Video link Podcast Link Leah Roseman:
Hi. Welcome to the first episode of Conversations With Leah and my guest today is Kirsty Money. She is a violinist and she's also a nyckelharpa player. She's going to play the nyckelharpa for us now. I have lots of questions. You're going to play a little Bach for us, one the Cello suites, one of the Gigues, I believe.
Kirsty Money:
From the G major Cello suite.
Leah Roseman:
Awesome. I love that. It's very interesting to hear something so familiar on an instrument I'm not that used to hearing.
Kirsty Money:
There's lots of Baroque and pre-Baroque repertoire like medieval and Renaissance music which sounds really great on this instrument.
Leah Roseman:
And this does date back to medieval times, right?
Kirsty Money:
It does. Yeah. We don't know exactly where it started. My personal take on it is that it probably comes from an instrument called the organistrum, which was a two person instrument from the 10th century. I think you look up in Wikipedia, that's what it says. And there's somebody that has a wheel and then there's somebody else that is doing the keys. And it's huge. A hurdy-gurdy is more compact than that. And this is the cousin of the hurdy-gurdy, and you trust the Swedes to come up with this really cool modern version of an ancient instrument.
Leah Roseman:
So we have a followed parallel paths. We met in university a long time ago at McGill University, studying violin. And then we both went on to study Baroque violin separately, I know. And then we both play in orchestras.
Kirsty Money:
Yeah, that's right.
Leah Roseman:
So, how did you get to play the nyckelharpa?
Kirsty Money:
That's a good question, I've thought about this old lot. I do think it comes originally from when I was a kid growing up in our house. My parents were music lovers. My mom sang and played the piano. And that's how I got started doing Suzuki violin. And my dad also sung choirs, he was a serious singer my dad. He sang at Cambridge in the Clare College choir there. So we always had music in the house 24/7. And my dad listened to a lot of early music, Renaissance recordings with crumhorns and crazy drums and rhythmic dance music. And I do remember as a child just loving that particular kind of music. It was also very droney, pipes and drones. And so I think that's part of it.
Kirsty Money:
And then of course, when you do early music you can specialize in 18th century or a particular era. But you're also introduced to other kinds of music from the Renaissance and medieval times. And a lot of it is folk music, people's music. And so I've been, through doing Baroque violin, exposed to more than say normally I would if I had just stuck to modern violin. And then I've been doing a folk music festival out here for a long time called the Boxwood Music Festival and met musicians from all over the world actually who either played folk music or Renaissance music. And so I've been exposed to those kinds of sounds as well through that festival.
Leah Roseman:
And that's in Nova Scotia, Canada?
Kirsty Money:
That's in Nova Scotia. Yeah. It takes place at the end of July every year. Of course with COVID we're doing all this weird online stuff, but hopefully we can get back in person and doing concerts soon, because we're all going a bit haywire here.
Leah Roseman:
Through the magic of the internet we're able to have this discussion and we're very far apart.
Kirsty Money:
Yeah. That's true. And then in 2010, I think, or 2009. No, first in 2009, my husband and I were at a friend's wedding in Toronto and there was a fellow staying there and he's quite well known in mathematic circles and in nyckelharpa circles, his name is Bruce Sagan and he's Carl Sagan's cousin. Bruce was at this bed and breakfast and we were staying there and he got out as nyckelharpa and started playing and I just was gob smacked. I was like, what is that? Wow. Listen to that sound. But at that point, I didn't think I got to get one of those. But I just remember just somebody took a hammer and went bong.
Kirsty Money:
2010, or maybe it was that same year, we did a project with some Scottish musicians, Chris Stout and Catriona McKay. They're fantastic folk musicians. A lot of their own material. We were the orchestra here because we do a lot of traditional collaborations. We were out in Cape Breton and I met these two musicians because the orchestra was working with them and Catriona gave me a CD and she said, "You'll like this." And it was her and a fellow named Olov Johansson who was my first teacher. And it was that instrument that Bruce had been playing. And it was a really great album called Foogy and it's her and Olov playing their own original compositions, but Olov's playing his numerous nyckelharpas. And I was smitten with the sound of the instrument.
Leah Roseman:
So hold on there, you said numerous. So there's many different configurations and sizes and tunings?
Kirsty Money:
Yep. So this instrument that I'm playing here is called a chromatic nyckelharpa, modern chromatic Swedish nyckelharpa. So this instrument was made by a fellow named Don Eriksson in Sweden. And it's relatively new to me. I have another one that my son plays because I'm teaching him also. And that was made by another Swede named Bo Nilsson, and that's the modern chromatic. There's also the 18 century, which is called the kontrabasharpa. So you have drone strings on either side of a middle string where you're playing the tune and it's contra bass, against the base, I guess. So there's a drone string on this side and a drone sting on this side. I wish I had one so that I could do an example, and it's tuned differently. Gosh, I can't remember how it's tuned. Is it an A on either side. These are octaves and then there's a fifth in the middle.
Leah Roseman:
So, what's the range of your instrument?
Kirsty Money:
Well, I have the top G, so that's pretty high actually for a nyckelharpa because the first string is an A string. So not an E string. And then Swedish tuning is in C, that's a C, so that's a sixth. G, and then normally this is a C string. I've got it tuned to D because of the keys that I'm playing in today. Normally this would be a C string here. Let me just tune it down.
Kirsty Money:
So that is a little dance form called Schottis and that comes from the Uppland region of Sweden where there's a 500, 600 year history of this instrument. And those tunes are played in C, So that's why the Swedish nyckelharpa is made and tuned in C.
Leah Roseman:
And actually the violin in traditional music all over the world is tuned in many different tunings, but people may not realize that. And Baroque times it was more common too actually to do that. The Biber sonatas, a lot of them you have to tune your violin very weird ways.
Kirsty Money:
Yeah. And it's just so that you can get the resonance of the piece and it's really actually very fun. A popular one up in Cape Breton is the high base tuning. So you tune G to A and then E A E, so bright bassy sound as well. So, that's really fun.
Leah Roseman:
Now we see a lot of pegs and I know you have resonating string, so why don't you explain all the strings to us?
Kirsty Money:
So there you can see and then I have rows.
Leah Roseman:
Wow.
Kirsty Money:
Yeah. So the rows are the notes. So like on a violin, you have your strings and you go over on each row to play your notes, but here we have keys. So a nyckel is a key in Swedish and harpa is string. So key strings. And then that resonance goes on for a long time.
Leah Roseman:
It's built in reverb because you have a resonating string for each of the 12 notes. Is that right?
Kirsty Money:
Right. So I have 12 sympathetic strings tuned to the 12 semitones of the octave. But then-
Leah Roseman:
But I don't-
Kirsty Money:
Sorry, go ahead.
Leah Roseman:
No, sorry to interrupt. I don't understand the drone strings and the angle of the bridge and how that works.
Kirsty Money:
Okay. So, let's see. The bridge looks very much like it would on a violin except bigger and thicker. Probably with the older harpas, that bridge would be flatter so that you could play three strings at a top no problem. And a lot of the older instruments like a silverbasharpa, if you have a key, they touch one key, but it'll play two notes. So, that's pretty cool too. And it plays in the key of C, but it makes a big ringing sound in the key of C all the time.
Kirsty Money:
So it's the resonance, which is pretty addictive once you start playing. It's like I'm making such a marvelous sound. It's not a lot of effort.
Leah Roseman:
Well, speaking of sound, I have a lot more questions, but I'd love to hear some more music.
Kirsty Money:
Okay. Yeah. So this is a tune that I wrote. I've been writing tunes during this pandemic because I don't know what else to do. Writing tunes is fun. Sometimes when I write tunes, they just sort of come to me instantly. And then other times I might have a little theme or something and then I'll work on it maybe for half an hour or an hour and then I'll have a tune at the end. And some tunes are more memorable than others, of course.
Kirsty Money:
But this one, when I posted it, a lot of my friends really liked it. It's pretty simple, but it's got a great groove. It's one of the reasons why I like playing folk music in particular, it's dance music. And with this instrument, you're playing for dancers. So that's the tradition with this instrument. So you have to have a really great groove. And of course, as a classical musician, you are interpreting somebody else's groove. Whoever is flapping their arms up there on the podium, you're interpreting visually what they're doing. It's not quite the same as when you have to do it yourself. So this is something that I'm learning as I'm learning this tradition.
Leah Roseman:
Do you need to retune that bottom string?
Kirsty Money:
Oh yes. Thank you. That would have been a bit of a disaster. Okay. This is called the Grind polska. The polska is a dance in three. We can talk about that more, but that's the time signature.
Leah Roseman:
Gorgeous. Love it.
Kirsty Money:
Kind of fun, right?
Leah Roseman:
So is that a traditional tune or one of yours?
Kirsty Money:
That's one of mine. And I'm basically writing my own tunes in the style of traditional nyckelharpa Swedish tunes. So that would've been a polska three. So you could feel the groove. I saw you Bing around boom, boom, boom, boom 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2. So that's how they often feel the beat in Scandinavia. And that's like jigs and reels for the Celtic tradition, is the same thing as polskas are for the Scandinavian tradition. And those are dances in three.
Kirsty Money:
And in Sweden, there's many different kinds of polskas depending on what region of Sweden the polskas come from. So, that's a whole nother thing that I'm still learning a lot about. And I'm hoping that I'll learn more. I'm doing an online course at the end of June, there's some really fantastic Swedish masters that are going to be teaching over Zoom. But they're going to be talking about that those kind of specifics and details in terms of how you play.
Leah Roseman:
And I was looking it up, so there's pretty big nyckelharpa communities in the United States and the UK and even Japan.
Kirsty Money:
Yeah. I know Japan is kind of weird, but Japan is interesting in that's a culture seems to be interested in all kinds of other cultures and they adopt things over there, and nyckelharpa is one of them. There's quite a few nyckelharpa artists from Europe and Sweden who've gone over there to tour and teach. So, big community there.
Leah Roseman:
A few years ago someone gave me a book of violin duos from Sweden, traditional Swedish folk tunes. So I should share that with you, it's a lot of the same tonalities, the modal, lots of fourths, unusual.
Kirsty Money:
Yeah. So you hear me playing, I'm playings drones. Often holding one note while the left hand is playing the tune and that's a very common thing to do with the nyckelharpa and it's also part of the music itself, there's a lot of droning that happens.
Leah Roseman:
So because you're a classical violinist, you're used to shifting all over the place, playing Harry Potter and whatnot. I know we both did that gig. So you have a lot of key, so do you think it gives you a little more facility in terms of using the full range of the instrument?
Kirsty Money:
Yeah. When I first started playing, I remember sitting in Olov Johansson's house. We had worked out that I could go for a couple days and be introduced essentially to the nyckelharpa. So that was terrifying because he is a real virtuoso on the instrument, not only with his facility, but the tradition and the history that he just knows and imparts to everybody when he plays. So one of the things he told me right at the beginning was, A, you need to learn how to tune this instrument properly. So we spent some time doing that. Well, I spent some time doing that. He went to go and do the various household things they needed to do while I was mucking around trying to figure out how to tune the instrument. But also that when you're on the harpa you just have to move your hand and get used to moving your hand. And at the beginning, that was pretty terrifying because you got to know where the keys are.
Leah Roseman:
But there's no problem with intonation once you've got it tuned, not like violin.
Kirsty Money:
That's true, but you do have to learn how to tune it, which takes a lot of time.
Leah Roseman:
Does it stay in tune pretty well though?
Kirsty Money:
It depends. It's a bit like a harpsichord or a harp. If the temperature and humidity changes then of course it can definitely be bad. So in Nova Scotia last summer, it was very humid. The harpa didn't like it very much because it's all bogged down with water in the instrument.
Leah Roseman:
Did the airline let you bring that on board when you went to Sweden?
Kirsty Money:
It did. Flying with this is always a bit of a challenge because it's big. But it fits in the overhead compartment. And apparently, at least on Air Canada, if it fits in the overhead compartment, you can take it.
Leah Roseman:
I'm curious the bow, I'm sure it's easier for violinists to pick up something like the nyckelharpa compared to pianists, but how does it feel compared to a violin bow?
Kirsty Money:
It's very different. So you can see that it's short. And that's mainly because again, you're playing rhythmic stuff all the time, so there isn't the sustaining quality that you would have in a modern violin, modern orchestra. And also the technique is different and it's something that I have to work on all the time. Because with a nyckelharpa, you don't want to crush the sound. Whereas when you're bowing on a violin, you want to put your arm weight from your back into the string so that you can get the string spinning.
Kirsty Money:
Well, because you have all of these resonators on the nyckelharpa, you just want to start it resonating and then let it go. So it's like shooting arrows or something. So when you start, once I'm gliding on the string, you got to take the weight out. That was the hardest thing and still is the hardest thing for me in terms of it being just automatic, because especially if I'm playing going from violin to nyckelharpa, the bowing technique is quite different. The left hand I can figure out. Like when you're shifting up high on a violin, you got to have your fingering in a little plan to how you're going to get down, and it's the same thing. It's exactly same thing on the nyckelharpa, except you have keys and you got to get used to where your keys are on your instrument and muscle memory and all that. But the bowing is very different.
Leah Roseman:
Are there a couple of warmups you like to do with nyckelharpa?
Kirsty Money:
Warmups. I would just play like a simple tune. Just to get the bow going. So I might play a simple tune, a dance tune, just to feel the resonance of the instrument, something simple. And then usually what I do when I'm practicing a particular tune, you can practice scales and arpeggios. Sure. You can do all of that if you want. But I'll take an element from a particular tune that's vexing and just have a little nugget of that and work on that. And then again, incorporate it in to the whole piece. So, that's often how I practice.
Leah Roseman:
So I'm curious about the tunes that you write. So obviously it comes out of improvisation. Do you find now with your violin, there's a little more of that happening than there used to be? Or is it just confined to the nyckelharpa for you?
Kirsty Money:
Oh no. For sure, with the violin, a lot of people ask me, "Are you going to forget how to play violin?" No. Don't worry about that. I think actually there's probably been more freedom with the bowing now I think about it, when I switch back to violin. And of course when we're playing Baroque music shows, as a Baroque violinist, you're used to improvising also adding ornaments and changing things up a little bit. Of course, if you're playing in a modern symphony orchestra, you can't do that so much. But in my chamber music ensembles, I do that. And there's a lot of crossover between the Baroque thing and playing this Baroque violin, because a lot of the Swedish ornaments, there are similarities. They do a lot of trills. One of the satisfying things about playing a trill on the nyckelharpa that there isn't a lot of effort. Sounds nice and clean and there's something very satisfying about that clicking sound that you get with the key. I know that sounds weird, but I don't know.
Kirsty Money:
Yeah, it's pretty fun.
Leah Roseman:
Awesome. What was that one?
Kirsty Money:
That one's called [foreign language 00:27:45]. I think it's the name of a person's death, it's noted to death. So these tunes, how they're named, sometimes they're just polska after whoever wrote it, polska after Magnonsson or polska after Johansson or whatever, but then they'll be a specific title because often there's a story behind a tune that somebody wrote, which is always fun to hear the story.
Leah Roseman:
So I was curious about in terms of technical challenges like string crossing, are some of the elements similar to violin or not really?
Kirsty Money:
Again, yeah I would say they're exactly the same. Except that on violin, especially if you are classically trained, we spend a lot of time working on smooth bow changes between the down bow and the up bow. And that's not so prevalent in this genre either, whether it's Celtic music, if you start listening to that, it's very rhythmic. And all often the players are doing accents on the both down and up bows and that's because you want to have the groove, the drive for the dancing, which is essentially what that music is for. So again, for me, that is a challenge to work with because my natural instinct is to go try and make it... Instead of... So that there's a... At the beginning of each note. The up bows are always more difficult than the down bows, because of course it's the opposite natural feeling.
Leah Roseman:
A couple years ago, I had an opportunity. I was in Iceland, in the Westfjords, in a very small town, Þingeyri. And there's a museum of music there with musical instruments from all over the world. And I met the man's wife and he's a luthier. He makes, I'm trying to remember, there's some traditional Icelandic instruments. And I remember I got to try one that was like a violin, but very simple. And it was a bit like an erhu, it was just vertical with maybe a couple strings. And I was curious, in Sweden are there other bowed instruments that are more like the violin?
Kirsty Money:
Well, I mean, of course they play fiddles like they do violins. I wonder if it was a tagelharpa.
Leah Roseman:
Maybe.
Kirsty Money:
Where it's quite prude looking and you play it like an erhu in that sits on your lap and there's a little bridge, but then you have to find the notes this way.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. I think that might have been it. I don't know.
Kirsty Money:
I think he was bowing underhand like a viol player would. And there's also clog-fiddles, which are essentially people were poor, but they wanted to have something to play. So a clog and they'd string it up.
Leah Roseman:
A shoe?
Kirsty Money:
Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Those long Nordic winter nights.
Kirsty Money:
Yeah. That's right. So got to have something to play by the fire. And I think there's a band called Dreamers' Circus from Denmark and is he playing mandola, cittern? He plays all kinds of guitars. Anyway, he also plays the clog-fiddle. He makes it sound pretty good, I have to say.
Leah Roseman:
Speaking of other instruments in a traditional Swedish setting, the nyckelharpa, what other instruments would it be playing with?
Kirsty Money:
Okay. So could be playing with other nyckelharpas, certainly fiddle players, säckpipa perhaps. So, that's the Swedish bagpipe. Very sweet and cute. But it doesn't have that many notes, it plays in more modes. Basically, people are playing guitars, of course, all kinds of guitars. A lot of the traditional bands. If you had a nyckelharpa you would have other string instruments, viola, cello. Also percussion, pretty much you name it. I've seen Swedish clarinet, traditional clarinet. They've been playing tunes on clarinet. And then a flute of course, I think the flute tradition in Sweden comes from the south, the south of Sweden. But there are some flute players here in Nova Scotia. I think they went over a couple years ago to study with Monica Berg and Andreas Ralsgård who came to the Boxwood Festival three summers ago. And then a bunch of them went over there to study Swedish flute playing, traditional flute playing. Organ, nyckelharpa with the organ sounds pretty cool. Yeah. Big sound. All kinds of pipes, harp.
Leah Roseman:
Wow. That's a big range. I didn't expect that.
Kirsty Money:
Yeah. This instrument, you put it in any ensemble and it just makes it better.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. So I'm curious about in terms of read music, being a classic musician. And that's something that's always intimidated me about traditional music is I just so addicted to reading notes. It's really hard to-
Kirsty Money:
It's part of our culture for sure. You're just used to reading all the time. I always joke with my family. Sometimes when I come off a week of three or sometimes four different programs, I just feel like a reading machine. Did I really just do all that? Because I was a Suzuki trained baby and we did a lot of stuff by ear. I was late to reading music, I think that helped me when I started picking up tunes. But if you're a violinist and you can learn things by ear just because of the nature of the instrument, you have to use your ears meticulously really, don't you? So I think learning to play without music in front of you is a really great challenge and skill.
Leah Roseman:
So most of the tunes you learn at these festivals or whatever, is it mostly by ear?
Kirsty Money:
Yeah, I'm learning by ear. And then you can get what they call the dots. You can get the dots for them. In the end, I don't know, if you are somebody who is coming from the classical tradition and you want to have the dots because that makes you feel secure, there's nothing wrong with that. You can learn your tune and then start memorizing it. Because usually in the folk music tradition, unless it's a particular kind of arrangement, usually none of them have music in front of them. And you learn differently, of course, when you're learning by ear rather than just looking at it on the paper. The music becomes more three-dimensional if that makes any sense.
Leah Roseman:
So if some of the people listening to this feel that pull of the nyckelharpa, where can they go about getting one?
Kirsty Money:
This is a very good question. Probably message me. But I've done a longer research into this, there are a lot of makers in Sweden and they're busy because suddenly a lot of people are like that's a really cool instrument. It sounds great and I want one. You can also buy them secondhand, but that's a little tougher because you don't know what you're getting unless you know the person and the instrument that they play. There's an American maker that I know of named Earl Holzman. I think his instruments, from what I'm told, are quite good. And there are also makers in Germany and France. So yeah, there are makers all over the place.
Kirsty Money:
So it also depends on what kind of nyckelharpa you want to get because the ones that are made in mainland Europe, so not Scandinavia, are a little different in that they are mellower sounding. So when I play, I'll go all the way up.
Kirsty Money:
And so that sound, in addition to the resonance, there's a certain piercing nasal quality. Can you hear that?
Leah Roseman:
Yeah.
Kirsty Money:
Yeah. If you compare it to say a nyckelharpa that's tuned in fifths and made say in France or Germany, it has a nice resonance. And to me they sound like nyckelharpas but more closer to, I don't know, Western music, the sound of a [viol 00:38:12] maybe. It's a different sound, it's mellower. So I think if you are serious about wanting a nyckelharpa, you need to decide what tradition you're going to study. There's a whole community, Didier François, Marco Ambrosini, Annette Osann, they all do Renaissance Baroque music and they write their own material as well on these nyckelharpas that are made in Europe. And so the sound is different. And if you want to do that music, I would suggest going that route. If you want to do traditional music, I would suggest that you get a Swedish nyckelharpa so that's just my personal preference.
Kirsty Money:
But when I was confronted with that question and I was told, do you want the mainland European sound? Or do you want the Swedish sound? I was like, what do you mean? I thought there was only one. So the mainland Europeans, those are tuned in fifths as well. A lot of people like playing in fifths rather than the sixth and the fourth. It took me a long time to retrain my hand to do that.
Leah Roseman:
I'm sure. Yeah. So in the description on this video, I'll put a link to your YouTube channel and your website and people can contact you, and you're teaching nyckelharpa as well, right? If people are interested.
Kirsty Money:
Yeah. I'm teaching. I'm of course teaching my son, he's my Guinea pig. I've taught a colleague of mine, her name is Binnie Brennan. She plays in the orchestra here and she got a nyckelharpa last year and she's having a lot of fun. So I've helped her a little bit along the way and given some online lessons to people all over North America actually. And I've taught workshops, particularly for people who are just starting because I'm a new person to this Swedish tradition and I love the repertoire, it's been a real eye opener to me. And I love the style of playing. I admire those musicians so much and so it would be nice to be able to come close to playing like those guys. So that's an ambition of mine.
Kirsty Money:
But I did grow up in the classical tradition so I don't want to totally erase all of those habits either. So that's the challenge for me, is going back and forth, especially because this is such a different instrument. It's not like flipping from viola to violin at all, because you're dealing with a whole different tradition and a whole different tuning and it's very different.
Leah Roseman:
You've been very generous to play quite a bit for us today, but if you want to leave us with one little more tune, that would be great if you feel up to it.
Kirsty Money:
See if I can.
Leah Roseman:
Thank you. Thanks so much. I really enjoyed this conversation.
Kirsty Money:
Thank you for having me. Yeah. That was really fun. I'm glad I can tell people about the nyckelharpa. It's awesome.
