Music of the Day, 30 September 2024

back to the unusual instruments

It’s been almost three months since I focused on an unusual string instrument—to tell the truth, I’ve been so preoccupied with other things that I’d forgotten about that exploration. This morning, a new video from one of the musicians I featured in the MotD linked above reminded me of it in the best possible way.

Today’s instrument is the tagelharpa, also known as the talharpa. It is a Scandinavian bowed instrument named for the material used for its strings: the hair from a horse’s tail. Unlike the nyckelharpa, it has no keys. The pitch of the strings is modified by plucking on or holding them against the side of the frame at different points along their lengths. That looks difficult to learn, because the tagelharpa doesn’t have a fretboard to guide the player. As with the nyckelharpa, some strings serve to supply backing drones to the melody, so its sound is similarly resonant.

Swedish luthier and musician Magnus Högman has released an album titled Tusenåra¹, comprised of 13 pieces that feature tagelharpa, along with other instruments. I had a difficult time choosing just one tune to feature today; “Yxalåt” (“Ax Tune”) is the winner.

The movement of the melodic line evoked Grieg’s “Trolltog” (“March of the Dwarves”) for me, which is always a pleasure to listen to. I feel like I’m stepping back in time to get a sense of how my mother’s ancestors created and enjoyed music, and I enjoy it deeply.²

Those who played the track may have noticed that the next piece started up after a short pause. Each tune is around just one minute long, making the full album just over 15 minutes. This link starts at the beginning of the album, so one may listen to it in full.

Högman’s notes on the album state that he played all the instruments—tagelharpa, bass tagelharpa, hand drums, mouth harp, a Fender jazz bass, and “a pea soup can as maracas”—in his living room to create it.³ Today was also the day I discovered that the mouth harp was a common instrument in older Norse folk music.

These instruments and Högman’s compositions delight and enchant me. If I had the time today, I’d be searching for longer pieces that feature either or both the nyckelharpa and tagelharpa.

1. that translates as “thousand years” or simply “millennium”

2. even if it is much more fantasy than fact

3. He also used a chainsaw to carve the wooden figure on the cover