Sackpipslat Fran Norra Rada: A Song History

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"Säckpipslåt från Norra Råda" names itself a bagpipe tune from Norra Råda, and FolkWiki, the Swedish folk-music wiki, files it as a march in D Dorian from the province of Värmland.[1] The FolkWiki transcription, added by a contributor in 2011, notes that it can be played on the bagpipe in E with some adjustment, and records that Dan Danielsson also wrote the tune down, in 2/4 time, in a notation reproduced in Gunnar Turesson's Värmländska kulturtraditioner (1969).[1] That title belongs to a multi-volume series on Värmland traditions that Turesson (1906–2001) brought out through the Stockholm publisher Tiden.[2] FolkWiki also flags a duplicate in another key, "Murar Jans marsch," no. 71 in the Västmanland volume of Svenska låtar; a note from that collection, as given on FolkWiki, says the tune took its name from a folk musician called Murar Jan, who died in 1850.[1][3]

A small bagpipe with a tan leather bag, a dark wooden chanter with pale bands, and a short drone, against a gray background.

Binioù kozh (bagpipe), Brittany, wood, leather, cane reed and other materials, 19th century. A small one-drone bagpipe from Brittany, shown because the title names a bagpipe tune; it is not a Swedish instrument and has no connection to the tune.

Gunnar Ternhag, writing in the Swedish Journal of Music Research, explains that the bagpipe has a long Swedish history, pictured in medieval church paintings, and that by the usual account the last player whose knowledge of it had been handed down died in 1949.[4] He dates its revival to the end of the 1970s and credits the instrument maker Leif Eriksson and the musician Per Gudmundson with its quick return, complete with festivals, courses and records.[4] The tune also appears in print outside Sweden: Vicki Swan includes it among the 73 Swedish, Finnish and Norwegian pieces in Scandinavian Fiddle Tunes, a violin book from Schott that comes with a recording of every tune.[5]

Mountain dulcimer players can find it in Scandinavian Tunes For Dulcimer, a book Mark Gilston publishes himself; its listing presents 48 titles as Scandinavian songs arranged for the instrument, and it is sold as a 64-page PDF.[6]

Our book that contains the song "Sackpipslat Fran Norra Rada"

Sources

  1. FolkWiki: "Säckpipslåt från Norra Råda".
  2. LIBRIS (National Library of Sweden): Gunnar Turesson, "Värmländska kulturtraditioner" (series record).
  3. FolkWiki: "Murar Jans marsch (SvL Västmanland nr. 71)".
  4. Swedish Journal of Music Research: Gunnar Ternhag, "Playing and Handling Bagpipes: Two Swedish Cases" (2004).
  5. Schott Music: "Scandinavian Fiddle Tunes" (Vicki Swan).
  6. Mark Gilston: "Scandinavian Tunes For Dulcimer".
  7. Image: Binioù kozh (bagpipe), Brittany, wood, leather, cane reed and other materials, 19th century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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