Hello! This week having moved my rooms around I've been filming away in the spare room and it definitely seems to be working!
This week I've been doing some work on the beginners course, so we a new video on the The Left Hand Position. I've also been adding videos to the Nyckelharpa Four a Day, Days 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 and also fixing a few signposting things in the beginners course.
I've been carrying on with the shorts this week too! I decided to embed them below for you to watch and I've included links to the lessons where I have them.
Hello! I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year. I had a great time in Sweden and have come back refreshed and ready to get back to work! Lots to be done. Lots of recording and filming and also the work now starts for World Nyckelharpa Day!
I have spent this week mostly trying to sort out my work space. As you know I use green screen to cover the fact that we have a very small house and it's hard to get nice camera angles. Since the start of the pandemic I've had a green screen set up in our lounge, but as of now I have managed to set up a green screen area in the spare room. This is awesome on many different levels. I have always recorded in the spare room, it's set up as a mini-studio, but I've not been happy with the filming in there. (You'll have seen it in some videos!) So now that I have managed to do the green screen up there it means that my videos won't have the sound of lorries and cars going past. I can leave it set up and respond to requests for videos faster. In short - I'm very happy!
I have decided to try to release a YouTube Shorts video everyday for 365 days - it's going to be tough and some of the shorts might be rough and ready! I'm going to film them and upload them there and then, no prep, just shoot and upload! I've done six days already - four tagelharpa tunes, one nyckelharpa and one moraharpa. The ones without links don't have lessons.... yet! Watch out for those as I get them filmed! 1st January - Nyårsaftonen on the tagelharpa 2nd January - A schottis on the tagelharpa 3rd January - O'Hara's Cup by O'Carolan 4th January - A tagelharpa tune 5th January - A polkette on the tagelharpa 6th January - Skäggigtpolskan on the moraharpa
At long last I can talk about a project that I did quite a lot of work for during the pandemic. I got to work on Netflix's The Witcher Blood Origin. The character Éile, an elven bard plays the nyckelharpa, so obviously they needed someone to teach the actress to play! I was unbelievably excited to get the job!
Because of the way I was asked to play (ie as much drone as possible) I decided to use a gammelharpa bow and a gammelharpa bow hold. (It's not possible to hold that bow in a modern way!) You can tell that from the video below. At the lesson with Sophia I realised who had made the instruments - Ian McMaster of Blackdown Harpas. Ian did an amazing job with all the requirements he was asked to do (I'm not going to give away any spoilers here!) but let's just say I was stunned at the job he did!
Sophia was a great student and I think from the photo below she looks awesome! I've had a lot of comments about the bow hold - but to be nerdy for a second: The strap is held correctly, the elbow is nicely over the tail piece, the thumb of the left hand is behind the keys, not the neck. The pinkie of the right hand is crooked behind the bow exactly where it should be and the thumb is tensioning the bow hair. Any other critique is overboard - so I will just say - good job Sophia! You rocked! I was onset making sure that everything was correct, so although you can't see me in the picture below, I was there, just behind the camera!
Unfortunately Netflix forgot to credit me. So there are two of us nyckelharpa players on the soundtrack - the rule of thumb is: if you see the nyckelharpa being played - it's me playing. If you don't see a nyckelharpa on the screen, then it's Erik Rydvall playing.
Recording in the studioIan McMaster - nyckelharpa builder!
In the instagram link on the left - go to the second image to hear Sophia play for real. She was awesome! The instagram link on the right is me de-tuning the nyckelharpa down to Bb!
Hello! Happy New Year every one! I hope you all had a great break and ate far too much! I've been away so there are only two things to add this week. Kelsterne Gardens on the flute and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on the säckpipa
What has been exciting has been the release of The Witcher Blood Origin. This was one of the projects that I did during lockdown. I tutored one of the main actresses - Sophia Brown to play the nyckelharpa, I recorded with her in the studio and then advised on set for scenes in episodes 1 and 4. If you look for me in the credits though, due a bit of an error - you'll only see Erik Rydvall listed. So the rule of thumb is this - if you can see a nyckelharpa being played, it's definitely me playing. If you can only hear it, it could well be Erik. I recorded a nice solo at the start of the song in episode one, this didn't make the final cut - but the video below is what it would have been! There have been queries about the bow hold the actress uses. I used a old style gammalharpa bow, so that's the bow hold I taught Sophia. Sophia was a really great student and such fun to work with! Back to work this week - I have videos to make and teaching to do! 😀 Vicki
Hello! Happy Christmas! We got through all of our Christmas tour and then made it over to Sweden to be with family for Christmas. We got to see the Gävle Bock on our way north and it was really cool! I've put a couple of pictures at the bottom of this entry. So what do we have this week?
We have a new nyckelharpa trio for Christmas! Jingle Bell Rock is good to go!
We're off to Clent and Wychwood and then back home again for our own village hall gig and then the last night of the Christmas Show tour is in Zoom - so don't forgot to come along to that! Stay safe! :)) Vicki
Posted inNyckelharpa|Comments Off on Week 50: Christmas Tour
Hello! I'm at home for a week learning words and trying to catch up! We had an amazing weekend at Worcester Victorian market, got very cold, but it was a lot of fun. I've not had much time for filming - but in response to comments on my bow hold video I made a bow arm video. I've posted that at the bottom of this page as I think it's an important video. I'm also posting a video that shows something I worked on in the pandemic in 2021. Watch and listen carefully between 7-8 seconds in! (The video should start at the correct place!)
Hello! Christmas is really upon us now! Last year I did an advent calendar and I really wanted to do one this year, but time was against me, but I'm adding a few Christmas items as we go through December. Last years calendar is still there, so if you fancy playing all the tunes, or maybe you didn't get chance last year. So just CLICK HERE to enter the Advent Calendar and start playing! If you want to play along in "real time", this week we have: Thursday 1st December - The Holly and the Ivy Friday 2nd December - När Juldagsmorgon Glimmar Saturday 3rd December - Deck the Halls Sunday 4th December - Nu Tändas Tusen Juleljus Monday 5th December - Ding Dong Merrily on High Tuesday 6th December - Nu Är Det Jul Igen Wednesday 7th December - Down in Yon Forest Thursday 8th December - Gläns Över Sjö och Strand
You'll get the new tunes a little later in the month! I think I'll add them to Christmas Day and Boxing Day!
Someone commented on my YouTube channel that I'd got the name wrong on a tune and of course they were totally correct! I was so happy to have this correction done because now I know far more about The Flitter Dance than I did before I love the tune even more! So go and take a look!
What's new this week?
For flute this week we have two videos! We've reached J and Jacob Hall's Jig. Because we're now in December I'm pausing the A-Z of dance tunes and will be doing some Christmas tunes instead. This week we have Holly and the Ivy as a flute duet. You can play along.
I'm currently out on the road doing some fun things, some Christmas some not, but more about those next time! :)) Vicki
Posted inNyckelharpa|Comments Off on Week 48: And so Christmas Begins!
Hello! In the middle of learning christmas words for our December tour I've grabbed the camera out this week. It's going to take a little while to do all the editing - but there might be a bit of Christmas in there!
I added a lovely tune to the site this week Mjölnaren från Ulriksberg by Gene Karlsson. Thank you Gene!
I decided to deconstruct Hamburska efter Pehr Ericsson and talk about different ways of writing out the tune. If this is useful I will do exactly the same thing for other tunes with cool and funky rhythms. Just let me know!
For Säckpipa this week I created a simple beginners tune for playing in D on the E/A chanter. It's not something we do much, but it is possible! It's a nice simple tune: Shepherds Hey. On the Scottish Smallpipes I've done Hie Mee Stiagh, it goes very nicely! We're on I for the A-Z of flute tunes and a great little tune called Impertinence.
Enjoy :)) Vicki
Next Zoom Dance: 7pm UK time: Sunday 27th November Symmetry Dance: Tuesday 6th and Sunday 11th December Our Zoom Christmas Concert: Monday 19th December All Hands In: 1am UK time Wednesday 21st December (it's Tuesday night really!) https://musicroom.nyckelharpa.me.uk/dance-lists/
We're on H for the A-Z of flute tunes and Hyde Park.
I've also made an updated video for setting up the sound on Zoom for Zoom music lessons. There wasn't much change under the bonnet - but original sound is now called Original Sound for Musicians, so I thought it was worth re-filming to include this! Enjoy :)) Vicki
Next Zoom Dance: 7pm UK time: Sunday 27th November Symmetry Dance: Tuesday 6th and Sunday 11th December Our Zoom Christmas Concert: Monday 19th December All Hands In: 1am UK time Wednesday 21st December (it's Tuesday night really!) https://musicroom.nyckelharpa.me.uk/dance-lists/
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