland, that began in the 18th century. But even in my youth, my piping teachers invariably had knowledge of the song to a particular tune or, if it was a lyricless tune, knew who composed it and when. Often a published pipe-tune has a title in English which dates from its publication. But traditional Highland pipers would know the song in Gaelic, often with an entirely different title. For example, the tune "Lady Madeline Sinclair" is the song "A' Bhean a bh'aig an Taighlear Caol". When a dance band played in a village, they called the dance by the name of the first song-tune played for it. If the same tune had a different song in a neighbouring village in which they were playing, they would call it by that song-name. Even now I know musicians who play their dance tunes differently in different islands to correspond to the local lyrics. When I learned gaida from shepherds and other non-professional, traditional players in the Balkans back in the 1960s, they did not have a word for a "tune" (the foreign word "melodiya" was not used except by performing groups) and invariable taught them as songs or as dance "licks" ("persenkove"). Is there a similar history to violin melodies in Sweden? How early did they develop the concept of a structured tune with a title but independent of any song?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Yuri
Senior User


Joined: 16 Dec 2006
Posts: 149
Location: New Zealand

PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2009 5:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh, I know about the connection between song and piping. I come from Hungary (one half) (Russia being the other one), and Hungarian pipe music is practically all song based. (There is hardly any pipe music in Russia, in spite of th fact that it is certainly known that in the past pipes did exist there. There still are, but none of them actual Russian. The Russian pipes seem to never have been very important in the first place, and died out far earlier than in most European countries.)
Well, coming back to the topic, I always thought that the Nordic folk music traditions are more instrumental oriented. Abstract dances and such seem to have appeared much earlier than in Eastern Europe. Generally in Western Europe it seems to be the case. There are already in the 16th c. lute and keyboard imitations of folk bagpipe (or hurdy-gurdy, or both)tunes. (Capirola and Ballard spring to mind concerning the lute. And for that matter Fuhrmann in Germany.) And in Spain it was such a big thing that there is an organ making school there, 17th-18th c., that included apart from the keyboard a special key for a bunch of drone pipes, as standard, to enable the organist to play gaita tunes. And I don't think fandangos, tarantellas, zapateros and the like were ever sung much. Yes, I know it's not Sweden. I just always thought that the same general trend was going on there, too.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
DRUMALBAN



Joined: 14 May 2009
Posts: 41
Location: Argyll, Scotland

PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2009 7:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

At first glance, it would have appeared that other western European countries did indeed have a tradition of bagpipes tunes without lyrics. Classical composers did refer to bagpipe tunes in France, Germany, Scotland, etc. It is only on an indepth investigation into the living folk-tradition that the lyrics are revealed. My own belief, from my experience and folklore studies, is that it was certain that professional players of more classically constructed bagpipes (such, in Scotland, as the MacCrimmons and MacArthurs whose bagpipes were actually made in Edinburgh by established firms; thus it is not really a folk-tradition) were in the practice of composing tunes for patrons while those who played in a non-professional capacity within a folk-culture would identify tunes either as songs or simply as dance licks, which were largely improvisational. As the sackpipa which survived in Dalarna was clearly a locally made folk-instrument played solely by non-professionals, I wonder if there was a conscious practice of composing wordless, structured tunes for it as such. The violin tradition in Sweden would be more likely to be tune-based, as it is a more professional instrument with a more dynamic capacity. But field research among rural, non-professional bagpipe traditions suggests that specially composed tunes were not within their repertoire.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
DRUMALBAN



Joined: 14 May 2009
Posts: 41
Location: Argyll, Scotland

PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2009 8:11 am    Post subject: Sackpipa "tunes". Reply with quote

As my observations above were largely taken from ethnologists as well as my own research, it would be interesting to read the works of Rehnberg himself on the subject. For example, what was the Dalarna dialect word for "tune"? What was the local concept of this word? Did Dalarna folk regard a tune as independent of a song? What was the relative status of a fiddler and a piper within the community? There were some very revealing studies done in Belgium by Viktor Nerinx, Hubert Boone and others which also observed the custom of pipers playing songs rather than tunes and I have read or heard similar findings from central France and Italy. There must be some comparable ethnological materials lurking within Swedish university archives.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Olle
Site Admin


Joined: 21 Oct 2006
Posts: 435
Location: Uppsala, Sweden

PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2009 10:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Swedish traditional music is dominated by instrumental tunes, for dancing. Of courses there are many songs as well, and many of them have transfered into the fiddle tradition, but the main body of music is purely instrumental.

They were usually not named, though they were sometimes titled. When someone played a tune "efter Johan Andersson" it was a title, not a name. "Efter" means "after" and the title only said that the player learnt the tune from Johan Andersson. The tune may very well have had a name as well, but more likely not.

In the 20th century, however, these titles have frozen to become names. We may still call the tune "efter Johan Andersson" despite having learnt the tune from somone else and Mr Andersson being long dead. This is particularly true if Johan Andersson happened to become a famous musician. Now the meaning is more "this tune was once played by Johan Andersson". It does not mean that I heard him play the tune, or even that I follow his version closely.

About the bagpipe tunes; I dont think there has ever been a repertoire specifically for Swedish bagpipe. I'm sure the pipers did what we do today - played tunes that were popular in the neighbourhood on other instruments, given that they were playable on pipes at all, of course. On occasion they wrote/improvised their own tunes, but I know of only one "bagpipe tune" which is explicitly noted as being made by ("av") the piper - Hamburska av Erik Persson. That tune is also the only one associated to the three known pipers who emigrated to America.
_________________
Info on Swedish bagpipes at http://olle.gallmo.se/sackpipa
More about me at http://olle.gallmo.se
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
DRUMALBAN



Joined: 14 May 2009
Posts: 41
Location: Argyll, Scotland

PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2009 11:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is fascinating! I really must get copies of the papers mentioned in your references. Isa can help me with those which are in Swedish. Thanks so much for that informative note! The fiddle tradition in Sweden - naming the tune "after" so-and-so - is very similar to the Scottish fiddle tradition of the 18th century. That was ultimately copied by professional and military pipers, but the country folk still tended to equate tunes with songs until very recently. I know of one village where no-one would dance to tunes for which they had no words. So a local fiddler composed words to new dance tunes he'd learned elsewhere in order to familiarise folk with them so that they would get up and dance. Even piping historians who are not deeply familiar with the folk-tradition have tended to ignore the fact that tunes had texts and were referred to as "songs" by country folk. Notice also that in Lowland Scots songs, they mention a fiddler playing a "tune" ("He played a tune and he daunced it roon...") but a piper playing a "spring" (i.e. a short phrase) for a dance.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Yuri
Senior User


Joined: 16 Dec 2006
Posts: 149
Location: New Zealand

PostPosted: Tue May 26, 2009 1:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Different counries have different song/tune attitudes. I mentioned Hungary, as one being practically all song-based. The opposite is Bulgaria and Macedonia, where there is a huge amount of dance tunes purely for the gajda. Also that way lies Turkey, and in the case of Turkish pipe dance tunes it's actually impossible to sing quite a lot of them, as they rely on unequal double chanters, which really makes it unsingable. There is a similar type of pipes in Greece, and there the bagpipe tunes are sometimes imitated onthe lira, an upright rebec (well, violin) type, but what makes that possible is the doublestopping of strings.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
DRUMALBAN



Joined: 14 May 2009
Posts: 41
Location: Argyll, Scotland

PostPosted: Tue May 26, 2009 8:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm afraid I must contradict you in the case of Macedonia and Bulgaria where I learned gaida and studied Ethnography forty years ago and where I still frequent. Prior to the creation of the "folklore ensembles" a gaida player did indeed play a song ("pesen") for the most part. In the case of a dance he would play "persenkove" (s. "persenk"); short stock phrases which would be improvised on the spot. A gaida teacher would instruct a pupil in various persenkove appropriate for a particular dance and the pupil might later devise some of his own. But there was never such a thing as a structured, wordless "tune" for the gaida. Indeed, in places where the folk-culture is still unbroken, such as Rodopa and Strandja, this is still the case. In a traditional dance, the percussionist (tapan or darambuka) leads the dancers and the gaidar follows along, improvising persenkove according to the dancers' spirit or - in the case of the usual "pravo oro" - playing popular songs. When accompanying a singer on kaba gaida, the singer leads and the gaida follows, hitting the notes just after the singer.
I am just back from playing gaida for a celebration at the Bulgarian Consulate in Scotland. Whereas at a Scottish function I would have been asked to play particular tunes, at Bulgarian, Macedonian and Serbian events it is songs or dances that are requested; never a "tune". But there is ample evidence to suggest that this was also the case in Scotland prior to the professionalisation of piping. And it was still the case in Italy when I was there in the 1970s; the zampogna played either songs or unstructured dance phrases.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Yuri
Senior User


Joined: 16 Dec 2006
Posts: 149
Location: New Zealand

PostPosted: Tue May 26, 2009 11:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't think that contradicts what I said. On the contrary, the dances have no song connections, according to your experience, either. True, neither do they have a set pattern, but that's not quite the same as saying they are based on songs. As I see it, it's about song v. abstract music, rather than song v. set tunes.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
DRUMALBAN



Joined: 14 May 2009
Posts: 41
Location: Argyll, Scotland

PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2009 5:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Aye, right enough: the missing element is "tunes". That is, a structured melody like that of a song (strophic quatrain, verse and chorus) which exists independent of any lyrics. These do not seem to have existed among pipers in non-professional, rural, folk-traditions anywhere in Europe until recent innovations by revivalists and professionals from outside the community. Therefore the sackpipa of Dalarna, as a purely non-professional, locally-made, modal folk-bagpipe would not likely be an instrument of "tunes", but of the melodies to "songs" well known to the community. If playing for a dance, they would most likely play these song-melodies or simply improvise from a stock of rhythmic phrases. I'm afraid that this is an issue which has arisen countless times in reference to other European bagpipes. Pipers who are unfamiliar with the folk-culture of these bagpipes tend to get caught up in threads in pursuit of the age of "tunes", unaware that the old pipers within the culture know them as "songs". And field recordings of zampognatori or gaidari playing for tarrantellas or rachenitzas are not playing actual "tunes" - with a formal begining and end - but the phrases which are typical for these dances in an improvised series of rounds.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Olle
Site Admin


Joined: 21 Oct 2006
Posts: 435
Location: Uppsala, Sweden

PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2009 9:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Therefore the sackpipa of Dalarna, as a purely non-professional, locally-made, modal folk-bagpipe would not likely be an instrument of "tunes", but of the melodies to "songs" well known to the community.


Sorry, but I disagree. They were well known to the community, but they were structured tunes for dancing, not songs (nor referred to as such), and not improvised. The song tradition is, to a large extent, separate from the tune traditions and, indeed, many singers lilted tunes that came from the instrumental tradition.
_________________
Info on Swedish bagpipes at http://olle.gallmo.se/sackpipa
More about me at http://olle.gallmo.se
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
DRUMALBAN



Joined: 14 May 2009
Posts: 41
Location: Argyll, Scotland

PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2009 11:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Very interesting indeed! I haven't read much in the history of dance-music in Sweden, although some concerning the Norwegian traditions, particularly in Telemark. Is there any evidence that the small sackpipa of Dalarna was actually used for the sort of dances which were generally accompanied on fiddle? It seems rather quiet for that purpose. The custom of partner-dancing (a male-female couple dancing counterclockwise around a room while in a hold with arms on shoulders or forearms) dates from the early nineteenth century in most of Europe. It didn't reach the Scottish Highlands until the twentieth century and it never really caught on in the Balkans or the Faroes. It would be fascinating to find evidence of an earlier dance form, such as ring-dance, which involved the sackpipa. Perhaps even a survival of "ballad-dance" which survives in the Faroes and until recently in the Scottish Highlands. Can you recommend any indepth histories of dance-music traditions in Sweden? I often resort to the "New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians" when I am in Edinburgh as it has excellent sections on most national folk-music histories. I understand it is available on line for a small subscription.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
DRUMALBAN



Joined: 14 May 2009
Posts: 41
Location: Argyll, Scotland

PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2009 12:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Incidentally, there is a widespread assumption even here in Scotland that our piping traditions were also tune-based from an early period. But this assumption, together with a very erroneous but oft-repeated claim that the singing of dance-songs dates from the "ban" on bagpipes (there was never any such ban; it is an error originating in a particular publication), is held by those whose observations were very much from outwith the cultural context; they assume that because they themselves don't know the songs that there are none. The excellent piper/historian Alan MacDonald has been engaged in researching the song-texts to bagpipe tunes for many years now. Unfortunately, bagpipe music researchers are rarely familiar with the oral traditions, the history of dance, the history of fiddle-music, the social customs, even the dialect or language of the culture in question. Therefore it is rather easy for them to postulate from a structural perspective which leaves important aspects yet hidden from their viewpoint. I am in no position to make any definitive claims in regard to the Dalarna sackpipa, but I do detect a dearth of cultural-context references within the threads and a tendency to attribute fiddle-based characteristics to an instrument for which there is a paucity of primary information predating its demise.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Olle
Site Admin


Joined: 21 Oct 2006
Posts: 435
Location: Uppsala, Sweden

PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2009 1:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

DRUMALBAN wrote:
Is there any evidence that the small sackpipa of Dalarna was actually used for the sort of dances which were generally accompanied on fiddle? It seems rather quiet for that purpose.


Yes, there is such evidence, and the Swedish bagpipe is (slightly) louder than a fiddle ...

You should get the book Säckpipan i Norden by Per-Ulf Allmo. Unfortunately only available in Swedish, but it contains an English summary which should make it possible to extract some information also from the rest of the book.

Quote:
The custom of partner-dancing (a male-female couple dancing counterclockwise around a room while in a hold with arms on shoulders or forearms) dates from the early nineteenth century in most of Europe.


I'm not a dance expert, but I would have guessed it is a bit older than that here. You may be right, but I think I have seen illustrations of dancers, in pairs, that are much older, possibly even mediaeval. In the aforementioned book for example. Let me look that up.

Quote:
But this assumption, together with a very erroneous but oft-repeated claim that the singing of dance-songs dates from the "ban" on bagpipes (there was never any such ban; it is an error originating in a particular publication)


Let me guess. Cannon? But didn't he also write about pipe music being passed down through canntaireachd? So, to me, ban or not, the connection to singing is pretty clear in the Scottish case. But I see no similar connection here in Sweden. Besides, as you say there is a scarcity of information about the old piping traditions, so most of what I've said here is about Swedish traditional music in general, not specifically for pipes.
_________________
Info on Swedish bagpipes at http://olle.gallmo.se/sackpipa
More about me at http://olle.gallmo.se
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
DRUMALBAN



Joined: 14 May 2009
Posts: 41
Location: Argyll, Scotland

PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2009 4:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I know of the book, "Sackpipan in Norden", and intend to obtain a copy as soon as possible. I might get Isa Olsson to post it to me. She can also help me with the Swedish text when she returns to Scotland.

In regard to couple-dancing, prior to the introduction of the walz in the early nineteenth century, partners either danced without physical contact or at arm's length. Even the early "walz-hold" was more distant than the one known today. In many communities this hold was frowned upon, not just on account of the close physical-contact in public, but because it was regarded as ill-mannered and anti-social for the couple to focus exclusively on one another and ignore the other dancers. In Telemark, they devised a rather distant type of dance-hold which means that they don't actually face one another except obliquely. This hold is still customary in Telemark today. The introduction of these couple dances (Walz, Polka, etc.) in new parts of Europe brought in new tunes, often published, and usually played on classically-tuned instruments such as violin and clarinet. They would have developed in parallel with older dance-forms and their repertoires. It was often the case that the older dance-forms, and the music for it, remained in use along with older modal instruments such as folk-bagpipes. This was still the case in Scotland well into my own lifetime. We see paintings of social dances wherein the dancers alternate between fashion-dances to fiddles and folk-dances to pipes. I have experienced this myself, not only in Scotland but in Serbia, Slovakia and Croatia. It may be the case that the pipers of Dalarna exchanged tunes with fiddlers and even played for couple dancing. But it would be very interesting indeed to know if they also maintained an older repertoire of music and dances which predate the couple-dances of the nineteenth century ballroom. The "marches" played by both fiddles and bagpipes in Dalarna have the nature of song-melodies from what I've heard of them. Has anyone done any field research into the possibility of forgotten lyrics for these?

Oh, as for the myth about the "ban" on bagpipes (which is quite a topic in its own right), I believe that misinformation originates with the discredited late Sir Hugh Trevor-Roper, who also verified the authenticity of the forged "Hitler Diaries" fraud.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Olle
Site Admin


Joined: 21 Oct 2006
Posts: 435
Location: Uppsala, Sweden

PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2009 6:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
In regard to couple-dancing, prior to the introduction of the walz in the early nineteenth century, partners either danced without physical contact or at arm's length.


Not so in Sweden. The polska came to Sweden around 1600 and was fully developed in the 18th century, according to a music lexicon I have here, and the polska requires an even tigher grip on your partner than the walz does. Indeed there is a painting from 1609 in Anga church on Gotland, Sweden, where couples dance in the tight fashion of a polska (to a piper, actually, but it is not the type of pipes we call Swedish today). In a church, mind you, despite the intimacy! The picture I refer to is on page 52 in the book Säckpipan i Norden.

I think the waltz came later to Sweden, closer to the mid than the early nineteenth century, at least to the rural parts of the country I assume we are talking about here.
_________________
Info on Swedish bagpipes at http://olle.gallmo.se/sackpipa
More about me at http://olle.gallmo.se
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
DRUMALBAN



Joined: 14 May 2009
Posts: 41
Location: Argyll, Scotland

PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2009 6:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's quite remarkable. I have understood the polska to have been derived from the Polish couple-dance known in France and elsewhere as the "Polonaise". This is danced at arm's length in Poland even today. Do you know of any survival of ring-dances in Sweden, where dancers form a circle or a curved line? If so, which direction did they move in? Where these have survived in northern Europe they travel clockwise, while in southeastern Europe they are counter-clockwise. These are of particular interest to me because they usually incorporate a singing tradition which is very archaic. In old England, the songs were called "ballads" from the same root word as "ball" (as in dance), a group so dancing and singing was called a "chorale" (from the circling motion) and the activity was called by the verb "caroling". All of these words have survived into modern English although their meaning has changed. The Gaelic for such a singing dance was "luinneag", although in modern times it more often implies any sort of narrative group-song. The Faroese versions are still very much an unbroken living tradition. But the melodies for their songs are not very suited to a bagpipe as they tend to contain rather lengthy phrases on a single note.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Olle
Site Admin


Joined: 21 Oct 2006
Posts: 435
Location: Uppsala, Sweden

PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2009 7:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
I have understood the polska to have been derived from the Polish couple-dance known in France and elsewhere as the "Polonaise".


That is true, but it seems as if the actual dance transformed pretty quickly. But, again I must emphasize that I am out on a limb. Dance is not my field of expertise and I'm looking things up in books as I go here. Very enlightening, and I thank you for the opportunity.

Quote:
This is danced at arm's length in Poland even today. Do you know of any survival of ring-dances in Sweden, where dancers form a circle or a curved line?


Yes, long-dances and ring-dances are still danced here, in particular around christmas and midsummer. For those particular dances I do agree with you and associate them with songs and lyrics rather than to tunes. I think you will find long dance traditions in the baltic states as well.

Quote:
If so, which direction did they move in? Where these have survived in northern Europe they travel clockwise, while in southeastern Europe they are counter-clockwise.


I really don't know, but in my own limited experience I would respond mostly clock-wise.
_________________
Info on Swedish bagpipes at http://olle.gallmo.se/sackpipa
More about me at http://olle.gallmo.se
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
Yuri
Senior User


Joined: 16 Dec 2006
Posts: 149
Location: New Zealand

PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2009 2:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I would just like to add that paired dances are indeed much older tan the 19th c. The Baroque menuet springs to mind, the predecessor of the waltz. But even as early as the 15th c. there are huge amounts of illustrations of paired dances. This whole thing of frowning upon social missteps is a very Victorian attitude. They used to be far more relaxed about social graces before th 19th c. The paired dances might not necessarily involved as close physical contact as these days, nevertheless they were certainly paired dances, which is the more important point related to the sakpipa being or not being adequate for the purpose.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
DRUMALBAN



Joined: 14 May 2009
Posts: 41
Location: Argyll, Scotland

PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2009 8:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I did not suggest that there were no paired dances prior to the 19th century, but that the waltz hold, in which the couple remain in close contact with both arms, dates from that era. This type of hold predominates Swedish traditional couple-dancing of the twentieth century. The paired dances which you mention use an open hold wherein the couple only hold hands. Other couple dances of the European countryside - La Bourree, Munieros, The "Scotch" Reel, etc. - have little or no physical contact. These predate the reign of Victoria. There is a prevaling trend in the UK to lable many social conventions "Victorian" which were established before or after her lifetime.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Anders Jackson
Senior User


Joined: 28 Nov 2006
Posts: 142
Location: Dalarna, Sweden

PostPosted: Fri May 29, 2009 11:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

From top of my head.
Polska is a "tighter" dance than a waltz ("vals").
It has two "turer" turns, the first you walk side by side with your partner clockwise, usually in a even 4 or 8 beats.
Then the second part start where the pairs starts to spinning clockwise with the knees of the pairs inner legs close tight together. You must put your inner knees togheter like this when you spinn, or you will fall to the floor. That is usually 4-8 turns.
There is variants too, like "snoa", which you spinn from 16 turns up to the whole tune. Actually, more or less each perish had an own set of the most common dances, like polska, vals, schottis, polka, hambo etc.

About song or tune.
Tunes is called "låt" and songs is called "sång", "trall" or "visa".

The long dance around christmas tree or majstången is considered child songs and dances nowdays. But originally when the sång (as in lyrics and tunes) was written down during the end of 19th and beginning of 20th century, they where "purified" (not all of them, but the ones we use today). I have danced older versions of those long dances, and the lyrics is not that "uggly", but I could see that they wouldn't fit Victorian ideals. Try the association "Ungdomsringen" in sweden to learn about those dances.
Olle should know about that association Smile
_________________
No MSN or ICQ. Only Jabber at <xmpp:anders.jackson@gmail.com>
Änd sorri får maj misspellingz, inglish is nått maj först language.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
jerry revelle
Senior User


Joined: 24 Oct 2006
Posts: 115
Location: Elk Mound, Wisconsin USA (rural)

PostPosted: Sat May 30, 2009 6:11 pm    Post subject: Polska Reply with quote

Hej...I would like to stick out my scrawny neck (benig på svenska) and take a chance and contradict Anders description of the polska. He mentions that the polska is danced clockwise. Not in the fäbodar in Minneapolis, only the second tur, the turn.

In the first of the two turs, Anders describes, couples walk side-by-side, men on the inside of the circle, right arm around the ladies' waist, left hand holding her right hand in out in front and the whole circle walks anti-clockwise. Then they enter the clock-wise turn, still moving with the anti-clockwise moving circle of dancers.

And there are several variations, mostly in the step and beat, especially around Lake Siljan. Perhaps Anders can explain those differences; I can not, but I can dance them (still).

In Norway, our brothers and sisters call polska, pols, but it is the same way around. The Schottische is called a rhinelander.

Maybe it is time for me to return to Dalarna for lessons. Maybe things changed?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
DRUMALBAN



Joined: 14 May 2009
Posts: 41
Location: Argyll, Scotland

PostPosted: Sat May 30, 2009 7:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dance - including traditional dance - tends to change in leaps and bounds despite its reputation for being archaic on account of early mentions of it by name. In the process of my research into the history of social dance in Scotland, I managed to uncover several early instructions for popular dances still known today and even some manuscript descriptions of steps from dance teachers and their pupils. For example: the "Highland Schottische" in its earliest form (when it was first recorded in Scotland) did not involve any physical contact between partners except a swing by the arm at the end of the sequence. Nowadays there is a shoulder-hold throughout. Are there early instructions available for the "polska" which were written down during the sackpipa's heyday?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
This forum is locked: you cannot post, reply to, or edit topics.   This topic is locked: you cannot edit posts or make replies.    Norden Sackpipa Association of the Americas (NSAA) Forum Index -> Norden Sackpipa Association of the Americas (NSAA) All times are GMT + 1 Hour
Page 1 of 1

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group