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The Tenor Nyckelharpa– a new presence in thenyckelharpa world

by Johan Hedin, Katrineholm, SwedenEnglish translation by Matt Fichtenbaum

In this article I describe the tenor nyckelharpa, howit came to be and the thoughts behind it. I hope tooffer inspiration to other nyckelharpa players andbuilders, and to prompt others’ ideas and thoughts,whether sympathetic to mine or not.

As its name suggests, the tenor nyckelharpa islarger than the ordinary chromatic nyckelharpa,with a lower tonal range. It has a working stringlength of 440 mm and is tuned e1, a, d, G. Itsconstruction is significantly different from thecommon chromatic nyckelharpa’s. The tenor wasconceived and designed by me and built by PederKällman, nyckelharpa maker and master violinmaker in Falun. Peder is the right person for thisassignment, with many years of experience makingboth violins and nyckelharpas and great insight intothe art of instrument construction.The tenor is one part of a larger, ongoing project todevelop the nyckelharpa in several differentdimensions, with the goal of extending its range ofexpression and areas of use. A brief backgroundhistory shall describe how the tenor came to be.

I have had a close relationship with thenyckelharpa since 1982, and have worked since1993 as a professional nyckelharpist. I was neitherborn in nor grew up in Uppland province, thenyckelharpa’s “home territory.” I come fromSmåland, farther south, and thus have acquired mynyckelharpa tradition from a distance. When I wastwelve, my father made my first nyckelharpa and Ibegan to play the tunes the local fiddlers played,tunes not customarily played on nyckelharpa.During several years of study at Kapellsbergs

School of Music I was exposed to a range ofmusical styles, and I began to use the nyckelharpain a baroque ensemble, a folk music band (Sälta),and free improvisation.

From 1993 through 1995 I worked at EMI in NewYork, as a musician in a folk and pop band thattoured England and much of the U.S. On theseextended tours I began to imagine a largerinstrument. I wanted to play in a lower register, toplay accompaniment or harmony well below themelody. Toward this end, my father and I built our“octave nyckelharpa,” tuned an octave below thecommon chromatic nyckelharpa. It is essentially achromatic nyckelharpa, built on a larger scale andwith heavier strings.

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The octave nyckelharpa’s tonal range, so farbelow the chromatic nyckelharpa’s, left me wantingsomething in between, and I began to ponder analto model. How would one tune such aninstrument? Tuning it an octave below the violinseemed logical, since it would facilitate playing thecommon fiddle repertoire. Like the chromaticnyckelharpa, the alto had three rows of keys, for itsE, A, and D strings, and the lowest note of its rangewas D. The violin range, however, extends downto G, so the alto turned out to be insufficient formany traditional tunes. I addressed this by addinga fourth row of keys for the G string, extending thetonal range downward by a fifth. This configurationbecame the tenor nyckelharpa.

On the way to this larger nyckelharpa there weretradeoffs intrinsic to the instrument’s design. Thereis a conflict between the strength of tone in thelower registers, which favors a large instrumentbody, and the physical constraints of holding andbowing the instrument, for which a smaller, lighterbody is helpful. To play with the longest possiblebow, one holds the instrument as high as possible,but holding the instrument down low spares one’sback from having to support the weight of the right(bow) arm. And the more extensive the tonalrange, the heavier the instrument. Knowing ofchallenges, I wanted to find solutions that wouldlead to a satisfactory instrument. The followingdescribes some significant aspects of the tenornyckelharpa.

WeightI believe that an instrument should be trim andlight. The nyckelharpa hangs around one’s neckand one rests one’s arm on it, so minimizing itsweight is paramount. I have taken inspiration fromthe nyckelharpa’s variants over time, and also fromother instruments, primarily the viola da gamba andviola d’amore.

There are many approaches to instrumentconstruction, and each has its advantages. In thetenor nyckelharpa, the ribs are bent to shape ratherthan sawn to shape or carved, together with theback, from a single solid block of wood. Thisapproach, used in violin construction and the Moraharpa, minimizes the instrument’s weight. Bycontrast, hollowing out the body from a singleblock offers great freedom to shape the instrumentin all dimensions. That technique was common inthe traditional nyckelharpa models of the 1700’sand 1800’s. The tenor nyckelharpa’s ribs are 2 mmthick, with corner blocks like the violin’s. Linings atthe edges reinforce the ribs and provide anincreased gluing surface against the top and back.

The sympathetic strings are placed under thekeybox to make the neck as slender as possible,an approach found in older nyckelharpa types.This is both an aesthetic issue and a means ofminimizing weight: the neck and pegbox are lighterand the keys are shorter and therefore also lighter.

The neck is angled slightly downward, as in themodern violin. This angles the strings more wherethey cross the nut and also necessitates makingthe bridge higher.

As a result, the sympathetic strings, thoughpositioned under the keybox, pass over the bridgeat a good angle. But the main strings as well crossthe bridge at a sharper angle, resulting in greaterforce against the top. This is undesirable; tocompensate, I use lighter-gauge strings, whichkeeps the string force against the bridge about thesame as it would be with a straight neck.Reducing the string tension allows all theinstrument’s load-bearing parts to be smaller, thusmaking the harpa lighter. The lighter strings alsohave a beneficial effect on the instrument’s sound;this is discussed in more detail below.

DesignThe nyckelharpa’s traditional peghead has becomea pegbox reminiscent of the violin’s. The horizontalpegs easily find a place in the narrow neck wherevertical pegs would not, and the pegbox’s shapecontinues the arrow-like form of the instrument asa whole. This is a major break with tradition:nyckelharpa pegs have consistently been placedvertically through the instrument’s history. But thetenor nyckelharpa diverges from nyckelharpaconvention in many ways, and this is one more.

The tailpiece’s design comes from the viola dagamba. Its shape, which narrows toward the endof the instrument, mirrors that of the keybox, andits design avoids a problem with the traditionalnyckelharpa tailpiece, in which a protruding tabrests against the end of the body and bears the

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tension of the strings. Because of the orientationof the grain along the length of the tailpiece, thistab is a weak point, prone to breakage. Thegamba approach uses a rectangular peg,dovetailed into the end of the body, that projectsup above the belly. The tailpiece, with arectangular hole, hooks onto the peg and is heldfirmly by the tension of the strings.

That the neck and the keybox narrow toward thepegbox is primarily an aesthetic consideration, butthis also makes the instrument lighter. Becausethe strings vibrate the most in the middle and theleast near the nut, the neck can be narrow and thekeybox’s dimensions smaller near the pegbox,without causing interference with the vibratingstrings.

Although I consider the traditional upper bodyshape of older nyckelharpas to be very tasteful, Ihave changed this for an S-shape for playability,

discussed in more detail below.It might seem natural to model the nyckelharpa’ssound holes on the violin’s f-hole shape, but thischoice is not to be made lightly. The violin hasgraceful, rounded shapes consistently, in thearching of the top, the bouts, the scroll, the tuningpegs, and the f-holes as well. In contrast, the oldernyckelharpas have shapes that are longer, lessacutely curved.

The S-shape

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Nyckelharpa center bouts are shallower, the lowerbody almost straight, the upper body curved nomore than necessary. And in profile, the neckextends from the body at a slight downward angle,

then bows upward at the peghead, but with acurve far less sharp than that of the violin’s scroll.If one is to use f-holes on a nyckelharpa, their formmust be carefully adapted to be a harmonious partof the instrument as a whole.

The tenor’s sound hole design comes from theviola d’amore and other baroque-era instruments.Its arrow-like shape, gently wavy, echoes theshape of the whole instrument. The traditional thirdsound hole, visible under the key box, has twocurved slots that together form a circle and leavebetween them an onion-dome shape reminiscentof both the harpa’s upper body and the areabetween the main sound holes.

The sides lean slightly outwards as in traditionalnyckelharpas. Aesthetically, this suggests a ship’sform; practically, this simplifies gluing the top bymaking the joint between top and sides more of aright angle. This issue is specific to thenyckelharpa; other instruments’ tops, flat at theperiphery, naturally meet the sides at right angles.

A common theme for the tenor nyckelharpa issimplicity, clean lines, no detailed ornamentation.There are but two consistent, recurring themes, theS-shape and the C-shape

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SoundThe instrument is tuned an octave below the violin,or a fourth below the chromatic nyckelharpa; itsworking string length is 40 mm (10%) longer thanthe chromatic harpa’s. The neck is angled down-ward and the bridge raised so that the stringsmake a sharper angle across the bridge, raisingtheir force against the top and allowing the use ofthinner, lighter strings. This results in lower stringtension, giving a softer tone and offering the playermore opportunities to influence the sound.

PlayabilityAll four main strings are equipped with keys. Thetwo lower strings’ keys cover an octave range; thetwo upper strings’ keys extend over an octave anda fourth. This supports playing chords and double-stops in all positions. Eight additional keys playquarter-tones and are placed where quarter-tonescommonly occur in traditional Scandinavian folkmusic.

The comparatively slack strings have a relativelylarge extent of vibration, so the keys’ tangentsmust be placed farther from the strings so as not tointerfere. The key action is thus less quick andprecise compared to the chromatic nyckelharpa,but the degradation is relatively small. Anotheradvantage of these slacker strings is that they areeasy to “bend” – to change the pitch by means offorce on the key – so it is easier to achieve perfectintonation when playing. And the placement of the

sympathetic strings under the keys, away from themain strings, facilitates playing pizzicato.

Body formThe body shape allows the player to reach the keyswithout interference. My own playing makes muchuse of bar chords and double- or triple-stops inhigher positions. With the traditional upper-bodyform changed to an S-shape, whose contourfollows that of the key heads, the player’s hand hasunencumbered room to play along the full range ofkeys and can run along the edge of the neck andbody as a guide.

RealizationThe tenor nyckelharpa’s development took placeduring the period from 1996 to 2001. Twoinstruments were built, in which the design of thesecond incorporated what was learned fromexperience with the first.

Katrineholm 2004Johan Hedin

For further information• www.johanhedin.com• The Nyckelharpa – Present and Past /

Nyckelharpan nu och då (Ling/Ahlbäck/Fredelius 1991)• Nyckelharpan (Jan Ling 1962)

The C-shape