Chords for Nyckelharpa: A traditional Swedish instrument

_ [Dm] _ _ _ _ _ _
When I was five, I started playing the violin _ and
_ [Gb] my family were involved with a lot of [Ab] folk arts and folk [A] music festivals.
Along with playing
_ classical violin, I also [F] learned to play a lot of different styles [Am] of fiddle music.
[Dm] _ And when I was 13,
_ _ [G]
we were attending a Swedish folk music weekend [A] _
_ _ and
[D] _ I got to
_ [Gm] try playing a nickel harpa for the [Am] first [Dm] time. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Am] _ _ _ _ [D] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Dm] _ _
[Bb] Picked it up and
_ [F] about 15 minutes later, I was
_ [C] playing tunes as though I'd been [Dm] playing it for months.
I kind of fell in love with it.
_ _ _ _ [Am] Part of it was it's, [Dm] you know, it's got a very [B] unique sound.
It's got a _ [C] extremely
[G] _ _ _
deep [A] _ resonation [D] and _ _ _
[F] _ _ _ complicated
sound that you can't get with
[B] _ violins or most other string instruments.
_ _ _ [C] To be entirely [Gbm] honest, part of it was I was [Dm] 13 and it was new and shiny.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Bb] _
_ _ [Dm] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Am] _ _ _ _ _ [D] _
_ _ _ _ [G] Well, my name is Earl Holzman and I live in Eau Claire, Wisconsin and I am a nickel harp builder.
_ [Bm] _ _ _ _ _
_ [G] _ _ _ _ _ _
That is specifically [Bm] a luthier who [G] specializes in building nickel harps.
The biggest piece of wood in a nickel harp is really only about that long and then there's this complex key box.
I figured this was busy work.
So in 2009, I built one nickel harpa and in 2010
I built two more.
I'm pestering some of our friends who play about what can I do to make a better instrument?
[D] And musicians can't answer [G] that question.
So in 2011, I went over to
_ Sweden to spend [E] two weeks at Aspern Aagmark
where there's a lot of [D] built pieces workshops and airplane back from [G] Sweden.
I'm sitting there thinking, you know,
I don't think these are that hard to build.
I could do it.
Right now as I understand it,
I'm the only full-time nickel harp builder in North America.
So I'm actually still developing [D]
instruments, but I sell instruments [G] all over the country.
I've got a couple in Canada and [D] and I [Bm] actually recently shipped a [G] nickel harp to Moscow, Russia.
The one I'm holding here is a four-row [Dm] soprano.
It has [G] four rows of keys.
So if we [D] hold this up, you can see underneath that there's a
_ four [G] rows of keys.
Each row of keys goes to a string [C] _ and the way [Dm] this kind of works is you've got
_ four strings that are [Ab] played with a [D] bow.
_ _ [G] _ And in this case, this is the range of a [A] violin.
But just below them on the bridge, if you look in on the edge,
you'll see that there's these strings that are set lower [D] on the bridge.
The bow never touches those.
There's [Am] 12 of them.
There's one tuned to each note in a full sympathetic [Gm] scale.
_ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ _ [F] _
[D] _ _ _ [Dm] _ And as you [E] play the instrument, those [F] strings start to hum and it just fills out the sound of [Bb] the instrument. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [A] _ _ [Dm] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
And you know the nice thing about this key [Gm] box is, [Dm] you know,
I'm like a fiddle or a violin where you have to learn where to place all of your fingers.
With this, you hit the right key, you have the right note.
_ Currently in [Am] the United States, we think [Dm] there are about 500 nickel harps.
_ And [Bm] I would say I think about half of them are being used [Bb] for Swedish traditional music.
But [Dm] most of what I seem to be tapping into is a market of non-Swedish musicians interested in the instrument.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ That's [Em] what gives it its
[Dm] _
really interesting tone.
It's a very
_ [Em] _ versatile [Dm] instrument.
You can do just about anything on the nickel harp, or that you can do on a violin. _ _ _
I have taken it to _ _ Bluegrass
_ festivals.
Got some interesting [Ab] reactions there.
_ [Bb] _ _ _
Use it for just about anything. _ _ _
_ [A] _ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _
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