hardanger fiddle

  

"Playing a central role in the revival is  

Tuvas Blodklubb,  

a monthly event at Riksscenen, the national centre for traditional folk music and dance in Oslo, 

which attracts hundreds of people every month and tours around the country. 

 Similar folk music clubs have since started in other cities including Bergen, Trondheim and Tromsø.

Musician Tuva Syvertsen started 

 Tuvas Blodklubb, 

 which she describes as “Norway’s, probably the Nordic region’s, and maybe even the world’s first pure folk music nightclub”" 

"Norwegian folk music, which dates back hundreds of years, is played using traditional instruments including Norway’s national instrument, 

hardingfele (the hardanger fiddle),

 bukkehorn (an instrument made from a goat’s horn) 

 and langeleik (a stringed instrument similar to a dulcimer)." 

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hardanger fiddle  

" (Norwegian: hardingfele) is a traditional stringed instrument considered the national instrument of Norway. 

 In modern designs, this type of fiddle is very similar to the violin, 

 though with eight or nine strings

 (rather than four as on a standard violin) and thinner wood. 

 The earliest known example of the hardingfele is from 1651, made by Ole Jonsen Jaastad in Hardanger, Norway. Originally, the instrument had a rounder, narrower body. 

Around the year 1850, the modern layout with a body much like the violin became the norm."   

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"Four of the strings are strung and played like a violin, while the rest, named understrings or sympathetic strings, resonate under the influence of the other four. These additional strings are tuned and secured with extra pegs at the top of the scroll, effectively doubling the length of a Hardingfele scroll when compared to a violin. The sympathetic strings, once fastened to their pegs, are funneled through a "hollow" constructed fingerboard, which is built differently than a violin's, being slightly higher and thicker to allow for these extra strings. The resonant strings lie on the center of the special bridge, attached to extra hooks (or fine-tuners) on the tailpiece. Carved out within the center of the bridge is a smaller secondary "bridge", or opening, designed specifically for these resonant strings to pass through. This is where the resonance is picked up and reverberated. As notes are played, the vibrations are sent through the bridge, where the sympathetics echo those notes. "

"The hardanger fiddle was used in the soundtracks of  

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, 

and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King 

 composed by Howard Shore, to provide the main voice for the Rohan theme." 

The hardanger fiddle is also featured in the soundtrack of Armageddon (composed by Trevor Rabin), and in Fargo (composed by Carter Burwell 

The hardanger fiddle is featured in the soundtrack of the 2017 film Dunkirk, as well as the soundtrack for the 2021 Loki series" 

"Another tuning is called "troll tuning" (A-E-A-C♯). Troll tuning is used for the fanitullen [no] tunes, also called the devil's tunes, as well as the tunes from the Kivlemøyane suite (thus associated with the hulderpeople as well as the devil).  

In the Valdres district of Norway, using this particular tuning is called "greylighting", a reminder that the fiddler tuned his fiddle like this when the morning was near, and he had played himself through a number of other tunings."