Fiddle tunings - Scandi Folk Nerd #13

Presenting a bunch of traditional norwegian and swedish fiddle tunings and their interest. Talking about "normal" fiddle here, the most prominent instrument in the swedish and norwegian folk scenes in general for centuries - so no nyckelharpa nor hardanger fiddle here, but the informations are surely of interest for many other instruments aswell !
TUNINGS and TUNES mentioned/played :
GDAE (G-bass)
ADAE (A-bass)
- Polska i dm efter Jonk Jonas från Haverö
FDAE (Gorrlaus)
DDAE
GDAD
- Jet hallingen av Emelie Waldken
ADAD
- O-Vals efter Gjallarhorn (my version)
AEAE
- Södra Flaka, polska ur Carl Johan Johanssons notbok
AEAC# (trolltuning)
- Fanitullen
- Fossegrimen av Magnus Stinnerbom
Distribution of hardingfele VS normal fiddle in Norway according to : Slåtter for vanlig fele, Norsk folkemusikk II : Hedmark, by Olav Sæta, 1997
Hardanger fiddle tunings if you want to know more : www.hfaa.org/Home/articles-on-...
Opening music : 'Fossegrimen' from Knep's album 'Hallingrr' : knep.weebly.com/shop.html
My website : www.emeliewaldken.net/
My Patreon : / emeliewaldken
Recorded january 2019 in Jura region, Switzerland.

[@jeremyreagan9085]

I love this I am a North American fiddler and this is very interesting we use alternate tunings all the time in our traditions here. I love DDAD or what we call Dead Man tuning. Our traditions are happy and sad at the same time. Very bittersweet.

[@thegrassisbluer09]

Thank you! I've been enjoying Norwegian fiddle music for years and I just got my first fiddle last month. I'm so excited to finally learn some. Cheers from New Mexico!

[@EmelieWaldken]

Haaa that sounds very exciting indeed ! Have a lot of fun =)

[@MrZipdang]

Really interesting thankyou! I’ve just started messing with gdgd lately, and I’m loving it!

[@syltegjerde8281]

Thank you so much for this video! Literally the only source I've found that got me started on folk tunings. Working on Fanitullen for 17th of may now 😅

[@2li678]

DDAD, GDAD, GDGD, and AEAC# get used in American Old-Time fiddling too. Thanks for the videos!

[@EmelieWaldken]

Oh I didn't know about all of these, thanks for the info !

[@jbweaver4203]

Well, they were brought from the old world ;)

[@patriciajrs46]

@2li678. What are these? Tunings? Why would you tune 2 strings to D?

[@2li678]

@@patriciajrs46 yep, tunings low to high. For DDAD, that's three octaves, so the lowest string is quite low. So you use it mostly for drones and adding some extra resonance.

[@patriciajrs46]

@@2li678 Thank you.

[@damienhackney6499]

Thank you so much for this! Fascinating and instructive.

[@jmorenomar1]

Excellent video and very useful. Something I do when tuning the violin in high tones is to start half a tone lower on all the strings as in the baroque violin era, so the violin suffers less. Thank you very much

[@maxreynish]

Such an informative video, could not have been more perfect for what I wanted to learn about today, Thank you so much :)

[@ChrisC811]

I retune constantly for the Ozark and Appalachian fiddling. You have made a FANTASTIC video here!

[@EmelieWaldken]

Thank you very much !

[@joshcobb9215]

Thank you for this! Most excellent!

[@jeremykoeppe7949]

This is a very well layed out video!! I'm very impressed with this videos. Definitely one of the best videos on KZbin detailing violin tunings!!! It seems like very few people venture out onto paths seldom walked, and it's something musicians shouldn't be afraid of. As musicians, we need to try our very best to be as different as we can and discover new ways of doing things.I really enjoyed this, I'm looking forward to more like this!!!

[@EmelieWaldken]

What a nice comment to read, thank you very much =)

[@bertrandcodevl3817]

Very interesting, thank you Emelie

[@seanDF5]

Tuning Time Stamps: 00:00 Intro 07:44 GDAE 10:14 ADAE 13:04 FDAE 14:46 DDAE 16:49 GDAD 19:44 ADAD 20:53 AEAE 23:03 AEAC#

[@danielretta1837]

Great to find a video like this. I'm very interested in swedish and norwegian folk music so this is very insightful, thank you!

[@EmelieWaldken]

You're most welcome !

[@intehelt8606]

Very interesting video

[@bensayal]

Fin a dú is amazing in G D A D!

[@paulflute]

p.s you are a joy to watch so clear and precise.. thank you.. ;9)

[@paulflute]

I like F C G D. It’s basically classical tuning but the whole film down a tone.. it gives a nice viola tone and bit of a growl.. I use when I’m playing in C centred keys that need lots of double stopping and drones..

[@EmelieWaldken]

As a lover of baroque tuning (which I usually summarize to "a half-tone lower"), I'm very excited to try that one ! Thanks !

[@albink.2920]

Here is one "new" Swedish tune in GDAD! Hope you enjoy it!

[@EmelieWaldken]

Yay ! but... where ? ^^

[@albink.2920]

Emelie Waldken Hahahaha! Wooops, I forgot the link. kzbin.info/www/bejne/q3OooZZ5Z7GcmtU

[@laurynasstulpinas6977]

Thank you, top quality video ! I have a chance at this point in time to learn instruments and I WILL be learning fiddle... Such an inspiration you are! Gracias Amigo :D

[@EmelieWaldken]

Yayyy yes learn fiddle ! Thanks for the nice words !

[@laurynasstulpinas6977]

@@EmelieWaldken I finally got my hands on a used fiddle! It has dirty strings but I will change them and get some private lessons! I have big expectations, very motivated :) ALL thanks to you.

[@EmelieWaldken]

@@laurynasstulpinas6977 That's amazing to hear ! Have a good time with your new instrument !

[@sethkinle2254]

We have a rare tuning in the southern united states known as dead man's tuning DDAD. Lots of drones. I only know of two tunes olayed in this tuning but i love fiddling around with it.

[@sethkinle2254]

We also use an alternate to AEAE, GDGD

[@EmelieWaldken]

@@sethkinle2254 Oh I LOVE the effect of double-D, with the extreme low tension of the lowest string ! It's used a bit here in Scandinavia too, but really not common. Glad to hear you have it too ! GDGD is a nice one too, very warm to my hear !

[@Creationhorse]

I use steel strings. They hold up very well to tuning up and back down. It doesn't seem to shorten their life. Prims and Pirastro Flexocore Permanents.

[@hugowigenstam7608]

I play an Irish Bouzouki (which is basically an octave mandolin) and it is usually tuned: G D A D or G D A E but it can also be tuned A D A D or A D A E. Some poeple tune it like a Greek Bouzouki which is C F A D but I have never tried that, it's more guitar like.

[@EmelieWaldken]

Yes it seems guitar- and other plucked strings instruments players have more of a habit of playing in different tunings than fiddlers ^^

[@yellowsubmarine6129]

Super interesting video- I'd love for you to do a tutorial for a tune in a different tuning from G base fiddle tuning. Thanks!

[@EmelieWaldken]

Thanks ! Do you mean, like, how to adapt the fingering from G-bass to for example A-bass ?

[@gadaya]

Hello Emelie, interesting topic and, like someone already said, these are all tuning (except for FDAE I think) used in american old-time fiddle and some have cool "nick names" like "calico tuning" "graveyard tuning" or "Bonaparte tuning". Some I use include also EDAE (nice drone for Em tunes!) and AEAD (Old sledge tuning). It would be nice if you could play whole tunes using these tunings in future videos!

[@EmelieWaldken]

Nice names indeed ! ^^ Thanks for all the infos, I had never heard of the EDAE for example (but we hardly ever play in E/Em in scandi music, that's prolly why). I have already recorded a live video of a tune played on troll-tuning, it's called "Halling on the cliff" ;)

[@madskjllerhenningsen3158]

Lovely informative video! 👍 As a Danish folk musician I appreciate your disclaimer (although I think a lot of us are a bit tired of being excluded from the Scandinavian folk music “family” again and again 😜). The fiddle is BY FAR the most prominent instrument within Danish Folk/traditional dance music, and has been for hundreds of years now. In 19th century Denmark, almost all rural musicians seems to have played the fiddle and then maybe some kind of woodwind or brass instrument as a secondary option when playing with other fiddlers. Although the tradition/practice of alternative tunings seems to have been lost here somewhere along the way, there is evidence that the old Danish fiddlers did retune their instruments in the past (especially the “bass”).

[@EmelieWaldken]

Sorry to read that you guys feel excluded from the scandi musical family ^^' For my part I'm very much wanting to learn more about danish tradition, I've just not had the time to dig into it yet ! Thanks for the informations about fiddles in Danemark ! I had a picture that perhaps accordions were more prominent than fiddles, but seriously, I don't know sh*t about danish folk music (except that you have sønderhoning ^^). Please feel free to add infos and comments about danish folk music under my videos, as it's suuuper rare that I can include this area in my speeches ^^

[@madskjllerhenningsen3158]

@@EmelieWaldken Accordions did indeed become quite popular within our "folk music" - or rather all sorts of popluar music - around the turn of the 19th and 20th century... however I believe that this was the case in both Sweden and Norway as well (and pretty much all of Northern Europe at the time). Of course in Sweden and Norway the instrument is now more connected with "Gammaldans" due to folk-revivalists favourizing the older and more "ethnic" stuff (as you also mention yourself somewhere)... Never the less our current "spillemands"-tradition seems to be built almost entirely on fiddle music! ^^

[@EmelieWaldken]

@@madskjllerhenningsen3158 Sounds logical that the accordions swarmed the whole northern Europe similarly but that depending on the currents of thoughts and mentalities they were kept more in some specific scenes or genres, differing in the different countries ! I need to come to some spillemands jam session some day then =)

[@neilmahar7107]

I can tune my Irish bouzouki with these.

[@tovarischkarno4390]

The first tuning I learned was actually AEAE

[@Soundnfuree]

Great explanations, need more examples of the playing! The tunings are a lot of fun. Old Time or String band music in the USA has a lot of AEAE or 'crossed A' tuning. It gives great resonance and really makes those tunes have a great voice. ADAE is common for D tunes. The troll tuning is there too, AEAC#, and triple D, also with amazing resonance but not quite as many tunes as the more traditional tunings. Thanks!

[@EmelieWaldken]

Yes it seems like American Old Time has a profusion of open tunings too ! Thanks for the details !

[@dmitryefimkin6550]

A very interesting instrument hangs on the wall. Looks like a medieval Rebec

[@EmelieWaldken]

It is one ! I built it myself but sadly it's not playable at the moment, it needs repairing.

[@dmitryefimkin6550]

@@EmelieWaldken Too bad you can't play on it. I even checked all the videos on your channel - suddenly there is a video with Rebec. :) I also made a few of them. Several d1 a1 e2 and one G d1 a1. However, I got the impression that it is better to tune them in re-la-re... or anather fifth-fourth interval scheme

[@EmelieWaldken]

@@dmitryefimkin6550 Yes I think it might be a bit like tagelharpa and jouhikko, sounding better with open tuning - if anything just because the body is so small that it needs all the extra sound and resonance it can get !

[@AulisA.O.T]

sooo, i can tuning into a *C G D A* for nyckelharpa tune

[@user3141592635]

You are beatiful and skilled in the instrument. You should have seen me and my wife trying to talk to tratitional Norwegians thou. No Comprende. Not a word understandable.

[@paulflute]

... and for the neurodivergent early German music specialist there is A D H D .. ;9) which would actually give some very interesting possibilities.. I'm gonna try that next..

[@EmelieWaldken]

^^ The Swedes can't decide whether they follow the German or Anglo-Saxon system. I find the latter more logical but I've had group workshops with both and it was... interesting to say the least ! That tuning sounds really interesting indeed, thanks for sharing !

[@baldrbraa]

Tiny note: when you show the gorrlaus tuning your bass is tuned to F# not F here. Listen to a tune from Setesdal like Nordafjølls, hear that it’s actually F, creating an eerie contrast between a low «minor 3rd» and a major 3rd feel higher up. kzbin.info/www/bejne/mXuQo4CpnrqlatU

[@EmelieWaldken]

Oj, I hadn't noticed, thank you very much !

[@berniestocks]

As an old time (Appalachian) fiddler fond of cross tuning this is fascinating. But tell me about your bow? What with playing at home these days I have sort of 'gone baroque'...

[@EmelieWaldken]

Please tell me more about the appalachian cross-tuning !! Sounds fascinating ! Personally I am drooling over the litteral cross-tuning of H.I.F. Biber's 11th Mystery Sonata. I need to play it some day ! My bow is a baroque-typed bow by The Bow Studio (Stråkstudion) in Gävle. I find it really fast, responsive and precise. 100% recommend !

[@berniestocks]

@@EmelieWaldken Hi Emelie, Thanks for that. I am using a cheap chinese baroque bow just now, but am sufficiently keen to look for something better. Others (real Appalachians!) could probably tell you more about cross-tuning in America than I could, but I would use all of your tunings except the low ‘F’ one. For playing with others in sessions I’d usually bring two fiddles, one ‘standard’ (GDAE) and one in ‘A’ (AEAE), which covers most things. Biber is WAY beyond my abilities, but here’s me playing “Sal’s Got Mud Between Her Toes” in ADAE on a home-made ‘hardanger’, with a rather short baroque bow from an English maker.. kzbin.info/www/bejne/eZeZqp94bsiZpbM Thanks again for the interesting post, Bernie

[@michaelblaney4461]

Do you consider Fiddle a different instrument from Violin OR just a different mindset?

[@EmelieWaldken]

Same instrument in principle, but very different technique and style of playing !

[@benmartin8321]

I'd take a guess that another reason for the classical tuning being G D A E is because the violin is a melody instrument classically as part of an ensemble. Folk musicians have the carry the harmony more and the altunate tunings make chords easier with folk bowings.

[@EmelieWaldken]

Exactly ! GDAE makes more sense in a theoretical sense, it is more logical all the way through and it allows to play easier in pretty much all keys (which is important in orchestra amongst other), but folk tunings allow chords and other harmonies which work especially well for solo and duo playing.

[@benmartin8321]

@@EmelieWaldken that's my thoughts exactly. Lol That was a fantastic video BTW. I tried a few of the tunings and tbh I'm with you, I liked the Troll tuning. That harmonic D is fantastic.

[@raffen79]

You're map is wrong. The entire county of Rogaland is also core Hardanger fiddle area.

[@EmelieWaldken]

Thanks for the correction, but I got the map from a very serious book of a collection about norwegian folk tunes, called "Slåtter för vanlig fele" Here's a link to the map in that book : www.zupimages.net/up/19/42/ecz9.png

[@MrLuridan]

What is the ADAD tune you played a little of?

[@EmelieWaldken]

Answered in the description : O-Vals efter Gjallarhorn

[@MrLuridan]

@@EmelieWaldken oops sorry! Overlooked it...Thanks, great playing!

[@scottmeyer1268]

Anyone know the name of the tune (fragment) beginning at 0:26?

[@EmelieWaldken]

Said in the description : Opening music : 'Fossegrimen' from Knep's album 'Hallingrr' : knep.weebly.com/shop.html

[@dragon76tatsu]

Hello Emelie, first time posting on one of your videos! Thank you for your very informative information on Scandinavian tuning! I currently have a hardanger d'amore that I'm slowly learning different tunings for and am looking forward to learning some Swedish and Norwegian tunes! I also have some information from Canada about different tunings. The fiddle tradition in Quebec has a number of tunings similar to those in Old Time (there is no doubt a link between them). "The AEAE tuning is often used, for tunes in A, perhaps an inheritance from the vielle or hurdy gurdy; it is often referred to as "en vielle". For D tunes ADAE (Grondeuse or growler tuning) or ADAD may be used. AEAC# is also used, notably on Le Reel de Pendu (the hangman’s reel). Retuning is referred to as Dismantling." (www.fiddlingaround.co.uk/canada/) I learned to play my first AEAC# tune from a French Canadian tune, Le Reel Du Pendu (The Hangman's Reel). Here it is being played by Quebec's most famous fiddler, Jean Carignan: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mXK0e5uag8ucrac

[@EmelieWaldken]

Hej and thank you so much for this valuable comment ! I guess you're from Québec or at least Canada, and being interested in the québécois repertoire myself (I've shortly lived in Québec) this is really great informations ! Wishing you the best time playing on your weirdly-tuned or not instrument ;)

[@michaelmoore7568]

if that string breaks, then you have ADD

[@f612CreatorsPodcast]

So this is not a tuning tutorial?

[@BestMusicToolsOfficial]

Very interesting and informative video Emelie! I made a compilation of all the tunings I've found on my KZbin Channel, I invite you to check it out if you want :) Thanks for the video!

[@Bingo2501]

What do these yellow point on the map mean? You're cute btw... :)

[@johanfagerstromjarlenfors]

El Duderino she says in the video About 3:40 in the video