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Thread: Hardinger fiddle on mandolin

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    Has anyone tried to transcribe songs for the Hardinger Fiddle for mandolin? I found this website of Norwegian fiddle tunes at the University of Oslo over the weekend. I was hoping to pick up Fanitullen from the sheet music (rather than from recordings). However, the tuning systems are so complicated that standard notation is not used (what is written is where you put your fingers, not what notes you play). Has anyone tried this before, or is this a fool's errand?

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    I'm assuming no vocals so you mean tunes rather than songs? I've never heard hardingfele style music played on mandolin, but I'd have thought there'd be a good chance of it working well. Frets have got to help intonation on all those double stops! Might be possible to "split" the bottom course into drones too sometimes. (G string tuned up to A for the resonance is fairly common in Swedish fiddling, as you may know.) Have you tried playing from the altered tuning music? I've done it in other styles, and it feels a bit odd, just a matter of playing literally what's on the page untl the feel starts to come. An awful lot easier than if the notation shows the notes as they sound, but you have to find your way around an altered tuning.
    It's a fairly different thing but I enjoy playing Swedish music on fiddle, the main challenge I've found trying stuff out on mandolin is that the left hand ornamentation is a lot tougher.
    No real info I'm afraid. I'd just like to hear how you get on.
    Tom

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    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    I am not really sure if they are making it sound more complicated than it is on that tuning page. Fanitullen is just played with the instrument tuned AEAC# right? That is the std Black Mountain Rag tuning for American fiddle.

    I took a few Hardanger workshops many years ago but i think we mainly worked by ear on the tunes. That may be easier I would think esp to get the nuances of the phrasing etc.

    Jim



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    FYI..

    Mike Compton plays some mando on Sadie Compton's CD "Trouble Come Knockin'" She's playing a hardinger fiddle on it. It's nice, but somewhat unrelated to the topic... Sorry.

    Jamie
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    Registered User John Flynn's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by
    Mike Compton plays some mando on Sadie Compton's CD "Trouble Come Knockin'"
    That is one of my favorite CDs also. To the point of the topic, however, I have learned multiple tunes off that CD and they weren't any harder than any other fiddle tunes. Perhaps transcribing them is doing it the hard way. I am surprised more fiddlers haven't used the Hardanger, though. It has a great sound.

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    Still being new to the instrument, I'm a bit warry of attempting altered tunings. Indeed, I seem to remember reading in other posts that a mandolin shouldn't go to far afield from standard tuning. Despite what the sheet says, the tuning for Fanitullen is actually something like B flat-F-C-E: it's an E flat instrument (actually, a little below E flat). Perhaps it would be just as easy to tune down one string and read as if on a C instrument(since I won't find any Norwegians to play with).

    As for learning by ear, I have two recordings of Fanitullen, both Annbjorg Lien. It certainly helps with phrasing, but I am aware that they are both reinterpretations of a traditional tune. Learning from the score may prove to be too difficult and mostly unnecessary.

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    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    So, are you basing the tuning on the recording?

    Also, I think you can retune a mandolin, as long as it is not too high a pitch above normal and as long as it is not a fragile vintage one. You can also switch to lighter gauge strings if you are concerned.

    Jim
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    This thread reminded me of the Hardanger mandolin that was in the classifieds a couple of years ago. Some comments and more photos here.

    Patrick
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    I enjoyed playing this piece very much. I retuned one of my mandolins and simply played it as written, and it sounds fantastic!

    I did go to the trouble of transcribing it into Finale so that I could look at the actual sounding notes. The original notation is admittedly over-complicated because of its clumsiness. For starters, it’s got an “artificial” key signature that combines F# and C# (theoretically D major or b minor) with a written middle C being natural (which doesn’t sound as a C anyway because of the tuning!) Why not just use accidentals when you need them? In reality, the piece alternates between A lydian and A major, which of course can’t be discerned from the score itself.

    But I’m starting to get boring, and I don’t really want to launch into a sermon on transposition. Suffice it to say that I understand the bickerings involved when unusual tunings get married to black dots.

    That being said, here is my opinion on transcribing the piece to standard tuning (GDAE): just say no. I tried playing it at pitch in standard tuning and found that it was possible only at the expense of some rather tricky fingering. Also, a number of grace notes and pedal points had to be sacrificed. Then I tried playing it a whole step lower in G lydian/major, thinking that I would at least get a few open strings to work with. That was basically a good idea, but it came with its own share of tricky fingerings and sacrifices.

    So much of good fiddle music depends on the interplay between the heavy use of open strings and stopped notes, and the numerous grace notes. Take those things away and it begins to sound more like a classical piece, not to mention being much more challenging to play.

    I’m sorry to be so verbose in my very first post on this forum, but I did attach a wave file of the tune – you should be able to listen to it with any media player. Mind you, this is merely a computer playback of the sounding pitches: no expression, no dynamics, no character – blech! But it does give you an idea of the possibilities. I used a steel string guitar patch from my sound card to get a feel for what it can sound like on the mandolin.

    So in the final analysis, I believe the best way to play Fanitullen is in its original tuning, but the best way to notate it would probably be in tablature. If anyone’s interested, I can post a TAB of the piece as well.

    Cheers, John.

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    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Zman:
    What tuning did you use? Vigee says "B flat-F-C-E". I thought the tuning was indicated as AEAC#.

    Jim



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    I think Vigee was referring to one of his recordings of the piece. I used the tuning indicated in the score – AEAC#. The E string gets a bit flimsy when it’s brought down a minor third, so I replaced it with a slightly larger gauge A string. It has more brightness that way as well. I may just keep that axe tuned that way, and let it be dedicated to pieces that use that particular tuning. As another member noted, it’s not uncommon in the American fiddle literature.

    Sorry about the wave file – it doesn’t seem to want to attach. If anyone wants it, I’d be glad to email it, along with a PDF of the score, or a midi file…

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    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Speaking of Fanitullen and titles of these tunes in general. I have a feeling that they are more generic than we suppose. Vigee, is this actually the tune that you have on recordings? because the tune numbered prior to this one #1937 is also called Fanitullen. Sometimes these are just referring to the type of tune. I recall lots of Swedish tunes called Polska.

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    Just found the Wulffenstejn site for hardangerfele and mandolin.

    That lead me to this page of audio samples.

    That, in turn, lead me to this tune by Seth Austin, Blues for Hardangerfele. Really delicious!

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    Jim: there are a number of different tunes with the same title, reflecting various regional traditions, but all related to a general myth about a fiddle tune that would make the devil leave. It would say that it is no different that the number of Roustabouts that have been played and recorded. I believe that the score I picked is the one closest to the recordings I have (on Sweet Sunny North (Various) and Stone Chair by Bukkene Bruse).

    As for tuning, I believe that the transposition of a minor third is general. Here is what the Oslo website says:
    Quote Originally Posted by
    Although not revealed by the notation, a hardingfele in reference tuning is usually tuned to a higher pitch than the violin. The a-string, called kvarten (the fourth), is found in the range between b'-flat and c"-sharp. The tuning shown for each transcription is thus normalized to a modification of the violin tuning with kvarten, notated as a', functioning as a stable reference point.
    However, it does not recommend this transposition when playing on the "simple fiddle":
    Quote Originally Posted by
    lf an ordinary violin is used, it must be tuned according to the particular slått to be played, as these pieces are written with the tuning required for the special fingering of the Harding fiddle. lf this is the same as on an ordinary violin, the notes will sound just as they stand. But if it is different, the notes will be transposed for the strings that differ from the g-d1-a1-e2 tuning of the violin. The Harding fiddle tuning most in use is a-d1-a1-e2. When this is used all the notes on the bass string are a tone higher than written.
    Zman's noble leap at Fanitullen shows that it is possible to play it on the mandolin (I would, BTW, like to hear the results), but it reveals more problems about playing Hardinger fiddle music on the mandolin. You make a good case for playing in the tuning called for. But you also went to great lengths to make it happen. As far as I can tell, most tunes require A-d-a-e, and G-d-a-c#' is infrequently used. It would be impractical, at least in performance, to retune or keep a dedicated instrument.

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    Ale Möller has the right instrument for playing this semitone stuff:





    Note the partial frets and the semitone frets. What you can't see is his extraordinary clip-in partial capos with which he retunes in mid-phrase. The man is certifiably insane.

    Fanitullen is a tune somewhat analogous to the Hora Staccato or Orange Blossom Special: lots of people have versions of it. A dance that might be done with it is a demonstration solo dance like a halling, but usually the tune itself is enough of a solo experience; it's not a dance piece, per se. A polska (which is a polonaise, not a polka) is a simply a type of popular dance step with a particular groove. Polska City up there in Norway and Sweden.
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    As Paul says, they do love their polskas in Sweden in particular. (Couple dance in three with emphasis on first and third beats and a "stretchy" middle beat!) I'm not sure if it's the same with hardingfele music but Swedish tune names tend to work like the old Bjorn Bjornson system personal names in Scandinavia. Tunes are mostly referred to as tune type "efter" (after) then the name of the person who wrote it, or you learned it from, thus "Polska efter Bjorn Bjornson" (This is arguably not the same thing as the tune having "a name.")
    Tom




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    I'm going to try to attach a PDF of my transcription. I haven't had much luck trying to attach things here. Maybe some files types are disallowed. At any rate, this isn't an arrangement - it's just a record of the actual sounding notes.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Finale_2004a____mandolin_fanitullen.pdf  

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    OK, here is my preliminary effort at arranging this piece for the mandolin in standard tuning. I’ve arranged the first section (bars 1 through 17) in three different formats.

    Version 1 uses the open A string as a drone. Without retuing the E string, one has to play the melodic material an octave higher. It’s actually pretty effective until you reach bar 12, when the whole thing drops back down to the original pitch. It sounds rather jarring to me. The pro is that you get to play some of the melodic material against an open string. The con is that it can’t be done in the original octave.

    Version 2 keeps the melody in it’s original octave, but the drone has to played by stopping the D string at the seventh fret with the third finger. It works, but I wonder how many fiddletuneplayingmandolinists want to work that hard. It goes to my argument about making this music sound classical, not that that’s a bad thing of course. One of the greatest Norwegian ethnomusicologists was Edvard Grieg, who transcribed and arranged hundreds of folk songs. Listen to the Lyric Pieces for piano, etc.

    Version three is the easy version. I found that this was the one that was most satisfying to play because of its facility. In fact, I think this arrangement would make a great duet with guitar. The guitar could take all of the omitted notes, and outline the implied harmonies. Add a drum obligatto, and you would have a great piece.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Finale_2004a____madolin_fanitullen_arr.pdf  

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    I had a hardingfele for a couple of years and during the time I was trying to learn it I took a great weekend workshop from Baard Vegard in the traditional style. The standard Norwegian tuning is ADAE, tunes are generally notated as if the fiddle is tuned in A, however it's quite common to tune the instrument a whole step higher (or even more).

    I also love Sadie Compton's album! One reason I think more fiddlers don't play them is that it's just different enough from the standard fiddle that it takes some work to get used to. The fingerboard and bridge are flatter to accommodate double and triple stops. For me the real kicker was scale length difference. I have no trouble switching between mandolin to mandola to octave mando, but on a fretless instrument such as violin, switching between violin and viola, or fiddle and hardanger is more challenging.

    Seth

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    Yes, Seth, the complications are multifarious.

    I've decided to arrange this piece for two mandolins and drum, and I will be posting it as soon as I can, perhaps within the week.

    It's difficult to mimic the strange tempermant, but after all the the OP asked for an arrangement for mandolin in standard tuning. My compromise is an arrangement for two mandolins and a bit of percussion.

    I just bought a brand spanking new recording studio software, so as soon as I'm satisfied with the arrangement, I'll post a recording: me on mandolin 1, and me on mandolin 2, and well, um, me on drum.

    Cheers, John.

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    Registered User lmartnla's Avatar
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    Default Re: Hardinger fiddle on mandolin

    Quote Originally Posted by PseudoCelt View Post
    This thread reminded me of the Hardanger mandolin that was in the classifieds a couple of years ago. Some comments and more photos here.

    Patrick
    This link didn't go anywhere. can anyone provide a link to the proper site?

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    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: Hardinger fiddle on mandolin

    The hardanger-mandolin was made by Harald Hougaard. Here is a larger photo from his site. I don;t know if he has made any others besides that one.
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    Default Re: Hardinger fiddle on mandolin

    Here's a clip of Norwegian guitarist Andreas Aase playing a halling (male solo dance), on a guitar bouzouki I made for him a few years back. Traditionally, this tune would be played on a Hardanger fiddle, this is Andreas' adaption. He may have some Hardanger fiddle tunes played on mandolin on one of his records, I'm not sure.


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    Oscar Stern s11141827's Avatar
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    Default Re: Hardinger fiddle on mandolin

    I tune mine to Regular Mandolin tuning so I can play familiar songs

  26. #25

    Default Re: Hardinger fiddle on mandolin

    Tunings vary widely - as trad hardanger fdl is a solo or minimal pairing tradition. Everything has a name, and i don't know what it is. I've heard Fanitullen ranging from

    CGCE
    B F# B D#
    Bb F A# D
    AEAC#

    Notice they all correspond to the intervals of 5th,4th, 3rd, (or of course my math is wrong)

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