What do Jimi Hendrix and Sjur Helgeland have in common?
Sjur Helgeland (1858–1924).
And what’s that got to do with the Jew’s harp?
By Ånon Egeland
Translated by Lucy Moffatt
In 1966 Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970) set the world ablaze with his virtuoso performance on the electric guitar. And while his astronomical talent was unquestionably the main reason for his fame, his unorthodox and almost acrobatic approach to his instrument – playing it with his teeth, for example – certainly didn’t do him any harm.
Hendrix said he’d picked that particular trick up from two named American guitarists. But both he and the sources of his inspiration were – perhaps unwittingly – part of a long tradition of ‘extreme playing technique,’ not just on the guitar but on many of other instruments too.
Fiddlers all over the Western world have long vied to find ever-more spectacular ways of playing their instruments. Bjarne Herstøl of Vigeland in Lindesnes once told me that he’d never paid for a single dram in the ten years he’d spent in the US. Since he’d hardly been a teetotaller during his time there, I asked him how on earth he’d managed it. ‘I’d just play “Jenta stakk en harelabb i f…a si” [‘the girl stuck a hare’s paw in her c—t’], and when I got to the bit where you pluck the strings, I’d stick the fiddle behind my neck, then behind my back and by the time I’d finished, there was always someone in the pub bawling “Dram for the fiddler!”’
Further striking evidence of this kind of instrumental extreme sportsmanship in Norway can be seen in a photo of legendary Voss fiddler Sjur Helgeland (1858–1924), which shows him playing his fiddle behind his head. But these sorts of visual stunts aren’t restricted to the fiddle. The dancing dolls of Norwegian dulcimer players fit into this category and the Jew’s harp world can boast a few tricks of its own.
Here in Norway, we have literary and eyewitness accounts of ‘alternative’ playing techniques. All the way up to the present day, people have spoken about performers skilled in the art of striking the lamella with their tongue. This requires them to place the striking end of the lamella in their mouth and strike it with their tongue. It can be a bloody business, but it really does look mysterious: All you can see is a motionless hand holding an almost invisible metal object against the player’s mouth – and yet out streams the magical music, as if played by a completely invisible hand.
One person who was inspired by tales of this Jew’s harp technique was Jon Elling Buen Garnås (1977–2012) of Bø, Telemark county. He must have had a pretty sore tongue at certain points of his life because he must undoubtedly have had to practice a lot. I’ve never heard anyone master this technique better than he did. In fact there are plenty of people out there who’d be happy if they could play ‘Fanten’ as well using the normal technique as he did playing with his tongue!
This jester-like approach to playing technique may well go back to the Middle Ages, when the boundaries between professional musician, acrobat, jester and actor were far more fluid. This social group was referred to as ‘leikarar’ in Norse sources. In modern Icelandic, the same word is used for actors.
We might speculate why this unpretentious approach to the instrument has largely vanished in Norway. I suspect we can blame it on the project that sought to clean up the image of traditional music, rebranding it from low-class, uncultivated peasant music to high art. Circus tricks like playing your fiddle behind your back or playing your Jew’s harp with your tongue didn’t really fit in with the refined image of traditional music that the National Romantics were trying to create. But could a spot of unpretentious clowning be precisely what traditional music needs right now?
We can find one example of a tradition that has gone in the opposite direction to Norway in the central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan. Here, extreme technique has become a vital part of the tradition, especially on komuz, a long-necked lute, and the Jew’s harp. If you fancy seeing some instrumental acrobatics in real life, you’ll get a chance in early July: Five Kyrgyzstani musicians linked to the Ustatshakirt Centre in the capital of of Bishkek will be performing at this year’s Førde Festival (2–6 July). All these multi-instrumentalists play the Jew’s harp. Apart from the extreme element of their playing technique, the Kyrgyzstani approach to the Jew’s harp is remarkably similar to the Norwegian tradition – at once melodic and intensely rhythmical. That in itself should be reason enough to catch the concerts in Førde.
Extreme Jew’s harp technique
Gulnara Raymalieva of Kyrgyzstan demonstrates her extreme technique on the komuz and the Jew’s harp (from 04:43).
Innovative use of the Jew’s harp
Musicians linked to the Ustatshakirt Centre offer examples of the experimental use of different types of Jew’s harps in a composition entitled Echoes of time (in 7/8).
Here is a longish TV spot, which opens with a performance of the same composition.
Kutman Sultanbekov and Kambar Kalendarov perform a piece called JAW on two different types of Jew’s harps.
Ustatshakirt
The Førde Festival’s information about the Ustatshakirt ensemble.
You can find the Ustatshakirt Plus album, Dream’d in a dream. Kyrgyz traditional music, her and here.
Extreme technique on the violin – highly recommended, even for Jew’s harp players
Examples of extreme fiddle technique in traditional music