hardingfele

About a third of the people were there to take fiddle lessons, so one morning before lunch they had a session where fiddle students could practice playing for dancing. All the music was live this weekend - two fiddlers came just to play for the dance workshops and four more were teaching.

The woman in this picture went to The Other College In The Same Town As Our Alma Mater (TOCITSTAOAM), which is - surprise - the only college in the country where you can take hardanger fiddle lessons for credit. In her playing-for-dance critique, the old-guy Norwegian fiddler told her something I didn't understand about how she should use her bow to make the dancing peppier. I mean, I understood the words (thanks to the translator) but not the content. The old guy is one of the best fiddlers in Norway - he played an absolutely stunning evening concert.

The hardanger fiddle has a very distinctive sound, in part because it has a set of extra strings that run under the bridge and aren't bowed; instead, they vibrate sympathetically. This gives the sound a droney quality, like a bagpipe (but not as grating, don't worry). The other difference is that it's played with almost continuous double stops - with the bow on two strings at once, so one hardanger fiddle sounds like at least two regular violins. To make that easier, the bridge is a little flatter than a normal violin. You can hear a bit of the old guy's CD on Amazon. And here's my new favorite CD, from a young fiddler (download a clip of it here).