Directory of mountain dulcimer tab

A dozen links at http://grandolddulcimerclub.org/ put up by Nashville Grand Old Dulcimer Club -- looks like it's been up there a while, but it's a very handy portal page, and I'm posting it here so I don't lose it. http://home.usit.net/~sandyc/dulcimertab.html

Big band jazz arrangment of Min Kvedarlund with vocalist Kirsten Bråten Berg backed by the Arendal Big Band

An arrangement of the title track of Kirsten Bråten Berg's 1993 CD, Min Kvedarlund ("my grove of traditional songs"). A lund is a grove or garden, and kvedar were traditional singers who specialized in stev, i.e. "a type of monostrophic folk poetry in special metrical patterns sung to traditional and mostly very old tunes" (Nils Grende, A History of Norwegian Music, trans. William H. Halverson and Leland B. Sateren [Lincoln: U of Nebraska Press, 1991]: 74. There! Aren't you glad you know?) I haven't been able to find liner notes, but I think the song is is a composition of Berg's based on at least two stev songs, which are typically very short, consisting of one four-line stanza.

The YouTube clip has a pretty good translation of the title:

Setesdal, Garden of Ancient Songs, Kirsten Bråten Berg/Arendal Big Band. Uploaded by egilso on Oct 12, 2010. KBB performs with ABB in Arendal Kulturhus 14.08.10. Vocals: Kirsten Bråten Berg. Director and arranger: Fred Sturm.

Arendal Big Band's website (in Norwegian) at http://www.arendalbigband.no/. According to Wikipedia, Arendal is a city of 41,000 on the south coast of Norway. A lot of immigrants on East Coast came from Arendal, "as a great deal of Norwegian sailors, trimmers, shipbuilders and carpenters from Arendal settled in areas of New York such as Brooklyn, the Staten Island neighborhood of Port Richmond, and several industrial centers in Northern New Jersey such as Jersey City, Bayonne, Perth Amboy and Elizabeth." Kirsten Bråten Berg was born in Arendal. She now lives in Stetesdal, an inland area to the northwest.

LATER (July 19, 2015). While I was doing something else, I came across an audio file on YouTube at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNQhDbtuKdg of the original CD track, apparently copied from a later compilation called Nordisk Sang (Nordic Song), which is where I first heard it. "Min Kverdarlund" by Ale Møller, Hallvard T. Bjørgum, Kirsten Bråten Berg & Tellef Kvifte. Haunting piece of music.

"Star of the County Down" / KINGSFOLD - hymn tune arranged by Ralph Vaughan Williams

As usual, Wikipedia has all the basics:

"Star of the County Down" is an old Irish ballad set near Banbridge in County Down, in Northern Ireland. The words are by Cathal McGarvey (1866–1927) from Ramelton, County Donegal.[1] The tune, a pentatonic melody, is similar to that of several other works, including the almost identical English tune "Kingsfold", well known from several popular hymns, such as "Led By the Spirit". The folk tune was the basis for Ralph Vaughan Williams' Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus.

It is commonly played both as a reel and a waltz. Some Irish sessions play both, "3x waltz time, followed by 3x march time in a set."

The melody is also that of "Dives and Lazarus" -- an English folksong Child ballad 56 in Francis James Childs' authoritative 19th-century collection. Some YouTube versions below: (1) the waltz; (2) two clips of "Dives and Lazarus," one by English guitarist Martin Simpson and one by Maddy Prior, formerly of Steeleye Span; (3), the hymn setting by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams to the text "I heard the voice of Jesus say ..."; and (4) Williams' instrumental theme and variations on "Dives and Lazarus."

Karen and Cort play Star of the County Down Swannanoa. Uploaded by Poodlepups on Aug 17, 2008. Karen and Cort "Dangerman" perform at the Swannanoa open mike during dulcimer week.

Dives and Lazarus - Martin Simpson

Maddy Prior - Dives and Lazarus

I Heard The Voice Of Jesus Say. Uploaded by jamjar30002000 on May 21, 2010. Part of an afternoon of worship at Prince George Winyah Episcopal Church, Georgetown, SC. www.pgwinyah.org

Vaughan Williams "Dives and Lazarus" - Stokowski conducts. Vaughan Williams's Five Variants of "Dives and Lazarus" for Strings and Harp ... This performance also comes from New York, given by the CBS Radio Orchestra on 7 February 1954 under the direction of Leopold Stokowski. He was a fellow student of Vaughan Williams at the Royal College of Music in the 1890s and a long-time champion of the composer's music.

I denne søte juletid (NoS 44)

Kirsten Bråten Berg - I denne søte juletid ("Julefolk", 2011)

Traditional tune with lyrics by Hans Adolph Brorson (1694-1764). The title means "In this sweet Christmas-time". Kirsten Bråtern Berg with Sigbjørn Apeland, pump organ, and Sigrid Moldestad, hardingfele (Hardanger fiddle). From the NRK Christmas programme "Julefolk" ("Christmas Folk"), Dec. 2011.

Detailed background in Brorson-bloggen til Leif Haugen. Haugen describes the blog like this: "Om den danske presten, biskopen og salmedikteren Hans Adolph Brorson." This song is perhaps Brorson's most well known. Says Haugen:

Salmen er skrevet av H. A. Brorson i 1732. Vi finner den i Landstads Kirkesalmebog som nummer 134 med tittelen I denne søde Juletid, i Landstads reviderte salmebok som nummer 21 med tittelen I denne søte juletid og i Norsk Salmebok (NoS) som nummer 44 med tittelen I denne glade juletid. På dansk står salmen i salmeboken som nummer 109 med syv strofer, mens vi i Norsk Salmebok bare har den med seks strofer.

It is also in in Den Danske Salmebog No. 109 w/ lyrics in Danish and a MIDI file - Melodi fra 15. årh./Joseph Klug 1533 [Mel.: Et lidet barn så lysteligt].

Another very old Norwegian carol in the in the NRK concert _video of a group called Kvedarkvintetten backed by lute and Middle Eastern sounding percussion - Eit barn er født i Betlehem ("Julefolk", 2011). Lyrics by Bernt Støylen to a traditional tune. The title means "A Child Is Born in Bethlehem". Kvedarkvintetten with Tore Bruvoll, lute, and Birger Mistereggen, percussion. Kvedarkvintetten are Helga Myhr, Margit Myhr, Sina Myhr, Silje Risdal Liahagen, and Tonje Risdal Liahagen. From the NRK Christmas programme "Julefolk" ("Christmas Folk"), Dec. 2011. All the music in the programme: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7633C7B8ABD3E6F1&feature=viewall

Psalmodikon in Steeple Building at Bishop Hill

According to information provided by the Bishop Hill Heritage Association, the psalmodikon in the Steeple Building museum was crafted about 1870 by Peter Hedlund, of Galva Township where Bishop Hill is located. I first saw it several years ago when I was visiting Bishop Hill with my wife's family, and I was struck by its resemblance to a mountain dulcimer. I'm getting a replica made, and the measurements and description here are for that purpose.

Hedlund came to the United States from Gafleborgs län as a boy in 1850, married in 1876 and farmed 115 acres in Galva Township. An independent in politics, he was a Christian ("tror på kristendomen") but was not a member of any church (tillhör ingen kyrka), according to Svenskarne i Illinois (Chicago, 1880) by Eric Johnson. [Link here for the full text at archive.org.] Judging by the instrument on display in Bishop Hill, he was an accomplished woodworker.

The fretboard is 28" in length. The frets are chromatic, but the patterns of lighter and darker wood -- white and black in the diagrams in Johan Dillner's introduction to the 1846 sifferskrift (psalmodikon tablature) edition of Johan Olof Wallin's Swedish Psalmbook of 1819 -- indicate diatonic scales. The heading in the picture at left above reads, "Om bruket af denna Psalmbok" [on the use of this psalmbook]. Basically, you would play the intervals marked by the white frets.

To change keys, you apparently retuned the instrument.

To see how Dillner's introduction to the 1846 edition compares to the Bishop Hill psalmodikon, pictured at right below, orient yourself as follows:

• The nut and tuning peg on the left-hand end of the instrument in picture, at right below, are pictured at the bottom of the diagram, at left above; and
• The bridge is on the right-hand end of the instrument in the picture and the top of the diagram, indicated by a line perpendicular to the playing string.

In other words, if you rotate the diagram clockwise, or to 3 o'clock, it will line up with the picture of the instrument.

Dillner doesn't call for a violin-style tailpiece like that on the Bishop Hill psalmodikon. The bridge on the Bishop Hill instrument is moveable.

Dimensions

I've taken pictures of the instrument twice, once in 2008 not long after I first saw it in the Steeple Building and again this year when I decided to have a replica made. I didn't want to take the instrument out of its case, since the tailpiece and bridge had fallen off in the meantime. So I photographed it in the museum case and my measurements are approximate. It is shaped like an elongated trapezoid 39" x 5.5" (at the nut end, to the left in the picture above) x 7.5" (at the bridge end, to the right). The soundbox is 2.25" deep; the nut end is roughly 5.5" x 3" (but the end piece is irregular in order to accommodate the raised fretboard). The picture at right above was taken in 2008, when the bridge and tailpiece were still attached to the instrument.

My measurements correspond very closely to those in Dillner's introduction, although the units of measurement are not exactly the same.

Dillner gives the following dimensions:

• Length: 39 or 40 tums.
• Breadth: 4.5 tums.
• Height: 2/5 tums.
• Fretboard: 30 tums.

A tum is an old Swedish unit of measurement equivalent to the width of a thumb. (The word means "thumb" in English.) It was approximately one inch in English measure, and was standardized in 1855 at 2.47cm. (An inch is 2.54cm.) Dillner's plan calls for the instrument to be rectangular, but trapezoids were not uncommon -- perhaps influenced by the hummel, a northern European box zither? -- and the psalmodikon in the museum at the Jenny Lind Chapel in Andover looks rather like a hummel with an indentation to facilitate bowing.

Construction (misc. notes)

Bridge and tailpiece are similar to a fiddle. Since 2008 when I first took pictures of the instrument, they have fallen off. But at that time the tailpiece was apparently attached to the body with string (please see picture below), and the bridge was held in place by the downward tension of the playing string, which at that time was still attached, although it appears from the picture below that the string was loose and the bridge had moved out of position.

I am not sure how the tailpiece was attached to the instrument originally, but I suspect it was more substantial than what I saw in 2008. Since that time, the string has come off that end of the psalmodikon and the nut and bridge are lying beside it in the display case.

The instrument was tuned by a peg attached to the nut end. To play in a different key, you retuned the instrument. The tunings are related to the old ecclesiastical modes -- i.e. ionian, dorian, etc. (see diagram "Tabell öfwer kyrko-tonarterna" [table of church modal scales] below. The patterns of darker and lighter wood mark off sharps and flats in much the same way as the black and white keys on a piano, and the different modes have different intervals indicated by the numbers, pluses and minuses on the table.

The soundholes are especially nice, suggesting a stylized lyre. See detail below:

No time to look this up now, but it looks interesting and I don't want to lose it. Has pix of several psalms from Wallin 1819 in sifferskrift ...

Psalmodikon var musikintrumentet i många kyrkor och skolor Infört under juli 2002 i Lysekilsposten och Stenungsunds-Posten med Orust-Tjörn

By Sven H. Gullman

Part I at http://svenhgullman.nu/oevrigt/psalmodikon1.htm and Part II at http://svenhgullman.nu/oevrigt/psalmodikon2.htm

Bruce Springsteen, the Jewish high holy days, the possibility of atonement and connecting the dots at a concert in Washington, D.C.

Bruce Springsteen's "Wrecking Ball" tour, which I heard out my hotel window a couple of months ago in Oslo, was in Washington, D.C., this month. And I was struck by what Jeffery Goldberg, who writes for The Atlantic magazine, had to say about it on the magazine's website.

Since Springsteen's concert came just a month and a half before the presidential election, Goldberg looked for political implications. That's what he does for a living. So he noted "Springsteen didn't say much of anything about the race from the stage," but added:

... He is obviously supporting Obama, but so far he has stayed away from campaigning. The set list, though, was like an indictment of every-man-for-himself Ryanism. First he played "My Love Will Not Let You Down," and "The Ties That Bind," both of which could be heard as pleas for community, for understanding that we're all connected, and all responsible for each other (the second song more than the first). Then he wheeled into "We Take Care of Our Own," which served as a bridge to songs of economic devastation: "Wrecking Ball," "Death to My Hometown," and "My City in Ruins." It was pretty obvious to me what he was doing.

And since Springsteen's concert came on the eve of the Jewish new year, Goldberg also found a religious subtext. In fact, he headlined his piece "Darkness on the Edge of Rosh Hashanah."

I think it all fits together, but it wouldn't fit on a bumper sticker or a 30-second political spot. And we need a little translation first. Taking Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the Jewish year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, together, the high holy days of the new year are a time of atonement, repentance and new beginnings. Some of the imagery is a little dark, as Goldberg suggested, but no darker than the Christian imagery of sin, repentance, atonement and reconciliation.

This year's High Holy Days are Sept. 16-18, so they were on Goldberg's mind when he went to the Springsteen concert. And he quoted from a Sept. 4 column in Jewish Week, a newspaper in New York City, by Erica Brown titled "Born To Repent: The Boss And The Month Of Elul" (during which the high holy days fall). Brown, who is scholar-in-residence for The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, wasn't concerned with politics. Nor was she concerned with the "Wrecking Ball" album and tour. But Goldberg connected some of the dots in her essay.

Noting that "Springsteen fans, like Dylan fans, can find deep meaning in almost any song," Goldberg quoted Dr. Brown on Springsteen's battle with depression and how she believes the pain he experienced early in life is reflected in his art. Brown said:

Bruce knew what to do with the pain. He translated his struggles into music: "Those wounds stay with you, and you turn them into a language and a purpose." At one concert, he told his adoring audience: "We're repairmen -- repairmen with a toolbox." The darkness on the edge of town is sometimes so close that we can reach out and touch it. And at times, the darkness within is so palpable that we understand what it means to be born to run. We run away from the scars of difficulty and the encounter with our past and our inadequacies, even as they stare us boldly in the face.

She's quoting there from a profile in the New Yorker at the end of July. I was struck by it, too, and quoted one of the same passages when I wrote about Springsteen's appearances in Oslo in this weblog. In her Jewish Week essay, which is linked to Goldberg's blog post, Brown said this quality in Springsteen's music leads her to repentance (in Hebrew, teshuva), which is the focus of the high holy days:

So this year, in recognition of teshuva’s difficulties, I will be taking Bruce with me to shul [synagogue]. He could probably bring down the house with a moving Kol Nidrei [a traditional, and very beautiful, chant associated with the season]. It is not the music that I will think of as I open my machzor, my prayerbook. It is the man who gets up on stage and smiles widely not because he is hiding behind the pain of problems he never fixed, but because he has found a way to work through them to bring relief to himself and joy to others.

And if it works on the personal level, it might also work on a political level. Brown quoted an early 20th-century rabbi in Jerusalem who said "pain is a universal language," and those artists "who are able to harness it can bring others to a place of solace and change."

I can't be precise about how all of this works -- wouldn't even want to try, in fact -- but think it all fits together, the personal, the redemptive and the political.

When I read the New Yorker profile soon after Springsteen's appearances in Oslo, including one in which he sang "We Shall Overcome" at a memorial concert for the young people who were murdered by a right-wing terrorist the year before, I was struck by the same quote Dr. Brown cited, "we're repairmen ... with a toolbox." And seeing it again in the context of a political analyst's perceptions of a Springsteen concert in the runup to a national election in which issues of pain, atonement and redemption are hovering in the background, I was struck by it again.

DPN stories on John Tignor, dulcimer maker of Frankfort, Ky.

Obituary article in 1982 with authoritative discussion of Tignor's place in the Thomas-Amburgey tradition by Ralph Lee Smith, "John D. Tignor and the Kentucky Dulcimer Tradition" in DPN Vol 8 No 4 (pp. 18+)

Open publication - Free publishing - More cd reviews

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Article in 1994 on John S. Tignor, son of John D. Tignor, who was then teaching in Illinois (Quincy) and making instruments in his father's pattern (pp. 27+):

Open publication - Free publishing - More cd reviews

Stephen Siefert's "Join the Jam" workshop, the Prairieland Dulcimer Strings and a way to survive your first jam sessions at upcoming fall festivals

When Stephen Siefert and I were talking last month about his upcoming workshop in Springfield, I suggested we have a lot of beginners in the Prairieland Dulcimer Strings and we have a couple of really good festivals coming up in central Illinois. So Steve decided to focus on how to "Join the Jam" (which is also the title of his series of mountain dulcimer tune books) and pitch it to players of all skill levels.

So Steve spent the evening here Aug. ___ sharing tips on how to get into the rhythm of a song, get a feel for its melodic structure and start playing the music along with other players. Except he didn't use big words like "melodic structure." Instead, he showed us where the important notes are and how to improvise harmonies and make things more interesting when we join in with other musicians.

"What really counts, with music, is that your heart is in it," he said. "Better to play something simple from the heart than live a life of frustration attempting complication."

(Full disclosure: Steve did say this, but I'm not quoting from the workshop in Springfield. I'm quoting from an article on his website. In it he asks http://stephenseifert.com/ "What Role Does Talent Play?" His answer: Not much.)

"Learn to play something ridiculously simple ridiculously well and completely from the heart," he adds. "I believe, if you CAN'T do this, you'll spend the rest of your life trying to make music and wondering why you don't have the talent."

In the meantime, with the rest of our lives before us, there are some cool opportunities coming up for beginners to start jamming:

• Saturday, Sept. 8, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. the Traditional Music Festival at Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site off Ill. 97 at Petersburg (20 miles northwest of Springfield). Due to state budget cuts, it's only one day this year and no dinner will be served. Our group has been playing at the "Bluegrass Festival" (as most of the musicians in our area call it) for more than 10 years. We usually gather on the hay bales next to Doctor Allen's.
• Saturday, Sept. 8, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Old State Capitol in Springfield. I'll be demonstrating the mountain dulcimer at the Sangamon County History Through the Arts II sponsored by the Sangamon County Historical Society and the Old State Capitol Foundation. I'll have several dulcimers on display, and if you want to join me in a couple of tunes, please feel free to do so!
• Saturday, Sept. 22, and Sunday, Sept. 23 the Clayville Fall Festival at Clayville Historic Site on Ill. 125 just east of Pleasant Plains (15 miles west of Springfield). We'll play at the Clayville Fall Festival from 1 to 4 p.m. both days. But the festival begins in the morning -- see Clayville's website at http://clayville.org/ for details -- so you'll want to come early. We played at their spring festival in May and had a wonderful time!

Sound like fun, don't they? But why do I say they're a good opportunity for beginners?

For one thing, there's a difference between jamming and performing for an audience. Here's what Wikipedia says: "A jam session is a musical act where musicians play (i.e. "jam") by improvising without extensive preparation or predefined arrangements." What could be more welcoming for beginners? Without extensive preparation ... that's me! Continues the Wikipedia article: "Jam sessions are often used by musicians to develop new material, find suitable arrangements, or simply as a social gathering and communal practice session." Social gathering and communal practice ... that's us! That, in a nutshell, is what we do at Prairieland Dulcimer sessions.

Except I think we like to take it a step beyond that, since we've made it our policy to be welcoming and beginner-friendly.

There's a group out in Denver called the Small Circle Tune Learning Session (SCTLS), "one of Colorado's most friendly sessions," that prides itself on getting beginners up to speed in Irish traditional music. One of their goals is:

One of the things that makes the SCTLS unique is that we want you to be free to make mistakes, feel your way through some of the stranger bits of session etiquette, and get comfortable with playing your instrument in public, without feeling ostracized if you inadvertently commit a faux pas or some such. Feel free to ask questions or try something new.

That's how we want new members of the Prairieland Dulcimer Strings to feel, and that's just as true at a festival as it is in our Thursday night sessions at Atonement Lutheran Church in Springfield. Here's why: At a festival, visitors will come up to us and listen for a minute or two. Then they may wander off to the next exhibit, or they may linger to talk with us between tunes. But we're not grimly marching through a predefined setlist. And we're not trying to entertain anybody. In short, we're at a social gathering (to use Wikipedia's words), and it couldn't be a better place for beginners.

Which brings us back to Steve's workshop back in August. If you're a beginner, how do you join the jam?

A lot of Steve's workshop was about that. I won't try to repeat it all, but here are a couple of things you can do from the very beginning:

Listen for the beat, and concentrate on the rhythm. In most of our tunes, it'll be on the downbeat. GO tell Aunt RHO - dy; GO tell Aunt RHO - o -dy; GO tell Aunt RHO - dy, the OLD gray goose is DEAD.

Steve said it helps us as we play the dulcimer to think of ourselves as a little one-person string band.

"Your right hand is the drummer for the band," he said.

North Carolina dulcimer player Don Pedi, who specializes in playing fiddle tunes, has another analogy. He takes it from the way southern Appalachian fiddle players set up a rhythm by rocking the bow back and forth across the strings as they play.

"[The music] is all in the bowing," he says.

And on a mountain dulcimer, the "bowing" is in the right hand strum. Don teaches a trick I like to use at jams. When we're learning a new tune, he says, we'll learn it faster and better if we dampen the strings and just play the rhythm the first few times around.

Here's how: Cup your left hand, palm and fingers down over the fretboard so you get a "whapping" sound when you strum across all three (or four) strings with your right hand. If you hear musical notes, you're pressing too hard. Ease off a little, and you'll hear the whapping sound.

Then with the strings dampened, you play the tune with your right hand. So "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" would sound like WHAP whap a WHAP whap; WHAP whap whap a WHAP whap whap; WHAP whap a WHAP whap, a WHAP a whap a WHAP.

Once you feel like you've got the rhythm, you can take your left hand off and strum the open strings. Your dulcimer is tuned in D, everybody else is playing in D -- at least 99 percent of the time in our Prairieland Strings jams -- and you'll fit right in.

If you're feeling adventurous enough to follow a chord progression, you can play a D on the open strings or the 7th fret, a G at the 3rd fret and an A at the 6th (forget about complicated stuff like A7 chords for the time being). Or you can ask a longtime Prairieland Dulcimers member about Mike Anderson's "cheap chords." (Mike has a trick that lets you play D, G and A7 chords by moving one or two fingers.) They're magical!

And when all else fails, there's something else, too.

Listening is always a good option in a jam. Sometimes it's my favorite option. "It is considered polite when first visiting a session to wait to be invited to play, if you are not an expert player," suggest the SCTLC musicians in Denver, who add, "If you are not a habitué of a [trad Irish] session, expect to spend at least half of your time listening at first." But they add of their own sessions, "This is an opportunity for you to develop and hone your skills and techniques. Usually in a session, if you don't know a tune, you should play quietly. At the SCTLS, however, we want you to play out so we know when you have the tune (and when you don't!)." So do we, but you always have the option of sitting back, listening and soaking up the music.

Jamming, even at a festival, isn't difficult. And sitting back and enjoying the music with a group of friends is always an option. Here's a good list of basic jamming etiquette do's and don'ts -- mostly do's -- from the Hills of Kentucky Dulcimers club in Covington, Ky.:

• Keep the beat.
• Listen carefully to the other players.
• Do not start playing the tune until the leader has finished the lead-in phrase.

Matthew 25:31-40

Sometimes there comes a moment of clarity, even in the most convoluted of debates ...

One moment like that came Wednesday in Rich Miller's Capitol Fax.com weblog on Illinois state politics and government. It came in a twice-updated item on the lowering of Illinois' bond rating and subsequent partisan political rhetoric by the governor of an adjoining state. Under the headline "*** UPDATED x2 - Scott Walker piles on *** S&P lowers Illinois rating a notch - Quinn wants leaders meeting in early September" (in its final updated version), it reported:

... Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services lowered its rating on Illinois’ general obligation (GO) bonds to ‘A’ from ‘A+’. At the same time, Standard & Poor’s assigned its ‘A’ rating to the state’s $50 million GO bonds of September 2012. The outlook is negative.

“The downgrade reflects the state’s weak pension funding levels and lack of action on reform measures intended to improve funding levels and diminish cost pressures associated with annual contributions,” said Standard & Poor’s credit analyst Robin Prunty. “The downgrade also reflects continued financial weakness despite significant measures in the past two years to improve structural budget performance,” added Ms. Prunty.

Got that? Clear enough, especially if you've been following the Illinois Legislature this year. But the moment of real clarity came during an exchange in the comments section.

It's often like that on the Capitol Fax blog. Its readers include a lot of players in the world of legislative politics, and often they bring to their comments a perspective honed by experience.

The exchange began at 12:44 p.m. with reader "Grandson of Man," who said the state simply needs more revenue and suggested it could be raised by a "progressive income tax." He, or she, added, "I realize that income tax reform is a very steep hill to climb, but so is pension reform."

Reader "Plutocrat03" replied at 1:03 p.m.:

... It is nothing but misdirection to claim that any of the State’s fiscal problems can be solved by soaking the rich further. There are too few high earners out there to offset the loony spending the state is engaged in.

Which reader "wordslinger" quoted and answered at 1:40 p.m.:

–the loony spending the state is engaged in.– Loony schools. Loony nursing homes. Loony hospitals. Loony state troopers. Loony roads. It’s crazy. Why should I have any responsibility for any of those things? I’ve never gone to school, or a hospital or used the roads. And I don’t care if anyone else ever has use for them either. See, it’s all about me, all the time. That’s what they taught us in Sunday school.

Which of course isn't exactly isn't what I was taught in Sunday School. The irony couldn't have been clearer.

"Alla fåglar kommit ren" - Swedish children's song to celebrate the birds in springtime

Heard on a CD of Swedish children's songs Nu ska vi sjunga (now we will sing) I picked up yesterday in the Colony Store at Bishop Hill. The melody is very familiar - but where have I heard it?

So today I've been Googling around ... still haven't figured out where I know it from ... but I've learned "Alla fåglar kommit ren" (all the birds come clean) is the Swedish translation of a German children's song Alle Vögel sind schon da (all the birds are pretty). It's widely known in northern and central Europe, and in addition to Sweden, it shows up in Norway as "Alle fugler små de er" (all the birds are small). The different lyrics in the first line appear to be for the sake of rhyme and meter in different languages - the gist of it is that it's spring and the birds have come back.

According to Wikipedia, Alle Vögel sind schon da is one of Germany's best-known children's songs celebrating spring. Lyrics in a poem by Hoffmann von Fallersleben (1798–1874), published in 1835. Since 1884 it has been sung to a traditional melody that has been traced to the 1500s. Judging by what's available on YouTube, the Germans consider it primarily a children's song.

But in Sweden, it is also associated with with May Day, or a spring celebration the night of April 30 and morning of May 1 called Walpurgisnacht in German and Valborgsmässoafton in Swedish. In much of northern Europe, this celebration derives from a very old spring ritual, and it is marked by bonfires, dancing and a lot of partying. Very similar to the traditional May Day celebrations in English-speaking countries. In Sweden, it also coincides with school graduation - an occasion for more partying as well as choral singing in university towns. There are a couple of lovely choral arrangements on YouTube.

Stämningsfull Valborgseld med Körsång i Hagaberg (a Walpurgis' fire with choral singing at Hagaberg). Stämningsfull, according to the Babylon.com translator, can mean atmospheric or well-tuned in English, and this clip qualifies on both counts.

Some more YouTube clips:

• Spring Concert, Dal, N.Sweden, 3 of 5. Sung by a "choir based on half-a-dozen families in the parish of Kirkdale (Kyrkdal) in a forested part of northern Sweden." The song begins at 3:39 (followed by Imse vimse spindeln [itsy bitsy spider], complete with hand motions, at 10:14.
• Sånghälsning till våren (song to greet the spring), as sung by a Swedish couple after a May Day demonstration, posted to YouTube by ToraJohanna.
• Piano arrangement by Torgny (Lundmark?) at www.torgnypianist.se (but the link appears to be dead).
• Preview of Alle Vöglein sind schon da on an Austrian CD Traditionelle Kinderlieder, mit Harfe und Geige, für Groß und Klein (traditional children's songs for harp and violin, for big and little).
• A Norwegian recording of Alle Fugler Små De Er by Marit Larsen und Marion Raven in 1996.
• An arrangement by a German pop orchestra with a big band sound directed by James (Hans) Last.

British poet analyzes, translates Pussy Riot's 'Punk Prayer' as The Guardian's poem of the week

Pussy Riot, the Russian punk rock performance artists whose members were jailed recently for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred," have found a literary defender in Carol Rumen, professor in creative writing at Great Britain's Bangor University and poetry columnist for the Guardian. "Pussy Riot's Punk Prayer is pure protest poetry," she said in naming the lyric outburst the Guardian's "Poem of the Week," an accolade that more typically goes to writers like Whitman, Dryden, Christina Rossetti or high-minded, belle lettristic contemporary poets.

"The performance was mildly shocking, at least for any believer unused to trendy vicars putting on rock concerts," said Rumen, who clearly has heard worse in the UK. "Loud, rude, up-yours protest is what punk is all about. But the lyrics are not all raw obscenity: they have something significant to say, which the careless translations slopping around the internet tend to obscure."

Here's a YouTube video:

Pussy Riot-Punk Prayer.mp4

So, in solidarity with the Russian punkers, Rumen offers her translation. But first she offers this precis:

Punk poetry without performance is an oxymoron. Still, it was an interesting challenge to try and inject a little of Pussy Riot's performance-style into the words. The song brings together two different musical genres. It has a hymn-like opening chorus, very melodic and redolent of traditional Russian Orthodox chanting. The mood soon changes, though, and everything erupts into punk rant, a slam of hard-hitting images connected by minimal syntax. The chorus returns, exhorting the Virgin Mary to become a feminist, and finally, with its original plea for Putin's banishment, it concludes the song.

Rumen's translation begins:

Virgin Mary, Mother of God, banish Putin, banish Putin,
Virgin Mary, Mother of God, banish him, we pray thee!

I probably shouldn't admit this, but I like the Orthodox harmonies of the chorus better than the power chords and screaming that follow. (But I've never warmed up to punk.) Anyway, they power chords follow very quickly.

Congregations genuflect,
Black robes brag gilt epaulettes,
Freedom's phantom's gone to heaven,
Gay Pride's chained and in detention.
KGB's chief saint descends
To guide the punks to prison vans.

And so on ... it isn't subtle. The song continues:

Bless our festering bastard-boss.
Let black cars parade the Cross.
The Missionary's in class for cash.
Meet him there, and pay his stash.
Patriarch Gundy believes in Putin.
Better believe in God, you vermin!

A few words of explanation and/or translation are in order. "Gundy" is Kirill Gundyayev, patriarch of Moscow and primate, or spiritual leader, of the Russian Orthodox hierarchy. Putin, the "KGB's chief saint," well, everybody knows who Putin is - even if we might forget his early career in the KGB, the old name for the Soviet security apparatus. Writing in Financial Times, columnist Gideon Rachman's evaluation is typical of reaction in the West:

Pussy Riot ... has courage and a gift for performance art. Its name deftly combines two of the major preoccupations of teenage boys. And, as outspoken women, its members embody the idea of “girl power” – as lauded by the Spice Girls. The band’s trademark balaclavas also provide an easily imitated “look” that has already been emulated in demonstrations from Berlin to New York.

Yet those tempted to dismiss the three imprisoned members of Pussy Riot as simply clever marketeers should read their statements from the dock, which are intelligent, articulate and moving.

Members of the collective typically are in their 20s and graduates in literature and the arts of prestigious Russian universities. Their statements, which were read in court before sentence was pronounced, make it clear the women are not teeny-boppers. They are lengthy, fully as nuanced and thoughtful as Rachman of the Financial Times suggests, and they have gone viral. Rachman continued:

There are signs that the Kremlin realises it has made a mistake with Pussy Riot – and may seek to get the band released early. However, the damage to the president’s standing is done. Pussy Riot is going to prison. But the band still has the power to rock the Kremlin.

In the Christian Science Monitor, a thoughtful and informative profile of the band (actually more like an artists' collective) by staff writer and playwright Mark Guarino notes that Pussy Riot was influenced by American feminist punk bands of the 1990s like Riot Grrrl. "We somehow developed what they did in the 1990s, although in an absolutely different context and with an exaggerated political stance, which leads to all of our performances being illegal. We’ll never give a gig in a club or in any special musical space,” one member, only known as Garadzha, told the Monitor.

And a profile in the Guardian by Moscow correspondent Miriam Elder, the Guardian's Moscow correspondent, offers a different take, quoting a Russian critic, that somehow ends up being essentially the same:

"For all the radicalism of their actions, Pussy Riot are basically a pop crossover," said Michael Idov, the editor of Russian GQ. "They are a brilliant brand – they have a very compelling story and easily reproducible look and, let's face it, a great band name."

A great brand name, too.

Natkirken reaches out to unchurched 'seekers' in Copenhagen: 'We shall be shepherds to cats'

Lask week when Debi and I were in Copenhagen, we were able to attend Natkirken (Night Church) services at Helligaandskirken (Church of the Holy Spirit) on the Strøget and briefly look in on the service briefly at Vor Frue (Our Lady) cathedral in the old university quarter downtown.

The Friday night services we saw were simple, refreshing and sometimes moving, even though we didn't know the language. They have has spread from Denmark, where they originated, to Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh, and they could be a useful model for mainline churches in North America that want to do something about declining membership.

Natkirken is a "liturgical laboratory" of the Diocese of Copenhagen. It was initiated by the estabished Church of Denmark in 1999 at Vor Frue and other city parishes in order to reach non-churchgoers in one of Europe's most secular societies. Night church services in the 12 parishes vary from one to the other, but typically they are loosely structured, combining music, prayer and silent meditation. "Many of our visitors can be characterized as 'seekers' ... we must meet them on their own terms," concluded an initial diocesean program evaluation. Judging by what I saw, they do.

In all, it's a significant outreach in a nation where 80 percent of the population claims membership in the Lutheran church but only 2 to 3 percent attend Sunday services. On Friday nights, Night Church proclaims a very old Christian message in the heart of one of Europe’s most cosmopolitan, secular cities. And Helligaandskirken amplifies that message with CDs and social media like Facebook and YouTube.

"While the Sunday service puts the emphasis on the forgiveness of sins, we try at Night Church to preach God’s presence at the center of each human life," night church pastor Mikkel Vale told the diocesan magazine Kirken i København (the church in Copenhagen). "This is partly done by an emphasis on personal prayer in worship. It is important for us Christians to learn that God is alive and present. … God goes with us. Always. I hope we can help to convey that to people, so they too can feel it when they leave the church again."

In another Kirken i København article, Vale uses a striking metaphor. He says, "we postmodern people are both misguided sheep and independent cats" and suggests a new role for the church: "We shall be shepherds to cats."

What we experienced last Friday night in Copenhagen left this cat purring. Why wasn't anybody doing services like this when I was in my 20s and 30s?

Natkirken at Helligaandskirken begins at 7 p.m. with international evensong conducted in English and lasts till midnight, blending musical traditions ranging from Gregorian chant and the Lutheran chorale to the prayerful but very singable meditations of the contemporary Taizé and Iona communities. Last week's evensong was followed by congregational singing of familiar Danish hymns; a recital of medieval chant by Hildegard von Bingen, sung by mezzosoprano Elisabeth Ørsnes; and a lysandagt, or candlelight communion, followed by singing and prayer in the style of the Taizé community in France and a midnight service.

Part of the appeal of Night Church is that worshippers can come and go freely, and at least for us, that was part of the evenin's charm. Outside on the Strøget, a group of busking street musicians played Strauss waltzes and other light classics in the lengthening summer twilight (see picture at left). At times it almost seemed like the scene outside was playing in a kind of counterpoint with the sacred music within the church.

And I thought the contrast, the interplay between what was going on in the church and outside in the city, was utterly charming. The Scandinavians have a word for it -- hyggelig. It's pronounced sort of like "HOOG-ley," and it's usually translated as "cozy" or "comfortable" or "nice," but that doesn't begin to cover all of its meanings. Anyway, it was all hyggelig and I could have stayed there forever.

Inside the church, it seemed like there was a little something for everybody. The congregational singing was attended by 15 or 20 people, mostly middle-aged or older, while the candlelight service attracted a younger crowd. With faint echoes of the street band playing waltzes outside in the background, the celebrants and half the congregation walked down the nave of the church, holding candles and singing a processional hymn in Danish to the Irish tune we recognize in America as "Be Thou My Vision." The Danish words, I found out later, are by Pastor Vale.

The communion service followed, and the ebb, flow and cadence of the liturgy was wholly familiar even though we didn't speak the language.

(We had a service booklet, too, so we were able to follow along in Danish. We noticed parishoners were asked to hold their candles over the service booklet so they wouldn't drip on the floor. Another good idea to take back to North America!)

In all, it was moving and the familiar liturgy felt inclusive. There's something about candlelight, too, that transcends time, place and language. I wasn't about to pop a flash during the service, but the screen shot at right from Helligaandskirken's YouTube channel shows the same service and conveys some of the atmosphere.

(For another impression, link here to read San Francisco blogger "Mystic Seeker's" account in the early spring of 2007 ... and the comment below it by a hiker who was invited to take part in a communion service in Iceland without knowing the Islandic language.)

"God is a DJ" at Vor Frue. After the light service at Helligaandskirken, we headed back to our hotel on Vesterbrogade by way of Vor Frue. It's in the old university district, just a few blocks from the Strøget, and it has a different approach to Night Church. Vor Frue goes more into poetry, jazz, electronica and other contemporary forms. Taizé meditaion, for example, must take on an added dimension in what a cathedral bulletin describes as "Taizéimprovisationer." I wish I could have heard it. Jazz improv seems a perfect match for Taizé.

According to the bulletin we picked up at the door, Friday night's meditation at Vor Frue was a standing feature called "God is a DJ." It relies on recorded music, and according to the Copenhagen newspaper Politiken, the Friday-night DJ sessions appeal to an inner-city cross-section "from 20-something hipsters to lonely bag ladies."

We weren't there long enough to form a coherent impression, but the part we saw featured a light show to the soundtrack of what we gradually realized was a new age-y cover of "I Wanna Be Sedated" by punk rock icons the Ramones -- the selection wasn't announced, but it was sung in English, and it was probably by the Los Angeles electronica/trance band Superhumanoids. The interplay of lights, music and lyrics was mesmerizing.

Some Danish hymns on the Strøget. During the singing at Helligeaandskirken, which reminded me of the old-fashioned "hymn sings" in small-town American churches when I was growing up, a gentleman in the congregation realized the Americans in the third pew weren't following the numbers as they were called out in Den Danske Salmebog, the words-only hymnal they were using. So as each selection was called out, he came back and whispered the number to us in English.

With his help, I was able to follow the hymn singing fairly well even though most of the hymns -- salmer in Danish -- were new to me. They were Danish, mostly from the 19th and 20th centuries, although a couple of them were recognizable as variants of the old Lutheran chorales. A list follows:

• DDS 441. Alle mine kilder skal være hos dig. Text: N.F.S. Grundtvig 1856-60. Mel. Thomas Laub 1922. Click here for a pop version by Danish artist Peter Belli.
• 292. Kærligheds og sandheds Ånd. Text: Adam af St. Victor 12th c., N.F.S. Grundtvig 1837. Mel.: Christian Barnekow 1868 [same melody as Kom, Gud Helligånd, kom brat].
• 330. Du, som ud af intet skabte. Text: Jens Rosendal 1973. Mel.: Peter Møller 1974
• 11. Nu takker alle Gud. Text: Martin Rinckart [in German] ca. 1630. Danish 1740. 1885. 1889. 1890. Mel.: Johann Crüger 1647 [this is the Reformation chorale Now Thank We All Our God]
• 582, At tro er at komme. Text not available on line. Mel.: Bendt Astrup 1993 [Same as Dig rummer ej himle]
• 785. Tunge, mørke natteskyer. Text: Jakob Knudsen 1890. Mel.: Carl Nielsen 1917
• 612. Den store mester kommer. Mel.: J.P.E. Hartmann 1873, Caspar Chr. Hoffman 1878 and Rued Langgaard 1924.
• 787. Du, som har tændt millioner af stjerner. Text not available on line. Mel.: Erik Sommer 1981
• 217. Min Jesus, lad mit hjerte få. Text: Biørn Christian Lund 1764, Bearbejdet 1778, N.F.S. Grundtvig 1846. Mel.: Carl Nielsen 1914 [Same as Dybt hælder året i sin gang]

Nikolaj Grundtvig, a prolific writer and educator some of whose work appears in American hymnals (and whose theories are behind the John C. Campbell Folk School in North Carolina), was well represented. As was early 20th-century Danish composer Carl Nielsen. I'm familiar with Nielsen's symphonies, but if I knew before that he wrote hymns, it slipped my mind. But write hymns, he did. I was told by people at Helligaandskirken that his contributions to Danish hymnody are especially beloved, and judging by the two I heard I can understand why.

Here are YouTube video clips of Neilsen's "Tunge, mørke natteskyer" (heavy, dark night clouds) as sung by the Danish Girls Choir of Copenhagen and (embedded below), by Den Danske Salmeduo in concert in 2011:

And an audio clip of the former pop/Christian contemporary band STOEW and a video (embedded below) of the Cantica Ungdomskor (Youth Choir) from Vor Frelsers (Our Savior's) Kirke, in Horsens, Jutland, singing "Min Jesus lad mit hjerte få" (my Jesus, let my heart receive), directed by Kevin Laplante

Finally, here's the official video of the Ramones' original of "I Wanna Be Sedated." I know it's heresy to say this, but I like the cover I heard at Vor Frue's "God is a DJ" meditation better!

Springsteen, in Oslo for 'Wrecking Ball' tour, joins memorial to Norway's terror victims

OSLO -- Our trip to Norway at the end of July coincided with Bruce Springsteen's "Wrecking Ball" tour of Europe and the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attack in Norway on July 22, 2011. It was the occasion, I think, for one of Springsteen's best moments.

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Imprompteau memorial, at right, in grounds of Oslo's Domkirke [cathedral] to victims of terrorist attack July 22, 2011.

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We had our downtown hotel room windows open for ventilation, and Saturday night we heard Springsteen's concert at Valle Hovin stadium in the outskirts of Oslo. The concert was halfway across town, and the sound was indistinct but loud and energetic -- and all of it pure Springsteen. If nothing else, it made me want to buy the CD.

What I'll remember most of Springsteen's weekend in Oslo, however, is his appearance the following night at a national memorial concert in front of Oslo's iconic city hall, or Rådhus, for the 77 people who were murdered in the terrorist attack. He simply sang and played "We Shall Overcome" on acoustic guitar backed by Steven Van Zandt. It was understated, passionate and wrenching, as the whole weekend of memorials was understated -- this was Norway, after all -- but passionate and wrenching.

And I thought it was one of Springsteen's finest moments in a stage career that spans 40 years.

Oslo was full of memorials to the terror victims. that Sunday's began at 9:30 a.m. with a wreath-laying ceremony at the downtown government buildings, where the July 22 atrocity had begun with a bomb blast, and continued with a religious service at Oslo's Domkirke. It was attended by the king and queen of Norway, the prime minister and enough ordinary Norwegians to fill the 1,500-seat cathedral with dozens more standing along the walls. And throughout the weekend one of those imprompteau memorials grew on the cathedral grounds, as people left roses and little Norwegian flags beneath a red balloon inscribed with the verse from 1st Corinthians "...og storst av alt er kjærligheten / ... and the greatest of all is love."

Springsteen's appearance at the memorial concert that night wasn't announced till the last minute. Reportedly, it was feared an international celebrity artist would overshadow the Norwegians.

But in the event, that wasn't a problem.

Nobody was upstaged, and Springsteen's delivery of "We Shall Overcome" was as intense as anything I've heard him sing, emotional but understated, and the mostly acoustic guitar supporting his voice was bright and intricate -- but understated, too, and perfectly suited to the song and the occasion.

Springsteen and the E Street Band were already scheduled to be in Oslo over the weekend, as part of their world tour to promote the "Wrecking Ball" album. The CD, which came out in February, got good reviews. David Fricke of Rolling Stone called it "the most despairing, confrontational and musically turbulent album Bruce Springsteen has ever made." Sales have been respectable, but it hasn't been a blockbuster, especially in America. Fricke says Springsteen is "angry and accusing in these songs, to the point of exhaustion, with grave reason. The America here is a scorched earth: razed by profiteers, and suffering a shameful erosion in truly democratic values and national charity."

Is it too angry and accusing? Do we really want to hear this? Especially in a edgy, polarizing, acrimonious political season?

Maybe, maybe not.

Whatever.

I'll leave that to the critics to sort that one out.

But the "Wrecking Ball" tour has been a blowout in Europe.

Certainly Springsteen's July 21 concert at the stadium in Oslo was a blowout. All day Saturday fans were pouring into Oslo. The crowds along Karl Johann Street, the city's downtown pedestrian mall, were liberally sprinkled with people wearing "Wrecking Ball" T-shirts, and throngs of mostly young people were already hoofing it out to the stadium by mid-afternoon.

Springsteen has his fans in Norway, and so does Van Zandt. He's starring in a Norwegian TV series called "Lillyhammer," in which he plays a New Jersey mobster in a witness protection program in the rather bucolic Norwegian town of Lillehammer.

In any event, speculation began early that Springsteen might appear at Sunday's memorial concert in the Rådhusplassen, or city hall plaza, on Oslo's waterfront. Not only does he have the fan base in Scandinavia, but the working-class values of his songs align closely with those of Norway's governing Arbeiterparti (labor party), so many of whose youthful members were murdered in last year's atrocity.

Previously scheduled by Norway's state broadcasting service NRK (the acronym for Norsk rikskringkasting) for the anniversary date, the national memorial concert [nasjonal minnekonsert] featured the Norwegian Radio Orchestra (universally known as KORK, for Kringkastingsorkestret) and a lineup of Norwegian artists, as well as an arrangement in which KORK and a carillon in the City Hall towers played a call-and-response arrangement of the Norwegian anthem "Til Ungdommen" (to youth), the bells echoing the orchestra. It was raining, and we watched the concert on TV in our hotel room, and it was stunning TV (especially with the bells also echoing outside our window, again open for ventilation).

Background on the song and the production --

Music by the Danish composer and conductor Otto Mortensen (1907-1986) to a poem by the Norwegian author, playwright, poet and journalist Nordahl Grieg (1902-1943). The song became a kind of anthem for several international peace marches in Europe in 1981-82 and later. After the terror attack on 22.7.11, it has become one of the most used songs in memorial ceremonies. The title means "To the youth" or "To the young ones". Here played on the carillon in Oslo City Hall by Vegar Sandholt, with Kringkastingsorkestret (the Norwegian Radio Orchestra) conducted by Christian Eggen, arranged by Håkon Berge. From the National Memorial Concert 22.7.12 in the City Hall Square of Oslo, July 22nd, 2012, one year after the terror attack. 50-60.000 people were there.

A version of "Til ungdommen" with song [performed by Norwegian pop and crossover artist Sissel Kyrkjebø at 2011 memorial] can be heard here: http://youtu.be/gKZa6hNFouw

A footnote. It all suggested to me that Americans who think the Scandinavian folk churches are dying because attendance at Sunday services is lower than in the U.S., might want to find a metric better suited to the facts of the case. Whatever else may be going on, the churches aren't dying.

In more ways than I could count, the Church of Norway was one of the key focal points of the weekend's observances, and -- I believe -- its teachings helped set the tone, for instance when Bishop Helga Haugland Byfuglien said at the Domkirke, "The light shines in the darkness; darkness hasn't been able to overcome it." Presiding bishop of the Norwegian church, she has sounded the same note on other occasions.

For his part, Prime Minister Jens Stollenberg sounded more like a pastor than a politician as he told survivors at the wreath-laying, "We will not forget you when the long days of summer give way to autumn darkness. Reach out. Show that you care. A chat about everyday things could help someone regain their will to live." It all had the sound, entirely appropriate under the circumstances, of pastoral grief counseling for a nation of 5 million.

How much of Norway's extraordinary response to terrorism is due to its Lutheran heritage and culture? I'll leave the theories and the pronouncements to others, but I had a sense that it's embedded deeply, even in one of Europe's most secular societies.

Another footnote. The July 30 issue of the New Yorker has a very thoughtful and well-researched profile of Springsteen by editor David Remnick. In the article, Remnick quotes Springsteen on how his parents' working-class struggles influenced his music:

... "Those wounds stay with you [he told Remnick in an interview during a rehearsal in New Jersey], and you turn them into a language and a purpose." Gesturing toward the band onstage, he said, "We're repairmen -- repairmen with a toolbox. If I repair a little of myself, I'll repair a little of you. That's the job."

The context was different, of course, but I couldn't help feeling Springsteen was doing something like that when he and Van Zandt performed "We Shall Overcome" in Oslo.

Planxty Madam Maxwell - Turloch O'Carolan

Heard on a CD in the car while Debi and I were running errands and posted here so I don't forget it while we're on vaction in Europe next week ...

A lively tune that sounds playable on the hammered dulcimer ... maybe even on Appalachian dulcimer. O'Neill's (Chicago: Lyon & Healy, 1903) has it in D, per the Frayed Knot Arts transcription at http://www.oldmusicproject.com/OneilsOcarolans.html. Says Grainne Yeats in the liner notes:

Madam Maxwell was probably Judith Barry of Newtown Barry, County Wexford, who married John Maxwell of County Cavan. Bunting collected the tune several times, and the version played here is based on that gien him by Huagh Higgens. Higgins was a "gentleman harper" who played for pleasure, and who gave many tunes to Bunting.

Here it is on YouTube user Vivian Jacobs' Celtic Harp channel:

And here with John Wynne and John Mc Evoy on fiddle and flute. Full set consists of: Madame Maxwell / The Whinny Hills of Leitrim/ The Leitrim Bucks

'Til Ungdommen' [To Youth], a song by Norwegian poet Nordahl Grieg that became an unofficial anthem in the aftermath of Utøya

Also known by the words of the first line "Kringsatt av fiender" (Surrounded by enemies), by Norwegian poet Nordahl Grieg. Written in 1936 during the runup to World War II and set to music in 1952 by the Danish composer Otto Mortensen. (Wikipedia) adds, "After the terror attacks of 22 July 2011, it was used in many memorial gatherings and services." The first verse makes clear why so many people found it appropriate in the aftermath of Utøya:

Kringsatt av fiender, gå
inn i din tid!
Under en blodig storm –
vi deg til strid!

In English translation, by Rod Sinclair:

Faced by your enemies
On every hand
Battle is menacing,
Now make your stand

During memorial service __ July 2011 in Oslo Cathedral. Clip from Norwegian National Broadcasting (NRK) of the service in the capital city's cathedral (Domkirken) the Sunday after the terrorist attack. Title says, "King and queen cry during song in cathedral" Original on nrk.no website.

Herborg Kråkevik in concert on Rådhusplassen in Oslo. Clip from NRK coverage 25 July 2011. Kråkevik is a crossover folk/pop singer who recorded the song in 2000, which was rereleased and topped the charts again last year after Utøya. An estimated 200,000 attended the concert in the square in front of Oslo's city hall (Rådhus).

Chords, in Norwegian, at http://nortabs.net/tab/3029/ and on English-language website tabs.ultimate-guitar.com. Song is in A minor (although the copy of the Dansk Skolesangbog I got last year in Copenhagen has it with chords and standard notation in E minor). Below is a very nice finger-style guitar arrangement by YouTube user loooovelyy, 20, of Norway, who says she "looked at the chords on ultimate-guitar and figured out the rest by ear."

Also in Denmark. Expressions of solidarity from across Europe, ranging from a moment of silence at football matches to religious services attended by heads of church and state, were posted to YouTube. Here a segment of TV news coverage of Danish Queen Margrethe, Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary as they participate in a memorial service at Denmark's Vor Frue (Our Lady) cathedral in Copenhagen. Video clip of choir singing "Til Ungdommen" begins at 8:34 and lasts 10 or 15 seconds.

'Singing and Praying Bands' bring African American tradition to Common Ground on the Hill

Some of the deepest roots of American music came alive at McDaniel College last week as "Singing and Praying Bands" from Maryland's Eastern Shore brought a time-honored African American style of worship to the Common Ground on the Hill summer music camp. Their art, a regional form descended from the "ring shout" of 19th-century black hymnody, was a reminder of the deep African influence on all of our music, from Leonard Bernstein and Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess" to jazz, blues, hip hop and almost all of our popular music.

Their appearance also affirmed a long-standing relationship with McDaniel (formerly Western Maryland College). Walt Michael, executive director of Common Ground, said it was in McDaniel's Alumni Hall, where the concert was held, that local Methodist and AME conferences voted to merge in the 1960s.

"Consider this is your church here," he said. "We invite you back any time you want to come."

The Singing and Praying Bands grew out of Methodist camp meetings of the 19th and 20th centuries, according to the Rev. Jerry Colbert of John Wesley United Methodist Church of Annapolis. Like so many traditions, they are losing ground with the younger generation, and members of several churches in tidewater Eastern Maryland and Delaware decided to demonstrate it to wider audiences in the hope that it won't die out altogether.

So about 35 or 40 older black men and women, dressed in white, filed onto the stage in McDaniel's Alumni Hall singing "Am I a Soldier of the Cross" in call-and-response style. They circled around a mourner's bench - a row of chairs set up in the middle of the stage - praying and singing over the people seated there. The singing was repetitive, and it was mesmerizing in much the same way as a Taize meditation, but it also sounded like the Sea Island spirituals collected during the 1960s in South Carolina, and it carried you away as it got more insistent.

In all, it was a privilege to be able to hear it.

In a very fine, nuanced story that ran June 14 in The Washington Post, reporter Chris Richards gives a lot of background. Richards said the decision to take its art to a wider audience wasn't easy: "This isn’t just music. It’s their ministry. This isn’t entertainment. It’s their faith."

(There's an audio clip and slideshow with Richards' story. Definitely worth a listen.)

There's more background on the Maryland Traditions 2012 website of the Maryland Arts Council. Citing folklorist Jonathan David, independent scholar of Philadelphia and author of "Together Let us Sweetly Live, it explains:

... these groups are a regional variation of the larger ring shout tradition. Many scholars consider this to have been the most important religious service of enslaved Africans and their African-American descendants in North America in the 19th century.

The bands of Maryland grew out of Methodist prayer meetings. In some areas, these groups had their start in antebellum times in brush arbors where the enslaved held secret religious services. At camp meetings, prayer groups from many neighboring churches--referring to themselves as "Singing and Praying Bands"-- met and sang and prayed.

Ina the Washington Post story, Chris Richards said taking a religious tradition to secular venues can be "an ethical tightrope" because the tradition changes:

It’s delicate business. Intervention efforts in the 1960s helped rescue Louisiana Cajun music from extinction. But some say that intervention can change the actual nature of music, pointing to strands of gospel, bluegrass, the blues and other genres that have been professionalized, commercialized and taken far from their roots.

The ethical dilemma is real. Something like it has happened with the Sacred Harp, but somehow the shape note singers have managed to hold onto their spiritual core of their art. For what it's worth, after seeing them at Common Ground, I'm not too worried about the Singing and Praying Bands of eastern Maryland. I think they'll do the same.

Helligaandskirken's new CD and songbook w/ songs from Night Church - "Pilgrim: Songs for Prayer and Travel"

Published in April: "Pilgrim - sange til andagt og vandring" by Mikkel Vale, Night Church pastor at Helligaandskirken on the Strøget inCopenhagen

Promotional video on YouTube with excerpts, footage from rehearsals

Review article by Rasmus Koppelhus, organist in Simeon's Church in Nørrebro, in Kirken i København (link here for the original Danish article and here for an English translation by Google. Says Koppelhus:

Think of a church that Helligaandskirken manages, within its own ranks, to embrace as wide as last year's releases from the church testifies. In the autumn of 2011 appeared "Psalm Tax," which was the result of Carina Wøhlk vicar and organist Hans Ole Thers' cooperation on the 30 new hymns. And now this pilgrim songbook made in cooperation with Church Foundation. Helligaandskirken are not just a parish church for them within the ramparts, but manages through fine publications that parts of creativity works out to all of us outside the ramparts. Thank you.

Koppelhus has this to say about the music:

The composer Mikkel Vale have even tried their hand at Taize genre, and the result may in particular be tested in the song "God is everywhere." The song shows in the finest manner Mikkel Vales understanding of Baroque affective learning (that is, how specific intervals or a melodic progression of thought that could express the exact feelings and moods). Thus, there is almost an octave difference between the words "heaven" (light-register) and "earth" (dark register). The text on top of that is written by an anonymous karmelitternonne, helps give the song a spiritual credibility.

Same formula, but without karmelitternonnen, apply by Mikkel Vales music to the Lord's Prayer. However, it all becomes a bit far-fetched, because the only dissonance that occurs, is present on the first syllable of the word "temptation". The idea is of course good, but perhaps a more economical use of affect doctrine would do well.

That word Google didn't have in its memory bank, karmelitternonnen, is probably the Danish word for a Carmelite nun.

"Pilgrim - sange til andagt og vandring" is a joint publication of Helligaandskirken and Kirkefondet (the Church Foundation) of Copenhagen. Details at www.kirkefondet.dk. The songbook costs DKR 200 and the CD costs DKR 150.

Phil Trier, 1823-2012

Phil Trier, founder of the Old Town School of Music and a major influence in bringing Sacred Harp singing to the Midwest, died June 14. In an email to Chicago singers, Ted Mercer said he "was instrumental in the founding of the Chicago Sacred Harp Singers," when he "presided over a momentous gathering at the Old Town School of Folk Music in November, 1983." He was 89. From Trier's obituary in today's Evanston Review, a subsidiary of the Chicago Sun-Times. The obit appears to have been written by his family. Some excerpts:

Phillip served as Music Director at Lake Forest Academy from 1954 until 1971. He taught courses in music and the humanities and directed the Glee Club, the instrumental ensembles and the beloved annual Carol Service. During his tenure at the Academy he composed five dramatic musical works for his students, including A Walden Fantasia and Young Goodman Brown. He also made numerous arrangements and compositions for his choir including a song cycle of poetry by Robert Frost that brought the poet to Lake Forest for the Academy’s Centennial.

During this time he also began to compose operettas for his own family and friends, especially the folksinging Armstrong Family of Wilmette. These works were performed locally for schools and community centers as well as at the Fox Hollow Folk Festival in upstate New York and included adaptations of well-known folktales such as Rumplestiltskin and The Rootabaga Tales of Carl Sandburg.

Phillip was choirmaster and organist at many churches on the Northshore. He served at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in Deerfield for over a decade. He also served at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Lake Forest, St. Timothy’s, The Congregational Church of Winnetka, and The First Baptist Church of Waukegan. In addition to traditional church music Phillip was instrumental in starting a group of “shape note singers” at the Old Town School of Folk Music in 1982, the Chicago Prairie Sacred Harp Singers.

In addition to his academic and church compositions Phillip composed widely in a variety of genres. Among his works are song cycles on poetry of Emily Dickinson, e.e. cummings, Carl Sandburg and Robert Frost, sonatas for viola, tuba, bassoon, and hammered dulcimer. a string Quartet, a brass Septet, a set of Preludes for piano based on the months, and an organ sonata. His “Crazy Inventions”, based on the Bach Two-Part Inventions and Prelude and Fudge for accordion, based on Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in d minor, were frequently performed by him to much acclaim.

And this ...

To his friends he is best remembered as the founder of the feast, the best party-giver on the Northshore. Phillip called these gatherings “musical soirees” and anyone who played an instrument was expected to bring it along and share in the musical festivities. There was also the summer solstice to look forward to when Phillip with his accordian, the Armstrong family with the bagpipes, and assorted neighbors with drums and whistles would arrive at the Gilson Park lakefront to sing up the sun at dawn. (A belated note of thanks to the Wilmette police who kindly looked the other way during this strange once-a-year ritual.)

Prairieland Dulcimers - "Cherokee Shuffle" and "Crooked Ridge"

Emailed over the weekend to people on the Prairieland Dulcimer Strings mailing list:

Hi everybody --

Our next meeting, the regular "third Thursday" session for June, is from 7 to 9 p.m. next Thursday, June 21, at Atonement Lutheran Church, 2800 West Jefferson in Springfield. We'll work on some new songs -- and maybe review one or two we've done before, since we have newbies who will want to learn them -- then go around the circle calling favorites during the second hour.

Thursday will be Mike and Kathe's last session with us before they move to Michigan, and Mike will be teaching two new tunes , "Cherokee Shuffle" and "Crooked Ridge." Mike introduced them this week, and they're grand tunes that were composed recently (which means they're not in the public domain) but have gotten to be favorites in dulcimer jams nationwide. "Cherokee Shuffle" is a bluegrass and old-time breakdown (usually played in A but sometimes also in D, even before the mountain dulcimer crowd got ahold of it), and "Crooked Ridge" is by Pam Kirby, who recorded with the Simmons family for McSpadden Dulcimers Inc.

So you can get an idea what they sound like, here are a couple of YouTube clips of a kid from Kentucky named Ashley Evans playing them chord-melody style:

-- Cherokee Shuffle: http://youtu.be/JqpdJJ-g41k

-- Crooked Ridge: http://youtu.be/ZEuogxdenSA

Her arrangements seem pretty close to the tab that Mike found for us.

Finally, while I was on YouTube I went looking for a musical tribute to Mike and Kathe's new home, and I found this from a neighboring state:

-- Football song: http://youtu.be/PXwv3JAWCoQ

But there isn't any dulcimer tab for it. Maybe that's a good thing!

The Church's Desolation as a dulcimer tune

During Friday's open mike at the Dulcimerville music camp in Black Mountain, N.C., I played a shape-note folk hymn called "The Church's Desolation" [Sacred Harp 89] on my Jethro Amburgey dulcimer. While I can't always hear the resemblances in tune families, this one is clearly related to "Barbry Allen." I played it as an instrumental, since I was most interested in demonstrating how good the old folk hymns sound when played on the Appalachian dulcimer in open modal tunings (CGG on my Amburgey). But, as I said Friday night, the words tell a powerful story and the tune is powerful in its own right.
Here's "The Church's Desolation" as sung in January at Southwestern Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, posted to YouTube by user stratfield42 of the Texas Sacred Harp Singers. His channel has a number of high-definition videos at singings in Texas. I've only looked at a few of them, but they seem to be a very good introduction to contemporary Sacred Harp singing at its best.



Words, from The Sacred Harp at http://fasola.org/ (click on "Indexes" and keep scrolling down to where it's indexed under "The"):

89 The Church’s Desolation
Tune: J. T. White, 1844
Words:
Meter: 8s,7s Double Iambic (8,7,8,7,8,7,8,7)

Well may Thy servants mourn, my God,
The Church’s desolation;
The state of Zion calls aloud
For grief and lamentation.
Once she was all alive to Thee
And thousands were converted,
But now a sad reverse we see,
Her glory is departed.

And has religion left the Church
Without a trace behind her?
Where shall I go, where shall I search,
That I once more may find her?
Adieu, ye proud, ye light and gay,
I’ll seek the brokenhearted,
Who weep when they of Zion say,
Her glory is departed.

Some few, like good Elijah stand,
While thousands have revolted,
In earnest for the heav’nly land
They never yet have halted.
With such religion doth remain,
For they are not perverted;
Oh may they all through men regain
The glory that’s departed.

ONLINE EDITIONS

The 1911 edition is available on line in the IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library on the International Music Score Library Project website (at http://javanese.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/5/5a/IMSLP167291-PMLP214197-Sacred_Harp_James_ed_1911.pdf
Joe James, in his authoritative footnotes to the 1911 edition, says: "We have been unable to find the name of the author of the words. While they appear in the earliest song books in the United States, none of them, so far as we could find, has given the author of the hymn or the date of composition."

The Digital and Multimedia Center of Michigan State University Libraries has the 1860 edition at http://archive.lib.msu.edu/AFS/dmc/ssb/public/all/sacredharp/harp.html and http://digital.lib.msu.edu/collections/index.cfm?TitleID=610  -- it has two verses in the middle that do not appear in the 1911 or 1991 Denson revisions.