Icelandic langspil. A quick introduction by Chris Foster. He and his partner Bára Grímsdóttir perform as the duo FUNI, have a website at http://www.funi-iceland.com/. They were at Common Ground on the Hill the last time I was there, in 2013.
Michael J. King, luthier of the UK, demonstrates one of his langspils. "This is a little clip of a newer version of the Icelandic Langspil model I make. The melody is tuned to a, the middle drone to f# and the bass to B."
FUNI (Bára Grímsdóttir & Chris Foster) perform an Icelandic love song at the Mystic Sea Music Festival 2012. This song is called Man eg þig mey text by Jónas Hallgrímsson, The tune is a traditional tvísöng melody that would normally be sung by two people singing in parallel fifths. The langspil plays the second voice here.
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Ryan Koons performs the song "Stóðum tvö í túni" on the langspil, a type of zither from Iceland. Langspil built by Ken Koons.
Hildur Heimisdóttir. Langspil and Icelandic Fiðla: The history, construction and function of the two Icelandic folk-instruments. Candidate studies in the violincello, 2012, No. 2010122. Det Jyske Musikkonservatorium, Aarhus, Denmark. http://www.musik.is/Paelingin/Langspil_and_Icelandic_Fidla.pdf
Being a string player myself, I thought langspil might be similar to the cello, my main instrument. I found soon out that there are indeed some things in common but other things are very unlike. The hand position was the first thing I struggled with. Cello players use all five fingers on the left hand to press down the strings, and there are no frets to show the player where the note is. On langspil, the player only uses the left thumb to press down and the rest of the left fingers support the instrument so it does not move while playing. The first thing I had to do was to train my left hand and get used to the new position of it.* * *
After using the chop sticks for a while in my playing, I tried to use my spare cello bow to play the instrument. That bow is unusually light and has little amount of horse hair, and is therefore not so good for cello playing but more convenient for the langspil. It was however difficult to control it, since it is longer than original langspil bows. I personally think the sound from the pin is more pleasant but I want to be able to play with more variety so I will focus on getting the right bow technique the next days. The bow grip is different from what a cellist is used to, since the direction to stroke in is not the same. A cellist strokes the bow to the left and the right but while playing langspil, one has to stroke forward and back. Therefore, the langspil player has to hold the bow in a hand position that reminds of how people hold pencils.
Hildur Heimisdóttir and Júlía Traustadóttir in 2013 put up a Facebook event page promoting a concert in Reykjavik: "Júlía (voice) and Hildur (langspil) will perform their own arrangements of Icelandic folk songs, selected so that the delicate and rare sound of this special instrument can be enjoyed." https://www.facebook.com/events/145257275683034/. Wilfried Ulrich commented, w/ pix of a bowed hummel.
Icelandic-language blurb on the langspil on the website for Iceland's national museum looks like it might have some interesting background on hymns, etc.:
"Gripur mánaðarins: „Þó ekki væri nema langspil“ March 2014. Þjóðminjasafn Íslands [National Museum of Iceland]. http://www.thjodminjasafn.is/syningar/sersyningar/gripur-manadarins/nr/4178.
https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&prev=search&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=is&u=http://www.thjodminjasafn.is/syningar/sersyningar/gripur-manadarins/nr/4178&usg=ALkJrhip2JnCiAjT9IUdjDzLTdrkwBfmyw
Lang card (A-14545) from pine wood and two on top of each other and the strong and a bottom chord. It is often referred to string instruments is best to have the tape, but may not have been such for all households in the golden age long game (from about the middle of the 18th to the mid-19th century). This string instruments on the other hand no table. Two strings are the frets and frets have a router that is mounted on top of the tree. One "drones" or organ tone string is above the one ómstrengur (resónans or string) as the Hardanger fiddle, Indian sitar or the Norwegian instrument lange game often ribbon with string instruments. It would be possible to play two notes against the note bass, not only as the most long games. Moreover, movable frets that must be considered unique among the instruments that have been preserved. Curved with horse hair and the bow compartment of the instrument. The instrument was struck string as received by the string instruments are said to have either had the horsehair strings, messínstrengi or brass strings.
By the mid-19th century was to string instruments throughout the country, many of them home-and of different types, but in the second half of the century seems Gaming decreased. In the early 20th century was hardly the person who knew how to play string instruments. Play music technology and tradition has not survived and it is impossible to say how the music played on string instruments have sound. Find the Election Ere described this however: "And I have seen such unique people in youth my is played so the string instruments, they were finger play a little back and forth on each note, they supported on, and they called it the" let sound wag ". This meant that the singing of these men became little more than a sincere little rings and small boats. "Perhaps this could be related raddtækni employed in poetry law, but there was talk of style the like jerk, jolt or wiggling which was an important part of the style the that was common in at least introduce the rímur Breiðafjörður early 20.öld.
Maybe people have not even long card fine when new music was emerging. In itself the golden age long game in the middle of the 19th century was the clergy at Thorsnes Thing singing in churches to be lacking and would rather send someone teenage abroad to study, to learn singing and preferably also a musical instrument, "if only string instruments." But nowhere would probably be a better place at the time to study string instruments than here.
Langspilið (A-14545) er úr furu og eru tveir stokkar hvor ofan á öðrum og því sterkur og mikill hljómbotn. Oft er talað um að langspil sé best að hafa á borði, en ekki er víst að borð hafi verið til á öllum heimilum á gullöld langspilsins (frá u.þ.b. miðri 18. til miðrar 19. aldar). Þetta langspil þarf hins vegar ekkert borð. Tveir strengir liggja yfir þverböndin og þverböndin eru með beini sem er fest ofan í tré. Einn „drón“ eða orgeltónsstrengur er ofan við og einn ómstrengur (eða resónans strengur) líkt og á harðangursfiðlu, indverskum sítar eða hinu norska hljóðfæri langeleik sem oft er borði saman við langspil. Því væri hægt að leika tvær nótur á móti bassanótunni en ekki eina eins og á flestum langspilum. Þar að auki eru þverböndin færanleg sem verður að teljast einstakt meðal þeirra hljóðfæra sem varðveist hafa. Boginn er með hrosshárum og er sér hólf fyrir bogann á hljóðfærinu. Hljóðfærið var strenglaust þegar tekið var við því en langspil eru sögð hafa ýmist haft hrosshársstrengi, messínstrengi eða látúnsstrengi.
Um miðja 19. öld voru til langspil um allt land, mörg hver heimasmíðuð og af ýmsum gerðum, en á seinni hluta aldarinnar virðist spilamennskan hafa dregist saman. Á fyrri hluta 20. aldar fannst varla sú manneskja sem kunni að spila á langspil. Spilatæknin og tónlistarhefðin hefur því ekki varðveist og ómögulegt er að segja hvernig tónlist spiluð á langspil hefur hljómað. Finnur á Kjörseyri lýsti þessu þó þannig: „Þannig sá ég t.d. einstöku menn í ungdæmi mínu er spiluðu þannig á langspil, að þeir létu fingurinn leika lítið eitt fram og aftur á hverri nótu, er þeir studdu á, og kölluðu þeir það að „láta hljóðið dilla“. Af þessu leiddi, að söngurinn hjá þessum mönnum varð lítið annað en einlægir smá ringir og trillur.“ Kannski gæti þetta tengst raddtækni sem beitt var í kvæðalögum, en þar var talað um stílbrigði eins og rykk, hnykk eða dillandi sem var mikilvægur partur af því stílbrigði sem tíðkaðist í rímnakveðskap a.m.k. á Breiðafirði snemma á 20.öld.
Kannski hefur mönnum ekki þótt langspilið fínt þegar ný tónlist var að ryðja sér til rúms. Á sjálfri gullöld langspilsins um miðja 19. öld þótti prestum á Þórsnesþingi söng í kirkjum vera ábótavant og vildu helst senda einhvern ungling erlendis í nám til þess að læra söng og helst einnig á hljóðfæri, „þó ekki væri nema langspil.“ En hvergi hefði líklega verið betri staður á þeim tíma til að læra á langspil en hér á landi.
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