Polska efter Erlandsson - Kontrabasharpa

This Polska efter Erlandsson from Uppland is a real classic! Probably everbody that plays kontrabasharpa plays it at one point or another... so here's my version. I first learned it from Josefina Paulson, who also got me interested in playing the kontrabasharpa ❤️

[@peoniesandparchment]

amazing!

[@BjoernKaidel]

Thank you!

[@andrewcharman-williams]

A lovely piece that was very enjoyable. I’m not very familiar with polskas so the underlying rhythm and emphasis throws me. So I definitely need to listen to more polskas and maybe look at the dances to understand the feel. Loved the sound of the kontrabasharpa - haven’t heard that term but I assume it’s a larger, lower tuned version of the nyckelharpa.

[@BjoernKaidel]

Hi Andrew! Polska can take some getting used to. I still remember how confusing they were for me as well when I started out playing.
The beat is in 3, but the counts can move around. Especially the 2. beat. The emphasis is (speaking in general terms) on 1 and 3. You can see me tapping along with my leg to these main beats. This polska has a bit of a peculiar/tricky rhythm, so might not be the easiest one to try to figure out.
The kontrabasharpa is a predecessor of today's modern nyckelharpa. It's actually tuned on the same pitch - the modern version actually has an additional lower melody string, that is missing here :)
The name comes from the fact that the drone/bass string lies in between the melody strings. So the "bas" string lies "kontra" the melody strings, hence the name.

[@andrewcharman-williams]

@@BjoernKaidel Thank you very much for that information. I’ll have another listen with that in mind.