Folk

Well, I can definitely say that my favorite lecture so far was the one given in conjunction by Kristian Hanto and Anne Svånaug Haugan.  I'll start out by saying that especially in the last year or so I've been really interested in folklore and storytelling traditions, I think they're fantastic (in many meanings of that word).  It's unfortunate that for the most part these traditions have died across many cultures, for a lot of reasons.  That said, Anne Svånaug plays the Hardingfele, what we call the Hardanger Fiddle.  It's looks similar to a normal fiddle, and there are four strings that are actually played, but there are four sympathetic strings that produce harmony, as you can see in the picture.

The result is awesome.  You can google search "Hardingfele" or Hardanger Fiddle" and come up with a lot of videos to get an idea of what they sound like.  Kristian is excellent (in his prime one of the best I guess) at dancing in the more or less traditional way to the music that is played on the Hardingfele.  It was really great to see him dance by himself (doing what is called a 'halling' like 'halfling' because it's only one person) and with Anne Svånaug on a couple of songs (the partner dances are called 'springar' or 'runner' and 'gangar' or 'walker).  He was a bit shorter than her (she was pretty tall) so it was funny when he would miss her hand when he would spin her.  But you could tell she really enjoyed dancing with him.  I guess he's a pretty surprising dance partner, you never know what he's going to do.  There were many stomps, foot slaps, hops and twirls (and even a few yips!).  After showing some dancing he talked about what I briefly brought up above the picture regarding folklore (folktales).  He talked about the state of the regional music in Norway (that is the "folk" music played by the fiddle, Jew's harp and many other instruments that I don't know).  For them "folkore" and "folklorish" have bad connotations.  They are something unauthentic.

This sort of music is for fun.  It was primarily for parties and celebrations where people could dance and just have a good time.  Serving the same purpose as dances nowadays.  Something which we don't see as a valuable cultural expression, just a good time.  The conditions in which the dances developed influenced the style and how it was done.  Limited space meant limited, but certainly creative ways of dancing.  When you take the dance and music out of it's context, and put it on a stage, what do we have?  What you end up with is something artificial; the dances and music are not meant for that type of situation.  But on the other hand, it promotes the music and the tradition.  

A further question that he brought up was the concept of unbroken tradition.  It is real?  At this point is it just the older population who still enjoys partying to this sort of music?  If so, has the tradition become fossilized and preserved in that sense?  If so, then it is dead, and it's just being continued for the sake of being continued.  But this is what has happened with many "folk" traditions, whether oral or musical.  You could tell that Kristian had many more opinions about this subject than he expressed in class, and I really wish that I could've heard them.  At any rate, I was extremely happy to have heard the opinions and points that I did hear.  It really helped me to shape mine a little more clearly.  

In the end, however sad it is to see some forms of expression fading away, there are new ones to take their place.  The music that is fading now grew up under certain circumstances: they made instruments to the best of their abilities, they found fun and expressive ways to move and dance to the music, and most importantly it got people together for a good time.  Our technology has changed, allowing for greater variation in the type of music produced, and for greater exposure.  Naturally the kind of music that people play has changed as well.  If a kid wants to have fun, and had only had a wooden horse to play with his whole life, I think it would be hard to imagine him preferring the horse if a playground came along, not because the wooden horse is inferior, but because the playground is something new.  Choosing instruments that allow wider expression was the natural course.  However, it may happen that one day the kid will look back at his wooden horse and decide there is something about it that his misses.

Most of the folk don't live on the inherited family farms anymore.  They are moving around more, and cities draw in many of them.  The traditional music has given way to other preferences.  In this sense, Hip Hop and Jazz are just as much folk music as anything.  It's music that people produce out of their current situation with the means available, expressing something about that situation perhaps, but mostly it's something to bring them together.

http://www.nrk.no/radio/   That's a link to NRK's (Norwegian rikskringkasting) radio homepage.  There's a series of links on the left hand side, and one of them is "Folkmusikk" where you can hear some neat music.