The spelmanslag () is an amateur organization of

Swedish folk musicians Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

, usually dominated by

fiddle A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, th ...

s, who play

tunes Tunes may refer to: Places and jurisdictions * Tunes (Silves), a parish in Portugal * Tunes, Norway, a village in Norway * Tunes, Tunisia, now Tunis, eponymous capital city of Tunisia ** Tunes (see), a suppressed Latin Catholic titular bishopri ...

together. Often these groups play

from the specific area of

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

with which they are affiliated. The term has also the same meaning for

Norwegian folk music Much has been learned about early music in Norway from physical artifacts found during archaeological digs. These include instruments such as the lur. Viking and medieval sagas also describe musical activity, as do the accounts of priests and pil ...

. Spelmanslag meetings tend to serve social function as much as they do musical ones; and money from paid performances generally goes to the group, rather than its constituent individuals.

History

The first Swedish spelmanslag was Dalaföreningens spelmanslag, formed in 1940 by folk musicians from

Dalarna Dalarna () is a '' landskap'' (historical province) in central Sweden. English exonyms for it are Dalecarlia () and the Dales. Dalarna adjoins Härjedalen, Hälsingland, Gästrikland, Västmanland and Värmland Värmland () also known a ...

who at the time were living in

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

. Over the course of the 1940s, the phenomenon spread throughout the

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

, and in the 1950s it became a national trend. The spelmanslag movement saw new life beginning in 2003, with the establishment of the annual student spelmanslag world championships (studentspelmanslag-VM) at the Linköping Folk Festival. A number of student spelmanslag have been formed in order to compete—in 2003, there were four competing teams; by 2007 the number had risen to fifteen.Studentspelmanslags-VM homepage
/ref> These student groups tend to be characterized by high-energy playing, and generally do not limit themselves to

from one particular region within

Sound

The spelmanslag has a characteristic "wall of sound," produced by a large number of musicians playing a

melody A melody (from Greek language, Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a Linearity#Music, linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most liter ...

, with one or a small number of others producing a secondary

harmony In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches ( tones, notes), or chords. However ...

part, usually based in thirds and sixths. Most spelmanslag are dominated by

s, though some are dedicated primarily to the

nyckelharpa A nyckelharpa (, "keyed fiddle", or literally "key harp", plural ) is the national musical instrument of Sweden. It is a string instrument or chordophone. Its keys are attached to tangents which, when a key is depressed, serve as frets to cha ...

. Often (but not always), the spelmanslag will also have one or more instruments that support the melody with

chord progression In a musical composition, a chord progression or harmonic progression (informally chord changes, used as a plural) is a succession of chords. Chord progressions are the foundation of harmony in Western musical tradition from the common practice ...

s, such as cittra (

zither Zithers (; , from the Greek word ''cithara'') are a class of stringed instruments. Historically, the name has been applied to any instrument of the psaltery family, or to an instrument consisting of many strings stretched across a thin, flat bo ...

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range: ** Bass (instrument), including: ** Acoustic bass gui ...

, and/or

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

Notes

References

*Kaminsky, David (2005). "Hidden Traditions: Conceptualizing Swedish Folk Music in the Twenty-First Century." Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University. *Roempke, Ville (1980). "'Ett nyår för svensk folkmusik:' Om spelmansrörelsen." In ''Folkmusikboken'', edited by Jan Ling, et al., 263-296. Stockholm: Prisma. {{Swedish folk music Swedish folk musicians

History

Sound

See also

Notes

References