My writeup of my Aug. 2 workshop on the psalmodikon at Bishop Hill is in the current issue of Psalmodika (Vol. 20, Nr. 2), the newsletter of the
Nordiska Psalmodikonförbundet [trans. the nordic psalmodikon club] in Sweden. A psalmodikon, (pronounced sal-MOW-di-kon), is a one-stringed box zither used by 19th-century pastors in Sweden and Norway to teach four-part harmony singing to rural congregations using a system of tablature called siffernoter [numerical notation].
Background, in Swedish, is available at http://www.npsalmodikonforbundet.se on the club's website (click on the button that says Kontaka oss [contact us] for a pulldown directory and on Öpna [open] to open an item in the directory). Even if you don't read Swedish, you can find some cool pictures by scrolling down to Bilder [pictures] and clicking on the Öpna button.
A mostly Norwegian-American group in Minnesota, called the Nordic Psalmodikonforbundet (no umlaut in Norwegian), has a wealth of information in English at http://www.psalmodikon.com.
Article in Psalmodika (click on picture to enlarge)
Here's what I wrote, translated into Swedish and (since I can't find my original draft anymore) translated back into English:
The Profile
On 2 August, I led a workshop on the psalmodikon for the Bishop Hill Heritage Association in the old Swedish colony of Bishop Hill in Illinois. There were 21 persons. When I in the beginning of my appearance asked if they knew of the instrument Psalmodikon it was only two or three people who raised their hands.
I have a copy of an instrument made in Bishop Hill in 1870 and I showed how to play on it and got them to sing " A Mighty Fortress is our God" by numerical scores [the siffernoter] so they would understand how the numbers relate to the notes in the scale. It was great fun and I think the audience appreciated it.
MORE ON THE PSALMODIKON: In April 2015 I will be presenting a workshop, "Pastor Esbjörn's Singing School," at the Augustana Founder's Day Renuion in Andover:
On Saturday, April 25, there will be interest groups during the day, with a noon lunch and an evening smorgasbord. The evening will close with a hymn sing and brief Vesper service.
On Sunday, April 26, there will be a morning worship service, followed by a noon lunch. The Augustana College Choir will give a special concert from 2:30 - 3:30 pm. ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth A. Eaton will be the preacher at the 4:00 pm Founders Day Service. The Reunion will end with an evening dinner.
This special event celebrates the 155th anniversary of the Augustana Synod and the 165th anniversary of the Andover congregation. …
My workshop will be one of the breakout sessions for interest groups on Saturday. The Rev. Lars Paul Esbjörn was the first pastor at Andover's Jenny Lind Chapel/Augustana Lutheran Church and one of the founders of the old Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Synod, and I have been learning tunes from a handwritten booklet of his siffernoter tablature in the Special Collections at Augustana College's Tredway Library.
UPDATE FROM BLAST EMAIL, NOV. 16: Our next session of the Prairieland Strings is from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 20, at Atonement Lutheran Church, 2800 West Jefferson, Spfld. We'll be practicing for our annual "sing/play for our supper" performance at the Advent soup supper on Wednesday, Dec. 10. The way Thanksgiving, Christmas and Advent fall this year, we won't have as much time to practice as we have in the past. But we got started earlier this year than we usually do, so we'll work out just fine!
Our schedule for the rest of November and December, which I will copy to the Hogfiddle blog, is as follows:
-- Thursday, Nov. 20, 7-9 p.m., "third Thursday" at Atonement -- rehearsal for soup supper.
-- Tuesday, Dec. 2, 7-9 p.m., "first Tuesday" at Atonement -- rehearsal.
-- Saturday, Dec. 6, 10 a.m.- 4 p.m. Clayville Historic Site, Ill. 125, Pleasant Plains. Christmas party.
-- Wednesday, Dec. 10. ca. 6 p.m. Advent soup supper at Atonement. Eat at 5:45, play at 6:20.
Our playlist, as it stands now, is:
-- Joy to the World
-- The First Noel
-- Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella
-- Carol of the Bells
-- Silent Night
Blast email sent out tonightlast night and corrected today to include the link to this blog post, to my Clayville and Prairieland Strings lists.
We have two sessions of the Clayville Pioneer Academy of Music and the Prairieland Strings coming up in the next week or so. At our last meeting, we made a good start on Christmas music, and we'll devote at least part of both sessions to getting ready for the annual Christmas party at Clayville Historic Site and our annual Advent soup supper performance in December at Atonement Lutheran Church in Springfield.
We've chosen the following songs for the Advent supper, which is our chance to say thanks to the Atonement congregation for hosting our Springfield meetings:
For "Carol of the Bells," we will essentially be making our own arrangement. I think we're ready for that, we went through it at the last meeting and we think it's going to sound pretty good. To inspire us, I am posting several YouTube clips to Hogfiddle at http://hogfiddle.blogspot.com/2014/10/carol-of-bells-clayville.html" that show different arrangements with various stringed instruments. Give 'em a listen, and see if you hear any ideas we can borrow.
And, for further inspiration, I'm posting the link I sent out earlier of Darth Vader directing an a cappella flash mob in the library at Algonquin College in Ontario:
See if that doesn't get you in the spirit of the season!
Here are the videos I mentioned in the email above:
Carol of the Bells - Steve and Ruth Smith - Hammered Dulcimer. This song is from Steve and Ruth's new Christmas/winter CD "An Appalachian Winter." They even bring in a riff or two from other songs.
Carol of the Bells - Hammered Dulcimer & Cello. Hammered dulcimer by National Champion Joshua Messick and cello by Max Dyer.
Guitar Duet - Carol of the Bells cover. My bud Evan came over and we decided to make two videos, this first one being Carol of the Bells. The backing track got a little off sync at the breakdown and a few other parts, I dunno why. Enjoy!
Carol of the Bells: On Mandolins. YouTube user MandolinMan93 writes, "IT'S DONE!!! I have been working on this for some time now and I am very proud of it. The way i did this is i went into GarageBand and recorded myself three different times.
Judging by the way the polls are trending, it looks like hedge fund manager Bruce Rauner is about to buy up another distressed asset. The last three surveys show Republican gubernatorial candidate Rauner leading incumbent Gov. Pat Quinn by as much as 3.8 percent, and I'm starting to look for "Don't Blame Me -- I Voted for Quinn" bumper stickers.
So a new Johnny Cash-style talking blues titled "Plutocrat: The Ballad of Bruce Rauner" was -- literally -- music to my ears:
So, Springfield, get out the welcome mat
What this state needs is a plutocrat
A slashin’, burnin’, union-bustin’ guy
I’ll hammer and shake that capitol dome
Like it’s a grandma stuck in a nursing home
Hey, grandma, it’s time to say goodbye
I could say more, but I probably shouldn't.
LATER: Ben Joravsky, education (and Chicago city politics) reporter at The Chicago Reader, has linked to Farmer's video.
"Hey, Matt," Joravsky writes, presumably with tongue firmly planted in cheek, "have you considered the witness protection program?"
What is it about Rauner that makes so many people think, even in a joking way, he's out for retribution?
Could it be the way, in Joravsky's words, that "Rauner blew his stack when former Sun-Times reporter Dave McKinney cowrote a mildly critical article about something someone said about him many years ago?" McKinney resigned last week after Sun-Times owner (and Rauner pal) Michael Ferro blew his stack and pulled him off the Statehouse beat, and Farmer did dedicate the song to McKinney. But, gee whiz, it couldn't be that.
Whatever. At any rate, Joravsky put in a good word for the singer-songwriter:
OK look, Mr. Rauner, please allow me to make an appeal on Matt's behalf.
He's a nice guy. A lawyer by day. On nights and weekends, he frequently plays guitar and sings old rock, blues, or country songs at bars around town.
He's made a bunch of satiric country-western videos, including one about Blago. You'd like that -— right?
That song about Blagojevich is a classic, by the way. It's titled ""Pay to Play (But Keep Love in Your Heart)," and it's available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBqXbLKx4No.
Want to know the exact time the world was created? James Ussher (1581-1656), 17th-century Anglican archbishop of Armagh and vice-chancellor of Trinity College Dublin, figured it out. And it was Oct. 23, 2004 BCE. Not the 22nd, and not the 24th. But Oct. 23. Today.
So ... happy birthday, world!
How did Bishop Usher get such a precise date? Well, he didn't just count up all the "begats" and generations in the bible (although he did take Nebuchadnezar and the day the sun stood still when Joshua fit the battle of Jericho into account). Instead he relied on a complex set of astronomical calculations that sought to reconcile the Julian and Gregorian calendars. It's complicated. Here's how Wikipedia explains it in its article on the "Julian day," a related astronomical calculation that dates back to the 1500s and is still used to time orbits in space and to compare dates in different calendars. And here's how Bishop Ussher explained his final calculation in a book called The Annals of the World, published in 1658:
… from thence I gathered the creation of the world did fall out upon the 710 year of the Julian Period, by placing its beginning in autumn: but for as much as the first day of the world began with the evening of the first day of the week, I have observed that the Sunday, which in the year 710 aforesaid came nearest the Autumnal Æquinox, by astronomical tables (notwithstanding the stay of the sun in the dayes of Joshua, and the going back of it in the dayes c Ezekiah) happened upon the 23 day of the Julian October; from thence concluded that from the evening preceding that first day of the Julian year, both the first day of the creation and the first motion of time are to be deduced.
Ussher is quoted in more detail on a webpage by Donald Simanek of Lock Haven University. And Ussher's methodology is discussed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology. Included is the quote, which strikes me as both generous and wise, by evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould:
I shall be defending Ussher's chronology as an honorable effort for its time and arguing that our usual ridicule only records a lamentable small-mindedness based on mistaken use of present criteria to judge a distant and different past. ...
Ussher represented the best of scholarship in his time. He was part of a substantial research tradition, a large community of intellectuals working toward a common goal under an accepted methodology[.]
Memoirs of the Lutheran Liturgical Association, Vols. 1-7 (Pittsburgh: Lutheran Liturgical Association, 1906) (Google eBook). "The Swedish Liturgies" by the Rev. Prof. N. Forsander, D.D., 2:15-27.
Table of contents for all 7 volumes pp. v-viii. Also histories of Danish and Norwegian liturgies. Google eBooks
So this afternoon I'm looking for lyrics to "Mo Ghile Mear" I can take to tonight's session of the Prairieland Strings, and I surf into an article by Irish sean-nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird that details Seán Ó Riada's role in developing the modern arrangement of the song for his Cór Chúil Aodha (choir of the Chúil Aodha district in County Cork). Turns out it was crucial; in a very substantial way, the song is Ó Riada's legacy to Ireland -- and all the rest of us.
Then -- what a lovely bonus! -- I find a YouTube video of Ó Riada's daughter, Liadh Ní Riada, winning a seat for Ireland's nationalist Sinn Féin party in the European Parliament back in May. Her supporters sing "Mo Ghile Mear" at 2:18 after the deciding votes are announced.
Link here for the lyrics I was looking for, in Irish and English:
From YouTube, footage of: (1) Liadh Ní Riada's victory celebration; and performances by (2) Iarla Ó Lionáird and (3) the Cór Chúil Aodha:
Liadh Ní Riada elected MEP for Ireland South. Published on May 27, 2014. Liadh Ní Riada elected MEP for Ireland South. Video footage from the count centre as declaration was announced. Watch out for the great and emotional rendition of Mo Ghile Mear near the end [beginning at 2:18].
Liadh Ní Riada is Sinn Féin’s National Gaeilge Officer. A good bio on the partry's website at http://www.sinnfein.ie/contents/27886. It stands to reason she would be Sinn Féin, given her father's role in reviving Irish traditional music.
Iarla 0'Lionaird and Steve Cooney -Mo Ghile Mear.
Published on Jul 29, 2012
Iarla O'Lionaird and Steve Cooney at Abbeystrewery church - July 27 2012- a celebration of the life and works of Canon James Goodman.
Mo Ghile Mear - Cór Chúil Aodha agus Peadar Ó Riada
Uploaded on Mar 24, 2010. Notes in Irish Gaelic. [Peadar Ó Riada is Seán Ó Riada's son and director of the Cór Chúíl Aodha.]
Paraphrasing Ó Lionáird's article, Wikipedia says: "The lyrics and verse of the song more commonly performed today comes from the Cúil Aodha Gaeltacht in County Cork. The air was documented by a man named Dómhnall Ó Buachalla and the words are edited from two of Seán Clárach Mac Domhnaill's songs: Bímse Buan ar Buairt Gach Ló and another without a title. Dónal Ó Liatháin gave an account of how it was formed to the sean-nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird."
** Update #1. Video of a performance by the UCD Choral Scholars at University College Dublin -- well, a rehearsal during a recording session, actually, but you wouldn't know it wasn't the final take by listening to it -- that I surfed into. Link here to https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=739685519441564.
A sneaky video of the last track we recorded in Castleknock College for Signum Records this weekend. We can't wait to hear the mix! This was the very last piece performed together by UCD Choral Scholars 2013-2014. What a joyful year it was for us!
** End update.
Ó Riada performs the melody on the harpsichord in the CD Ó Riada's Farewell (click here for a brief audio clip), but it took the form in which we now know it after his death in 1971 as an anthem for Cóir Chúil Aodha. Dónal Ó Liatháin recalled :
"We were gathered in the Ó Riada house [...] and Peadar had this tape and he put it on and on it was a man, if my memory serves me correctly, whose name was Domhnall Ó Buachalla. ... You could recognise from the tape that his was an old voice. [Peadar] told us that this was a tape that his father had collected from the man in question and he played us a song from it. [...] Peadar gave it to me saying that we could make a song from this melody. ...
"I had no plan whatsoever except that I ... would take the most beautiful verses ... the verses that were ... sort of universal as you might say. There really wasn't any difficulty because it was kind of clear that this was the thing you would do... The words and lines were very nice in the verses that we chose, but ... Seán Clarach really was a superb craftsman as regards metre and so forth and you couldn't really find a bad verse where the metre would not be spot on" [quoted in Wikipedia].
In Ó Lionáird's article in the Journal of Music published in Galway, Ó Liatháin is quoted as saying "it became the song that would be sung at the end of the night and people really loved it." Ó Liatháin added:
Well the thing about it was that it was Gaolach [Gaelic in a tribal as opposed to a linguistic sense] and nationalistic and manly and that it consisted of all these things. … the melody itself … had a marching rhythm, there was the sense of … referring back to times of heroism and triumph in Ireland and … I suppose it fitted into the atmosphere at the time since the situation in the North was quite troublesome. And then Ó Riada himself was dead and there was… there was a certain sadness to that period…
Ó Lionáird continues the story:
Prior to its arrival the choir habitually ended a night’s song in public performance with a humorous song – ‘Scoil Bharr d’Inse’. It would soon be usurped by what was now being called ‘Gile Mear’ – a Cúil Aodha song! It was accorded an additional life when its air started to be played at funerals as the coffin made its journey shouldered from the altar to the hearse. It in effect became the Cóir Chúil Aodha anthem. -
** Update #2. Worth studying: Trad Irish Slow Sessions at New School of Music in center city Dublin:
The New School's Trad Slow Sessions are traditional Irish music sessions in all ways except one: the tempo. We play the session tunes at a slower than normal pace (usually less than half the speed), so that beginning and intermediate players can more easily learn the tunes and join in the session. More experienced players who wish to refine their techniques at a slower pace are also very welcome.
At many Irish traditional sessions the music can be quite loud and fast, which can be intimidating for newer players. Instead, our sessions are ‘softer and slower’ to facilitate the learning process in a friendly and supportive environment. Also, unlike many Irish sessions, those players who need to read the music can use it at the session, although ultimately our goal is to get everyone playing the music in the aural tradition so they can join other sessions. We limit the tunes to those on our tune list, which allows us to repeat the tunes from session to session.
LATER (Dec. 23, 2014): The tune 378b in Dillner appears in the 1892 koral-bok and the 1901 hymnal. In the 1925 hymnal, however, it is replaced by a melody composed by Augustana Seminary professor Carl Johannes Söndergren. See the discussion in Songs of Two Homelands (31n).
In both of Lars Paul Esbjorn's handwritten notebooks of psalmodikon tablature (sifferskrift) in the Esbjorn Family Papers, Box 14, MSS 1, Special Collections, Tredway Library, Augustana College, are versions of the "Krigspsalm" (war hymn) attributed to King Gustav II Adolf. Better known as Gustavus Adolphus, he was a national hero of Sweden during the 1800s and Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota was named for him.
It is No. 378 in Wallin's 1819 psalmbook, No. 390 in the Augustana Synod's 1901 service book and hymnal.
Förfäras ej, du lilla hop -- Tune used in Haeffner's chorale book -- posted by YouTube user Jens Fredborg, played on piano w/ lyrics, in Swedish, of first stanza
Förfäras ej du lilla hop är inledningsraden på "Gustaf Adolfs fältpsalm", som sägs ha sjungits av Gustav II Adolf och hans här inför slaget vid Lützen 1632. Den ursprungliga tyska texten, Verzage nicht, du Häuflein klein av Johann Michael Altenburg. Översättaren är okänd. Den svenska texten har tre 6-radiga verser i den version som bearbetades av Johan Olof Wallin.
Melodin är en medeltida folkmelodi med tyskt ursprung, nedtecknad 1530 i Ain schöns newes Christlichs Lyed.
The hymn is known as Gustavus Adolphus' "swan song" because he is said to have led his troops in singing it before his death in the Battle of Lützen during the Thirty Years War. Excerpt from The Story of Our Hymns by E.E. Ryden, available online at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/ryden/hymnstory.p2.c11.html in the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, gives the traditional story:
On the morning of November 6, 1632, the two armies faced each other in battle array. Dr. Fabricius, chaplain of the Swedish army, had been commanded by Gustavus to lead his troops in worship. The king himself raised the strains of “Be not dismayed, thou little flock,” and led the army in singing the stirring hymn. Then he knelt in fervent prayer.
A heavy fog prevented the Protestant forces from moving forward to the attack, and, while they were waiting for the fog to lift, Gustavus ordered the musicians to play Luther’s hymn, “A mighty Fortress is our God.” The whole army joined with a shout. The king then mounted his charger, and, drawing his sword, rode back and forth in front of the lines, speaking words of encouragement to his men.
As the sun began to break through the fog, Gustavus himself offered a prayer, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, help me today to do battle for the glory of Thy holy name,” and then shouted, “Now forward to the attack in the name of our God!” The army answered, “God with us!” and rushed forward, the king galloping in the lead.
Ryden was an Augustana Synod pastor, hymnologist and editor of The Lutheran Companion. Good bio on ArchiveGrid website at http://beta.worldcat.org/archivegrid/collection/data/309274052. Including this: "He served as secretary of the Joint Commission on a Common Hymnal, which in conjunction with the Joint Commission on a Common Liturgy created the Service Book and Hymnal which represented the collaborative work of the eight Lutheran church bodies that comprised the National Lutheran Council. Previously, Ryden served on the Augustana committee that created its 1925 hymnal. In addition to this hymnal, he also co-wrote Augustana's Junior Hymnal in 1930 and its revision in 1960. Several of his original hymns and hymn texts were used in past hymnals and in the current Evangelical Lutheran Church in America hymnal, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, three of his hymn texts are included."
Scots may have voted against independence in this month's referendum (but read this before you make up your mind about that). By coincidence -- and by request -- we are going to be taking up a song from the Scottish rebellion of 1745-46 for the Clayville Pioneer Academy of Music at 10 a.m. Saturday. It's called the Skye Boat Song, and it's a fantastic piece of music 3/4 time. It can be played as a waltz, but it's more of a slow air.
The best account (as so often happens) is in Wikipedia, which says it "recall[s] the escape of Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) from Uist to the Isle of Skye after his defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746." Don't believe the bad things you hear about Wikipedia!
According to Wikipedia, for all their romance about Scottish rebellion, the lyrics was written by the British aristocracy of the 1800s -- " by Sir Harold Boulton, 2nd Baronet, to an air collected in the 1870s by Anne Campbelle MacLeod (1855–1921), who became Lady Wilson by marriage to Sir James Wilson KSCI (1853–1926) in 1888." The air, or melody, is traditional, however, and it's lovely.
It has been covered by everyone from James Galway and the Chieftans to Tom Jones and Rod Stewart. YouTube has covers by the Corries, the Scots Guards Pipe and Drums and the Tampa Bay Children's Chorus, among others.
A lead sheet is available on EverythingDulcimer.com at http://www.everythingdulcimer.com/tab/ (scroll down the alphabetical directory to the "rlwalker" version of "Skye Boat Song.") It's dulcimer tab, in DAD and DAA, but it has the melody line and chords for those of us who play other instruments. You can also print it out directly by linking here:
There are several versions on YouTube, but the one that's probably the most instructive for us shows a local band called Carl Purdy and Friends at O'Donovan's Irish Pub in Augusta, Ga., Musicians include: Carl (harmony, Irish pennywhistle) and Erin (lead vocal, guitar). The woman who inquires at 1:50 who ordered the "burger with a side of mayonnaise" is surely a waitress and not part of the performance. Think of her as adding to the ambiance!
There's also a nice fingerpicked version on the mountain dulcimer by YouTube user dulcibard.
A classical arrangement -- Beautiful Classic Scottish Music - The Skye Boat Song - Relaxing Harp, Flute, Clarinet, Violin Solo:
Beautiful instrumental Scottish folk music solo of the classic traditional Skye Boat - Speed Bonnie Boat song. Best Relaxing Harp and Peaceful Flute music. Mormon Tabernacle Choir Principal Flute, Jeannine Goeckeritz and Principal Harp, Tamara Oswald performing live an arrangement by Skaila Kanga and Clive Romney, joined by Becca Goeckeritz, violin, Daron Bradford, clarinet, and Scott Allen, bass. From the Oswald Goeckeritz Duo live concert "A Joyful Evening" at BYU Education Week. http://www.harpandflute.com.
And an a cappella performance by the UCD Choral Scholars at University College Dublin. If you'd like to hear the lyrics without a conversation about hamburgers in the background, this is the one to listen to!
The Alumnus, Alumni Association of Augustana College, Rock Island. Volume 1 (1892-93) (Google eBook)
At left, quote from I.M. Anderson, "The Educational Institutions of the Augustana Synod," The Augustana Synod, A Brief Review of its History, 1860-1910. Rock Island: Augustana Book Concern, 1910.
With dummy or placemarker ("Lorem ipsum …") text below is to make the citations line up with the JPEGs. (Click here for a brief history and some text you can copy and paste into your own dummies.) As I find more information, I'll replace the "lorem ipsum" with text that actually means something!
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Ernst Olson, The Swedish Element in Illinois: Survey of the Past Seven Decades : with Life Sketches of Men of Today Chicago: Swedish-American Biographical Association, 1917, p. 130.
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C.J. Södergren, "A Brief History of the Augustana Synod," The Augustana Synod, A Brief Review of its History, 1860-1910. Rock Island: Augustana Book Concern, 1910, p. 30.
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I.M. Anderson, "The Educational Institutions of the Augustana Synod," The Augustana Synod, A Brief Review of its History, 1860-1910. (Rock Island: Augustana Book Concern, 1910), p. 99.
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Here performed by Danish --- band Rannok at Live fra Café Bartof in Fredericksberg 23 Februar 2013 - "Dejodejo" CD release. The other tune, the reel, is titled "Den sidste ged" (the last goat).
And here, performed by Fiolministeriet (the Ministry of Fiddles) live in Solingen in 2011. I don't know what the second tune is. Both are from the Bast Brothers' tune collection (whatever that is), according to the notes on YouTube.
We meet one early spring evening in the pleasant little café in the foyer of a small hotel in Flensborg, on the German-Danish border. A fairly large group of Danish musicians and people from the international music business are talking animatedly when the street door opens and in step a trio of smiling young women carrying their musical instruments. An aura of success and self-confidence surrounds them. That’s because this is the young Danish trio Fiolministeriet (The Fiddle Ministry), and they are breaking through on the German folk music scene at this very point in time. The Fiddle Ministry play Danish and European music from the 18th century, arranged for violin, viola, cello, guitar and voice sang, and this evening they are returning to their hotel after yet another in a long series of concerts, yet another full house, yet another wild success. The gathering is for the German festival folkBALTICA, and in the weeks up to the festival, The Fiddle Ministry – violinist and singer, Ditte Fromseier, violinist Kirstine Sand and cellist Kirstine Petersen – have toured all over Germany, presenting their brand new debut album.
Very well-written feature story by Stephen Elliott in the Dispatch and Argus when the team was honored in 2007. Elliott's lede and nut graf:
ANDOVER -- They played on ball diamonds with no fences, where collections were taken up to pay for bats and baseballs.
They traveled to small towns around the area, where farm kids could watch their heroes round the bases. Cheers came from people standing outside the dusty ballfields.
They were known as the Andover Terrible Swedes, and they played baseball in the open fields, in rain and sunshine, sometimes into darkness. The players came from farms and factory jobs to share a little of their youth with each other and the fans who came to watch.
Eugene Carlson started his career with the Andover Junior Swedes back in 1939.
When he puts his fingers around a baseball today, the 84-year-old still has a firm grip after all these years.
The eyes squint a little in the sun. The smile seems to reveal memories of a time when crowds came out to see a young boy standing in the open spotlight on a dirt field.…
This, on the local team's origin:
Andover historian Ron Peterson said the Terrible Swedes came about after one of the Swedish players, "Stripes" Johnson, saw a local basketball game with a team called, "Olson's Terrible Swedes," in the 1920s. "Stripes" thought it would make a good name for the baseball club.
And a good deal of history about the team, the players and their service in WWII, and the post-war years, including this:
"One time, a guy hit a ground ball past second base, and it went into a gopher hole in the outfield," Mr. Carlson said. "The guy got a home run."
And this, for a kicker at the end:
But, the Swedes faded out in the late 1950s to early '60s.
The ghosts of the Terrible Swedes are being honored this weekend. Mr. Carlson and Mr. Johnson will be there, along with former teammate and Milan resident Vergene Samuelson.
"I see them now out there running around in the dust," Mr. Carlson said of today's baseball players. "I think, `isn't that a bunch of crazy people?'
"I did it. But, when you're younger, you do a lot of crazy things."
Editorial note: In the list of captions to pictures below, there is a reference to a "melody string, center, attached to woods crew …" No, there were no tiny lumberjacks running around Jenny Lind Chapel, and they had no melody strings attached! That's what AutoCorrect did to me when I tried to write "wood screws" as one word.
Notes and pictures from my visit to the Jenny Lind Chapel yesterday with Ron Peterson of the Andover Historical Society, who removed the Esbjörn instrument from its display case and allowed me to measure it. (See also the picture with my post Psalmodikon -- misc. notes on resonance strings (resonanssträngar) immediately below on Sept. 5.) It is clearly a sophisticated, well crafted musical instrument.
Psalmodikon in Jenny Lind Chapel museum
Esbjörn was a protoge of Johann Dillner, who wrote the most important primer on the psalmodikon, and he was one of two founders of the Augustana Synod who used it widely in the early days. (The other was Eric Norelius, of Vasa, Minnesota.) His instrument is wider and deeper than Dillner recommended in his introduction to the 1846 sifferskrift (psalmodikon tablature) edition of Johan Olof Wallin's Swedish Psalmbook of 1819 (click here for details), but is approximately the same length. Its measurements:
The instrument was apparently designed for one melody string centered over the fretboard and 10 drone strings, five on each side of the fretboard. See Sept. 5 post below for details. Three strings are still attached. They appear to be loop-end metal strings (maybe 0.12 or 0.14 gauge?). And the end of what appears to be a gut string is attached to the bridge end of the psalmodikon.
Some other measurements: The fretboard is raised approximately 1 inch from the soundbox. Like other Swedish psalmodikons, it lacks metal frets but is cut in a shallow sawtoothed pattern The bridge is a block of wood 1 inch in height, 0.75 inch at the bottom and 0.25 inch at the top. It is cut in a right-angled trapezoidal pattern with the right angle nearest the fretboard.
The picture below, taken in 2013 when the instrument was in its display case, shows its overall proportions.
Other pictures below show: (1) At left, decorated sound hole, 8.75 inches from the nut end; (2) at right, nut end of psalmodikon with wooden peg for melody string. Drone strings are metal loop-end string slipped over woods crews; (3) metal tuning pegs on butt end of psalmodikon for drone strings and end of melody string, center, attached to woods crew; and (4) detail of nut end, showing tuner for melody string, at center, and resonant strings looped over wood screws at sides.
Word comes from Keill Tofters, who is writing a book about Esbjorn, that the instrument would be tuned like a nyckelharpa: "Gällande stämning av resonanssträngar tror jag att man (som när vi stämmer resonanssträngar på nyckelharpa) försöker stämma dem i oktavens alla toner. Då medljuder resonanssträngar. Om man spelar t.ex. tonen G på spelsträngen, så medljuder den resonanssträng som är stämd i G. På detta sätt får man starkare och vackrare ton." My translation (with a hat tip to Google): "The current tuning of sympathetic strings , I think that (as when we tune resonant strings to the nyckelharpa) we try to tune them in all the octave tones. Then sound (vibrate) the sympathetic strings. If you play for example the note G on the string board, so the resonant string tuned in G sounds with it. In this way, you get stronger and more beautiful tone."
While I have edited my estimates below of how many strings there are on the instrument (with incorrect guesses stricken out and the correct number inserted after it and underlined), I don't want to change my speculation about alternative tunings, especially those that might be derived from the hummel; the museum descriptions I turned up had anywhere from three to 14 sympathetic strings, and I think the instruments with fewer than five to eight strings would have to be tuned to fifths and octaves like a hummel -- or American dulcimer. But I am now completely satisfied that Pastor Esbjorn would have tuned his psalmodikon to a chromatic scale as Tofters suggests.
A mystery: Lars Paul Esbjorn's psalmodikon in the Jenny Lind Chapel is set up with a playing string over the fretboard at the center of the instrument and what look like eight or nine10 unfretted strings at the side of the fretboard (see picture below). One of them, I believe, could have been double-stopped along with the melody string as a drone. But the rest of them look like a player wouldn't be able to reach them with a bow, so they must have vibrated sympathetically like the resonance strings on a Swedish nykelharpa or a Norwegian hardingfele.
So here's the mystery: How could you tune the psalmodikon so you wouldn't be retuning all nine11 (counting the melody) strings every time you changed keys?
Esbjorn's psalmodikon in Jenny Lind Chapel, Andover, Ill.
Psalmodikons with extra strings weren't all that uncommon in Sweden, judging from the descriptions of the 19th-century instruments on display in Swedish museums, but apparently they weren't standardized, either. It seems to me, from what I've read of Stig Wallin's "Schwedische Hummel," that the Swedish instruments were influenced by the box zithers formerly played in Sweden. So that suggests one possibility -- was the psalmodikon tuned in fifths and octaves like a hummel?
But there's a psalmodikon in a museum in Uppsala that may have belonged to Johan Dillner (provenance uncertain, tho') that looks to me like it may have been keyed like a nyckelharpa. If so, could the resonance strings have been tuned to the notes of a scale? That's how a nyckelharpa is tuned.
My best guess is that different makers would have approached the problem differently, modeling their drones or resonance strings after whatever instruments they were familiar with. The instruments described below have anywhere from four to 16 resonance strings. But it's only a guess.
At any rate, I've been Googling around about psalmodikons, hummels and nyckelharpas lately. My unedited notes follow in Swedish and English (or what passes for English in Google's translation utility) in italics … all of which, taken together, raise as many questions as they answer.
"Ett psalmodikon är ett musikinstrument som utgörs av en långsmal resonanslåda med en till tre strängar spända över en greppbräda mellan ett strängstall och en snäcka. Kallas ibland för psalmonika. I Gagnef, Dalarna, finns fler exemplar med tre stämskruvar - dock monterades ibland två strängar av för att förenkla inlärningen. Avancerade modeller kan ha upp till 12 bordunsträngar." [A psalmodikon is a musical instrument consisting of a narrow resonance box with one to three strings taut over a fretboard between a string and a stable shell . Sometimes referred to psalmonika . In Gagnef , Dalarna , there are more copies with three tuners - however sometimes mounted two strings to facilitate learning. Advanced models can have up to 12 drone.]
And an English-language Wikipedia page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psalmodicon" (note spelling with a "c") has a footnote that seems to describe the Esbjorn pslamodikon almost to a T: " Francis William Galpin (1937). A Textbook of European Musical Instruments: Their Origin, History and Character. Williams & Norgate, Limited. - The Norwegian and Swedish Psalmodikon, of somewhat the same outline, was introduced by Johan Dillner (c. 1810) for accompanying the Church hymn-singing; it has one melody string of gut and eight sympathetic strings of metal." I don't think they were that standardized, though. Certainly the ones I've seen described in museums (see below) have anywhere from 5 to 11 or 12 strings.
Interesting that the playing string would be gut and the bourdon strings metal. Why would that be?
The Swedish Wikipedia page notes, BTW, that, "Instrumentet var även populärt vid husandakter i hemmen och bland kringresande predikanter" (The instrument was also popular at husandakter in homes and among itinerant preachers.). "Husandakter" would be home services, by my translation, or conventicle prayer meetings held in someone's home.
Pix can be enlarged on DigitaltMuseum webpage (Creative Commons)
Thumbnail history of Dillner and detailed description of the instrument in the museum at Uppsala:
Psalmodikon. Experimentmodell av trä. Ljust brunbetsat och på kortsidorna svartbetsat trä. Resonanslåda med plats för 16 resonanssträngar, tre tonsträngar. Däröver fästes med haspar på sidorna en träklaviatur med tangenter av björk, vissa svartmålade. Påspikad bräda med klistrad lapp för tontecken. Avbalkningsbrädan försedd med metallklamrar och med nottecken i blyertsskrift. Svartmålade stämskruvar. Ljudhål dels S-formade dels hjärtformade. På fastklistrad pappersetikett på sidan står skrivet med bläck: "av Prosten Dillner / Östervåla / Anno 1800". [Psalmodikon. Experimental Model of wood. Bright brunbetsat {brown stain} and the short sides black stained wood. Resonance Box with space for 16 sympathetic strings, three strings. Above that is fastened with hasps on the sides with a träklaviatur {wooden keyboard} keys of birch, some black painted. Påspikad [nailed to] board with sticky patch tontecken {tone characters, e.g. A, B, H, C, D, etc.?} Avbalkningsbrädan {partition board} fitted with metal staples and with musical notes in pencil writing. Black Painted tuners. Sound hole partly S-shaped partly heart-shaped. On the glued paper label on the page is written in ink: "The dean of Dillner / Östervåla / Anno 1800".] Provenance is missing, however: "Uppgifter om proveniens sakanas."
That superstructure reminds me of the keys on a nykelharpa, so I Googled around to see how the sympathetic, or resonance strings, are tuned on that instrument.
In the most common configuration, the resonance strings are tuned up the scale starting at G# for the lowest sounding string, located nearest the C playing string, and up to G for the highest sounding string, located nearest the A playing string. So the twelve resonance strings sound G#, A, Bb, B, C, C#, D, Eb, E, F, F#, G from low to high.
Also a page on tuning the playing strings and a PDF file that covers both.
Hardingfele.http://www.hfaa.org/Home/articles-on-the-hardanger-fiddle/a-guide-to-tunings-on-the-hardingfele. Karin Løberg Code of Hardanger Fiddle Association of America has detailed information on traditional tunings. The regular tuning, used for 81 percent of tunes transcribed in Norsk Folkemusikk - Hardingfeleslåtter (NFMHS) is: a.d'.a'.e" for playing strings and
[(b).d'.e'.f#'.a'] for the sympathetic strings.
QUESTIONS:
Could Esbjorn's psalmodikon, with its eight resonance strings, have been tuned to a C major octave -- sort of like a nyckelharpa?
Or was it tuned to octaves and fifths like a hummel?
It has seemed to me, and Stig Walin more-or-less confirms in "Die Schwedische Hummel," that as psalmodikon makers branched out from the very simple box zither that Dillner describes in his books, they were influenced by the hummels that were still being played in parts of Sweden during the early 1800s. Certainly the overall shape of the instruments shows that influence. Could the drone strings have been tuned like a hummel, too?
If Walin says anthing about how the drones were tuned, I haven't found it. But here's what he says about the psalmodikon in general terms:
Um 1830 begann der unglaublich
schnelle Siegeszug des Psalmodikons über
das Land.1 Das Instrument wurde von den
mächtigen Erweckungsbewegungen der
40er Jahre und der folgenden Jahrzehnte
in Gebrauch genommen.
Trotzdem aber
hätte sich das Tonwerkzeug nie so schnell
ausbreiten können und wäre bei der tra
ditionsverbundenen Landbevölkerung nie
zu sofortiger Anwendung gekommen, wenn nicht der Boden von dem verwand ten älteren Zithertypus Hummel so gut vorbereitet gewesen wäre. Als ein belieb tes Werkzeug einer rein profanen Musik pflege (einschliesslich des Tanzes) muss te die Hummel vielerorten als schwer sündbelastet betrachtet und deshalb bei seite gestossen oder einfach zerstört worden sein,2 um statt dessen vom Psalmo
dikon ersetzt zu werden,3 das von Anfang an ein Instrument für Gottesdienst und Hausandacht war.
[Around 1830 began the incredibly
quick triumph over the Psalmodikons
the areas.1 The instrument was of the
mighty revivals of
40's and the following decades
taken in use. but still
the Tonwerkzeug [sound, i.e. music, tool] would have never been so fast
can spread and would be at the traditionsverbundenen [tradition-bound] rural population never
come to immediate application , if not the ground would have been so well prepared by the pretext th older zither type Hummel . As a tool to ANY tes a purely secular music care (including dance ) must te the Hummel have been in many places considered as serious sin burdened and therefore joined in page or simply destroyed by 2 instead of Psalmodikon , 3 which was from the beginning a tool for worship and prayer house .]
Interesting tangent (at least to me): Bourdon is the French word for bumblebee!
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Some details about home services I haven't seen elsewhere from Swedish history of psalmodikon in Wikipedia:
Instrumentet började användas i Danmark under 1820-talet, och spreds sedan till övriga Norden och Baltikum. Mest känt är prästen Johan Dillners (1785–1862) psalmodikon från 1830, som användes i en del av Sveriges fattigaste församlingar i stället för orgel. Dillner använde psalmodikonet för att lära ut de nya melodierna i Haeffners koralbok, och gav ut dem i siffernotskrift 1830 (Melodierna till Swenska Kyrkans Psalmer, Noterade med ziffror, för Skolor och Menigheten). Han sade att han kunde lära vem som helst att hantera ett psalmodikon på bara två timmar. Instrumentet var även populärt vid husandakter i hemmen och bland kringresande predikanter. Under senare delen av 1800-talet ersattes oftast psalmodikonet av orgelharmoniet. [The instrument was first used in Denmark during the 1820s , and then spread to the other Nordic countries and the Baltic states. Most famous is the priest Johan Dillner (1785-1862) psalmodikon 1830 , which was used in some of Sweden's poorest parishes instead of organ. Dillner psalmodikonet used to teach new songs in Haeffners koralbok , and published them in numerical notation, 1830 ( The melodies to Swenska hymns , quoted by ziffror , for Schools and the congregation ) . He said he could teach anyone to manage a psalmodikon in just two hours . The instrument was also popular at husandakter in homes and among itinerant preachers. During the latter part of the 1800s was replaced mostly psalmodikonet of the harmonium.]
Cf. the description of the lay readers' conventicle in Moberg's "The Emigrants" ...
Misc. descriptions of psalmodikons in museums (w/ varying numbers of bourdon strings -- all translations, such as they are, by Google):
Malmö Museums. http://carlotta.malmo.se/carlotta-mmus/web/object/21994 Psalmodikons, string zither, with long, narrow resonance box made of wood. Fingerboard with 30 bands, melody string missing, with 11 sympathetic strings. The resonance box has a round and two crescent-shaped sound hole. Waisted rim at the round sound hole in the wider part of the resonance box.
Kulturen Lund. http://carl.kulturen.com/web/object/24388 Notes: KM 23594th Psalmodikons m. strings fr. V. Karaby, Harjagers hd. conn. by Blecker, Lund. 10:00
With sympathetic strings. String Games and Stable missing.
Upplandsmuseet http://www.europeana.eu/portal/record/91617/upmu_object_UM01766.html Psalmodikon av ljust lackat träslag med mörkare fläckar, förmodligen av bets. Avbalkningsbräda med vissa partier svartmålade. Metallklamrar åtskiljer varje avbalkningsdel. Ristade tontecken. Ovan dessa ristade notbokstäver. Stämskruvar svartmålade.
Endast melodisträngen (av tarm) är bevarad, men strängfästen visar att tolv resonanssträngar funnits. Stall saknas. Ett runt ljudhål och två halvrunda ljudhål. [Psalmodikons of brightly painted wood with darker spots , probably beet . Avbalkningsbräda with some parts painted black . Metal brackets separating each avbalkningsdel . Carved tontecken . Above these carved notbokstäver . Tuners painted black .
Only the melody string ( of gut) is preserved , but the string mounts shows that twelve sympathetic strings existed. Stall missing. A round sound hole and two half- round sound hole.] From Hälsingland. Pix show tuners at end like Esbjörn's in Jenny Lind Chapel.
But my original hunch, for what it's worth, is that the bourdon strings would have been tuned like a hummel, since a lot of Swedish psalmodikons look like their shape is influenced by the hummel.
[Lede:] “While it actually resembles no other city upon the face of the earth,” wrote Lafcadio Hearn of New Orleans, “it owns suggestions of towns in Italy, and in Spain, of cities in England and in Germany, of seaports in the Mediterranean, and of seaports in the tropics.” There’s no better illustration of this than the photographs of Richard Sexton. For four decades Sexton has been playing a transcontinental game of Concentration, pinballing between New Orleans and the cities of the Creole diaspora—Havana, Quito, Cartagena, Cap-Haïtien—documenting resonances in architecture and style. His photographs have now been collected in the gorgeous Creole World: Photographs of New Orleans and the Latin Caribbean Sphere, and are on display this fall in a free exhibition at the Historic New Orleans Collection.
e.g. pix of downtown street scenes in Havana, Cap Haitien and Bourbon Street, housing blocks in New Orleans and Panama City ...
Yes, if you want to imbue Cyndi Lauper’s 1983 hit 'Girls Just Want To Have Fun' with a deep sense of sadness and irony, simply shift it from its original major key to a minor one.
It's the work of the very talented young Chase Holfelder, who's producing an ongoing series in which he takes major songs and transposes them to minor. ...
Agreed. Here, by way of comparison, is the 1983 original by Cyndi Lauper. Video on CyndiLauperVEVO channel:
I don't know if I ever noticed it before, but there's no lack of irony there, either.
Bonus track (w/ dulcimer, no less): YouTube heading: Cyndi Lauper - Time After Time (Live on Caroline Rhea show in 2003). The dulcimer, if I had to guess, is probably in some kind of alternative tuning, but the melody is basically Ionian:
Prairieland Strings/Clayville
Pioneer Academy of Music
Beginner-friendly amateur jam sessions
If you have a dulcimer, a guitar, banjo, fiddle, autoharp, tin whistle or any other musical instrument that you want to learn, or you haven’t touched in years – or if you want to make music with other people at a steady, moderate pace in a relaxed, beginner-friendly atmosphere – the Springfield area has two “slow jams” designed for rank beginners and novice players. They are free of charge and open to the public:
• Clayville Pioneer Academy of Music. 10 a.m. to noon, first Saturday of the month, Clayville Historic Site, Ill. 125, Pleasant Plains.
• Prairieland Strings. 7 to 9 p.m., first Tuesday and third Thursday of the month, Atonement Lutheran Church, 2800 West Jefferson (Ill. 125), Springfield.
Our goal is to bring together amateur players to learn new tunes and enjoy the fun of making music together in a friendly, non-competitive atmosphere. While our groups started with dulcimer players who wanted to jam with other instruments, we welcome all instruments and players of all skill levels. The more variety, the better we like it!
We mostly play old-time American fiddle tunes, gospel and folk hymns, traditional Irish, show tunes – and practically anything else that strikes our fancy. We’re not about the fine points of technique as much as sharing our knowledge, having fun and making music with each other.
We also offer occasional song- sharing circles and free workshops at Clayville called “Fake It Till You Make It: Getting to Know Your Instrument and Playing in a Group.”
For information, email Peter Ellertsen of Springfield, who coordinates the jams, at hogfiddle @ gmail.com, phone (217) 793-2587.
To make a flier, follow these steps (more or less) Exact procedure will vary, depending on your word processing software:
Set your margins at 0.5 inches all way around.
Copy and paste the text into a word processing document.
Copy the pictures, paste them into the text and wrap the text around them.
Size the text (in other words, blow it up) as follows: headline 36 point; subhead 24pt; body copy 12pt.
Find a lonely bulletin board, and put up the flier.
Verbatim quotations. (Quotation marks in the indented blockquotes are those of the original newspaper story.) Posted here and quoted at length in case the newspapers don't keep archiving them indefinitely.
Bishop Elizabeth Eaton has a quick sense of humor, which is helpful because she often contends with an image of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America crafted by radio humorist Garrison Keillor, whose Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church is firmly rooted in quaint small town America and Scandinavian heritage.
Both of those are beautiful, said the woman just elected presiding bishop of the 4-million-member denomination. But an influx of Latino members is a bright spot in the otherwise declining ELCA. The congregation she led for 15 years in Ohio had crack houses for neighbors. Lutherans, she said, need to bring Jesus to whoever is living next door, using both old-time hospitality and newfangled social media.
"Just tell people to check us out. We're open Sundays," she quipped, then checked her words.
"We are also seeing that Sunday morning is a really bad time for many people. Maybe we have to be more flexible about making it possible for people to come."
Eaton, 58, is a native of Cleveland who has been bishop of ELCA's Northeastern Ohio Synod since 2006. … Post-Gazette story mentions loss of 500,000 members since vote on gay rostered clergy, but puts the membership issue in the context of an overall need by mainline churches for attracting young families, more sophisticated use of technology, etc. Including a wonderful quote about the printing press:
About half the churches in her synod have websites.
"We have one with no indoor plumbing," she said. "The last really effective Lutheran use of new technology was the printing press. People don't look in the phone book any more. If you want people to find your congregation, you need a website."
Popular culture … reaching beyond ethnicity
…
When her college-age nephew told her that he didn't believe in God, she asked him to describe the God he didn't believe in, she said. After listening to his description of a wrathful, anti-science, anti-intellectual deity, she told him, " 'I don't believe in that God either.' We got to the point where I was able to say this is the God I believe in, this is why Jesus makes sense in my life."
Her nephew hadn't been raised among people who believe in the sort of God he described, she said. It's a stereotype that arises from popular culture more than from the church. She said that one of her young adult daughters tells her own peers that they're intellectually lazy when they say things like that.
"She'll say 'You are letting that [view] seep in from the culture. That wasn't what you experienced growing up,' " Bishop Eaton said.
Messiah Lutheran Church in Ashtabula, where she served from 1991 to 2006, was originally so ethnically Swedish that worship in English didn't start until the 1930s. Yet, by the time she arrived, church members were marrying their black neighbors. Gay couples and their families began to attend. The congregation was welcoming. Now, she said, little black and Filipino children wear traditional Swedish costumes for the Santa Lucia festival at Christmas.
Many people might not know what makes the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America unique. How would you explain the denomination?
If people even know what a Lutheran is, most people are stuck on the lovely homespun caricature developed by Garrison Keillor in Prairie Home Companion and Lake Wobegon and all that. We often have parodies of ourselves where we say that all we do is eat different kinds of Jell-O and green-bean casserole. That is no longer true about us. Our growing edges in this church are African national congregations and Latino congregations, which is bringing a whole new wonderful flavor to the Lutheran potluck, theologically and culturally.
* * *
You support the decision to allow partnered gay clergy, but you also believe that the church should make room for people who don’t. Why?
Lutherans have a history of living with paradox. There are some things that are nonnegotiable for us. But there are other things that it is possible for people who love Jesus holding the same faith together, can have very strong, very sharp disagreements, but it does not have to lead to disunity. Things like marriage or the ordering of government or certain political positions, we can and we do disagree, but we agree on the cross.
We want to be a place that says we can disagree on things that are vitally important but still listen to each other and see in the other a brother or sister in Christ, and more importantly, someone for whom Christ died.
[lede] The presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, or ELCA, is Ohioan Elizabeth Eaton, who moved to Chicago to take office at the beginning of the year. She works for the larger community, but her roots are strong. When asked if she had words specifically for Toledoans, she said, “What I'm really concerned about are those people in Toledo, some of them root for Michigan. I want to say to my brothers and sisters in Toledo, don't go to the dark side, come back, come back to Ohio State.”
* * *
One more question had to be asked. With the presiding bishop the ultimate authority, in a way, in the church, what's the deal with green bean casserole at potluck dinners?
“Oh, geez, I'm not supposed to talk about that anymore,” Bishop Eaton said. “That's a caricature of northern central European, you know, Garrison Keeler [of the NPR show A Prairie Home Companion]. This is what we eat, so you can find it at a lot of potlucks.” She gave an example of a church staff member who is a lifelong Lutheran, but her Puerto Rican heritage doesn't include the dish. “In the Garrison Keillor understanding of what Lutherans are like, that's not who we are, and we have a need to understand that's not who we are anymore.”
But she also said, “Anything that has cream of mushroom soup as an ingredient is probably something that we can do.” Look for variety—and a mushroom or two—on Bishop Eaton's plate at the many church dinners she'll attend as presiding bishop.
She expects to be challenged by such issues as the declining membership of the church, and all Christian churches, with the increasing secularization of society. Eaton said the ELCA needs to respond to that problem by reaching out to a younger and more diverse audience.
“Our church is overwhelmingly European-American. We’re a very white church,” she said. “We really need to find a way to open up space and make room for people who are not in the traditional European/Lutheran mode to have a voice and power and leadership in the church.”
She hopes that ELCA churches can “re-engage” their communities. “Connect with them and tell them there is a God who loves and cares deeply about you and your life, and here’s a place where you can find meaning,” she said. “We don’t have to go overseas to be missionaries anymore.”
Eaton is realistic about the challenge. “Sometimes I have an image of the church as an aircraft carrier,” she said. “To change the direction of an aircraft carrier takes a lot of time and a lot of space.
“I don’t think there can be some miraculous turn-around of an organization this large, and with this many moving parts.”
Eaton said she will miss her role as an area bishop who could go out each Sunday and visit the local congregations. “And hey, potlucks are great!,” she added.
Some hometown ties will endure. Eaton swore that when she goes to Chicago, “I will never be a White Sox fan, nor will I ever root for the Bulls.”
As for the long-term future of the church, beyond her tenure as bishop, Eaton said, “I don’t think I’m a really great future thinker. I’m just going to leave that in God’s hands.
“I just hope that we don’t cling too tightly to what we have or what we know, so that we’re not able to be open to what’s going to emerge,” she added.
Eaton said she isn’t worried about the future church, even though “I don’t know what it’ll look like. It’s God’s church, not mine.”
This interview aired on October 3, 2013. [My notes: Paradox. beauty in diversity ... We're a church where everyone is welcome, so we would say. We also hold fast to this notion -- it's not orginal to us, it's original to God, obviously -- that we're loved by a God who wants to lavishly, unconditionally love every one of us. And that's a gift that we have, and since we have been loved in this way we're free then to love the world and serve the world. e.g. malaria So our church Q. Pope Francis - missionary church that reaches out to minorities, gay, etc., even nonbelievers -- gay clergy -- When we say we welcome everyone, I think that's very important. That was a costly decision for us, but if it's the right decision, then no cost is too high. But when we say we welcome everyone, we also welcome those who disagree with that decision. They are fully members of our church, because we can agree on the cross of Jesus Christ. Q what do you say to critics who say h is a sin ... [5:15] q. decline in attendance? A. I think the church for a long time has had a privileged place in our society and our culture and it was taken for granted, I would say in the 50s that it was not only your religious duty, it was your civic duty to be in a faith community. And that's not the case any more. We're not the only game in town, and so we've need to be more ready to be missionaries once again, and to tell people this is a place where you're accepted and you're loved unconditionally and freed in that love, you can go out and make a difference in the world.]
Lena Stina Pettersdotter (Jan. 21, 1835 - Jan. 21 1912)= Carl Johannesson (Jan. 27, 1829 - Nov. 6, 1904)
* * *
Julie Karlsson wrote in 1955:
My mother owned a psalmodikon [a one-string, bowed instrument with frets like a mountain dulcimer. It was considered acceptable for accompanying psalms, whereas the violin, because it could be used for dancing, was not permissible -- Lyle], with numbers and notes. She played and sang psalms and songs to it. When someone was ill in the neighborhood and she expected them to have joy of it, she brought the psalmodikon and went there to play and sing for them.
She was alert as long as she lived. Her last illness lasted 12 days. She fell and broke her femur, but she was clear in her mind into her last moment. Her last words were: ”Söte Frälsare, Herre Jesus” [Sweet savior, Jesus -- Lyle].
My parent worshipped the words of the Lord and the mass. If we stayed home from church, we had to read the text of that Sunday. (Translated by Göran Lundkvist).
In introduction to the genealogy, __________ says:
The only old ancestors I know about were stuck for at least 5 generations in Elghult, a parish about 6 American miles from Målerås. The name means "moose thicket" (location 3 in Småland). There are no elk in Sweden, although there are caribou, called reindeer, in the far north. They do have moose, though, and elg is the Swedish word for moose. Our word "moose" is an Ojibwe Indian word (plural is moose-ug), so if Swedes had been a little quicker in settling the New World, moose would be called elk, which would be really confusing. Europeans were not notably observant. The American Robin doesn't look much like the European Robin, and "deer" comes from German Tier, meaning "animal." Where was I? Oh, yes. Elghult consisted of several large unprosperous farms, but, as of 1900, it also had eight glass factories. There was no rail service, so I don't know what they did with the glass. Maybe they piled it up and waited for customers to come.
Siffernotskrifter
Förteckning av Inger Enquist
I arkivet finns sammanlagt åtta arkivkartonger tryckta siffernotskrifter. Innehållet i varje sådan volym har förtecknats för sig. Därutöver finns ett fåtal handskrivna siffernotskrifter. …
[lists 8 "volumes," some comprising several books, including Oscar Ahnfelt's Melodierna i sifferskrift till Andeliga sånger, Dillner, etc.
Statens musikverk, Torsgatan 21, Stockholm: "Its mission is to promote a wide-ranging musical offering throughout the country, distinguished by excellence and artistic regeneration, and to preserve and bring to life theatre, dance and music heritage." Funds an arts council, etc. Maintains Musik- och teaterbiblioteket:
Depth, knowledge and happy music making – opening the door to the worlds of theatre, music and dance.
This is one of the oldest and largest specialist libraries of its kind in Europe, accessible to all. The evolution of performing arts and the history of music are reflected in this extensive collection of books. Sheet music for beginners and professionals, for all settings and genres, is also widely available. There is drama – manuscripts and printed editions – in several different languages.
The rich collection of older publications, manuscripts and archives includes both theatre and musical material, amongst others the original manuscripts of several important Swedish composers and more than half a million photographs from the world of theatre.
FOLKVÄCKELSENS BEGYNNELSE I UPPLAND MED OMNEJD Med särskild inriktning på Östervåla
44-page PDF file by Kiell Tofters on the bygdeband website
Abstract [?]
Lars Paul Esbjörn var en väckelse- och läsarpräst, som verkade både i Sverige och Amerika. I Östervåla tjänade han under både 1830-talet och 1860-talet. Under 1840-talet verkade Esbjörn i Hille utanför Gävle. Under 1850-talet var han i Amerika och startade församlingar, skolor och det svensk-lutherska samfundet Augustanasynoden. Esbjörn var en del av ett sammanhang, vi kallar det för kontext. För att förstå Esbjörns liv och verksamhet både i Sverige och Amerika, beskriver jag i denna uppsats hur väckelsen under 1830-, 1840- och 1850-talen växte fram och rörde sig i östra Svealand – Uppland, Stockholm, Västmanland – och södra Norrland – Gästrikland och Hälsingland. Esbjörn verkade under sin Sverigetid i Uppland och Gästrikland, men också i Hälsingland och Stockholm.
In this case, "folk revival" doesn't mean music. It's more like the revival, or "awakening," in the Great Awakening(s) in America.
Blurb:About lydia & Andrea. Andrea and lydia [who spells her name with lower-case letters] have been playing Swedish-style fiddle together for the past decade, and have recently returned from an intense 2012–13 academic year studying in the center of the nyckelharpa universe, at the Eric Sahlström Institute. ... Much of their shared repertoire comes from central regions of Sweden, with a smattering of Norwegian and Danish and beyond, and their original compositions.
Interesting note on nykelharpa: "The nyckelharpa is the national instrument of Sweden, first known from a painting on a church wall dated to about 1350. It has 16 strings: 3 melody strings and 1 drone string that are played with a bow, and 12 sympathetic (resonance) strings, altogether encompassing a 3-octave range. On lydia's nyckelharpa there are 37 wooden keys (nyckel means "key"), each of which plays a single note on a single string. …" Links to American Nyckelharpa Association.
Coming up this week are the Prairieland Strings (7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday), the Clayville Pioneer Academy of Music (10 a.m. to noon Saturday) and, over at Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site, the annual Bluegrass (a.k.a. Traditional Music) Festival all day Saturday. Why don't we have our session at Clayville and head on over to New Salem afterward? New Salem has been good to us -- over the years we've attracted quite a few new members by playing at the bluegrass festival, and they could use the support.
For the occasion(s), I'd like to highlight a tune we introduced at our last session of the Prairieland group in mid-August. It's called the "Eighth of January," a.k.a. the "Battle of New Orleans," and there's a lot of history to it. There's even a local connection (well, kinda, sort of) between New Salem and the actual historical battle, which was fought almost exactly 100 years ago on Jan. 8, 1815. I'll point it out below.
To get us started, here's Johnny Horton singing "Battle of New Orleans" on the Ed Sullivan Show, complete with some hijinks with a (stuffed?) alligator:
With its original title "Eighth of January" it's a staple in bluegrass jams, but it's a fine old, very intricate fiddle and clawhammer banjo tune. It's also made to order for dulcimers, hammered and mountain alike.
In the YouTube clip below Rich Carty, owner of the Highlands Folk Music Center in New Jersey, talks about mountain dulcimer technique, but he also shares his thoughts, honed by 33 years of playing, about how a dulcimer played well can fit in with other stringed instruments. Carty begins from 0:00 to 0:52 by playing the melody through twice at a moderate tempo: Well worth listening to even if you don't aspire to be a virtuoso mountain dulcimer player, for his sense of how all the instruments in an old-time jam session blend together.
Mountain dulcimer tab is available in Steve Siefert's Join the Jam. I'm not able to find any on line. A lead sheet with chords is available on the Kitchen Musician website at http://www.kitchenmusician.net/giftunes/8th-jan.gif. It's written for hammered dulcimer, but it has chords, melody line and everything else (except tab for those who are wedded to the DAD dulcimer lockstep) that anybody could ask for.
The Kitchen Musician is an extremely valuable source for folk musicians and anybody who loves trad Irish music by Sarah Johnson, who plays hammered dulcimer and has been writing a music column for Smoke and Fire for re-enactors, buckskinners, etc., for a long time. She has books (those old-fashioned things with ink on paper) of Turlough O'Carolan, Irish slow airs, Scots fiddle tunes, all kinds of older British, colonial and early American music.
Also an "Alpha List of Downloadable Music
for Hammered Dulcimer, Fiddle, Tinwhistle, Recorder, etc." at:
http://www.kitchenmusician.net/pages/kmmusicalpha.html. Along with the Carolan and beautiful Irish slow airs, she lists a three-part "Back of the Schoolbus Suite" with such musical masterworks as "Found a Peanut" and "The Worms Go In, the Worms Go Out." Hey, they're in the oral tradition.
A couple of "Eighth of January" performances
Hank Williams Sr., here recorded on a vintage radio show as Jerry Rivers And The Drifting Cowboys:
Here's a high-octane bluegrass version by Rhonda Vincent & the Rage at the Dumplin' Valley Bluegrass Festival in Kodak, Tenn.:
And here's a nice solo on clawhammer banjo by YouTube user Ron Hudiberg:
For what it's worth, I like the nice, relaxed tempo of that clawhammer banjo the best.
A little bit of local (and not-so-local) history
"Eighth of January" originated nearly 200 years as a fiddle tune commemorating the Battle of New Orleans on Jan. 8, 1815. In the online Fiddler’s Companion, another indispensible source of information, Andrew Kuntz explains:
This victory, by a small, poorly equipped American army against eight thousand front-line British troops (some veterans of the Napoleonic Wars on the Continent), came after the peace treaty was signed and the War of 1812 ended, unbeknownst to the combatants. The victory made Jackson a national hero, and the anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans was widely celebrated with parties and dances during the nineteenth century, especially in the South. Around the time of the Civil War, some time after Jackson's Presidency, his popular reputation suffered and ‘Jackson’s Victory’ was renamed to delete mention of him by name, thus commemorating the battle and not the man.
The lyrics were written in 1936 by a high school history teacher in Arkansas named Jimmy Driftwood, as Kunz delicately puts it, "supposedly to make the event more interesting to his students." The version we've all heard was by country novelty singer Johnny Horton, who topped the charts with it in 1959.
If you're interested in local history or want to know more about that "kinda, sort-of" local angle I mentioned, check out my piece on how the Rev. John Berry, pastor at Rock Springs Presbyterian Church and father of Abraham Lincoln's parter in what we now call the first and second "Berry-Lincoln stores" at New Salem State Historic Site, served in the Battle of New Orleans. It's titled "What does an old fiddle tune have to do with
Rev. John Berry’s service in the War of 1812?" in the New Salem interpreters' newsletter, The Prairie Picayune" in the fall of 2009. I posted it Oct. 24, 2009.
