Traditional role of the mountain dulcimer.
General mountain dulcimer or music discussions
Ken Longfield:
Yes, those are excellent books and must reads for folks who want to learn about mountain dulcimer history and context. One part of your question we have not addressed is the use of European predecessors of the mountain dulcimer. Wilfried Ulrich addresses some of this in his book The Story of the Hommel . There are many such instruments in museums in Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, etc.Unfortunately I am not aware of English translations of literature that describes how folks used these instruments. What is clear is that they were "folk" instruments and not considered to be of great value musically. Again, they were mostly played by folks in their own homes for their own enjoyment.
At least Wilfried Ulrichs book is available in English from himself:
http://www.ulrich-instrumente.de/kontakt-links-impress/
https://hogfiddle.blogspot.com/2011/05/wilfried-ulrich-story-of-hummel.html
Some of the information is also available on his website (in German though so you might want to use a translation service like Google Translate, deepl etc).
Now according to Ullrich one of the oldest references of an hommel is the use in a procession (propably with a kind of strap). He also displays a hommel which was built by a carpenter named Adolf Hilke who played it in the local dances until the concertina and accordion took over at the beginning of the 20th century (they were louder than the hommel thus getting more popular soon).
Now my own hommel and galax dulcimers both are quite loud so I guess the actual volume might depend a little bit of the way of building and circumstances.
The norwegian langleik ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langeleik ) is interesting as a kind of edge case: It was mainly played by women who tended their livestock on mountain meadows during the summer in their bothys. According to the German wikipedia:
Quote:
Langeleik traditionally falls within the sphere of activity of women. In rural regions, women spent the summer with the cattle on the high pastures (soeter). Here a special genre of songs arose in connection with everyday tasks. Certain songs, called smørbon, describe the making of butter, and there were melodic calls for goats (geitlokkar), cows (kulokkar) or to communicate with the shepherds (laling, huving) over long distances. In the early evening, the women were busy with handicrafts on the soeter or performed instrumental pieces (lydarslåttar) with langeleiks. Later in the evening they played for social dances. Concerts and accompanying dances remained the two areas in which the Langeleik was used.
Written sources from the end of the 17th century mention regular Sunday evening concerts at which women played Langeleik. Nevertheless, there were a few men who became known as professional Langeleik players. Ragnhild Viken (around 1810-1895) was a professional Langeleik player who performed at markets and festivities. She taught the instrument to her son Johannes Viken (1844-1936), who also became a well-known musician. Berit Pynten (1809/1812-1899/1900), who lived in a farmstead in Valdres, was just as highly regarded. In the 1880s, she received a visit from Edvard Grieg in her low hut, who had her play for him and notated her dance songs on paper. Grieg and other Norwegian composers in the 19th century studied folk music, which they valued as an element of national culture. Berit Pynten is said to have had a small dancing doll attached to her right hand with a string while she played.[10]
In the course of the 17th century, various forms of the violin emerged, which took over the two areas of use of the Langeleik and gradually pushed it back into its core area. The European stringed instrument spread under the names flatvele ("flat violin") and venleg vele ("common violin") mainly in the north and east of the country, while the Hardanger fiddle (hardingfele) with an additional four or five resonant strings under the fingerboard has been played in almost unchanged form in the south and west since around 1700.
The music played on the Langeleik is divided into dance songs and melodies for listening. The dance songs include the lively and fast dance style halling, named after its home region Hallingdal, the ganger and, in Valdres, Hallingdal and Telemark, the springar, which is played in a strict asymmetrical ¾ time. Several composers adopted the rhythm and melodic forms of springar, including Edvard Grieg in his folk music adaptation Jon Vestafes Springdans Opus 72/2. Grieg was preceded in the popularization of folk music by the violinist Ole Bull (1810-1880) and the composer Ludvig Mathias Lindeman (1812-1887). Lindeman's extensive collection of Norwegian folk songs Ældre og nyere norske Fjeldmelodier ("Older and Newer Norwegian Mountain Melodies") appeared in twelve volumes between 1853 and 1863, with a follow-up volume published in 1867. According to the Norwegian pianist Einar Steen-Nøkleberg, his piano arrangement of the dance piece Springlått contains typical Langeleik tone sequences to be played by the left hand[12] .
Concertante pieces of music belong to the group of klokkeslåtter or huldreslåtter ("Huldrenmelodien", Huldra is a beautiful girl related to the trolls in Scandinavian mythology)[13] .
From
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langeleik#Verbreitung translated with deepl.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langeleik#Verbreitung I think these are interesting in quite a different ways: First that the norwegian folk musik has another drone instrument (the harding fiddle), second that the instruments were used for dancing tunes as well as tunes for listening. Third: The langleik is usually tuned in a A major tuning ( see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langeleik ). Now the funny thing is that the reel de pendu/hangmans reel is actually a norwegian tune called Fandens polsdans (meaning something like pole dance of the damned/hell pole dance/devils pole dance) although norwegian fiddlers play it a lot slower:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-HQnPZpJHY Now this tune is usually played in the key of A so I guess that although it's mostly known as a fiddle tune (in the old and new world) it was also played on langleiks. Or at least the langleik tuning would explain why it was composed in the key of a in the first played, the anonymous composer propably knew the key quite well from his evening dwellings. On the other hand harding fiddle players used a lot of different tunings (up to twenty according to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardanger_fiddle ) so my idea might be a little bit far fetched.
However my take on the matter is that although the hommel/langleik/langspil/dulcimer was mostly an instrument for playing for your own enjoyment (be it just for listening tunes or accompiement) at home (or your cabin on Norwegian/appalachian mountains ;) ) it wasn't limited. When the opportunity arose, they were probably also played for dancing too.
Just my two cents, Jost.
Auld_Lang_Syne.pdf - 45KB