In the end I felt sorry about giggling, but his English really was very endearingly cute. I went to a modern (?) jazz show tonight with friends. Based on a broad sampling it would appear that folk music is much more popular in Bø than jazz.* And one of their tunes was titled "Bunny". It just makes one want to take the trio home as pets, little bunny-boys with floppy hair that one would feed carrots and lettuce. Of course, three grown (though young) Finnish men would probably not thrive on carrots. Finns, like Norwegians, are pretty good drinkers. So I really shouldn't tease them for their perfectly fine, though not quite perfect, English. I can't even remember all of the personal pronouns in Finnish. Fine result for a year's worth of study.
I was also a bit melancholy at the end of the show because they played a jazz arrangement of a very beautiful traditional Finnish tune that Ruth MacKenzie performs with English lyrics about one's lover being far away. And because the trumpet player from SUN was genuinely flustered by introducing this tune, and I don't like to make people uncomfortable about language issues. I've gotten rather sensitive to problems of communication, and find that it affects my social interactions. For example, I'm not very comfortable talking to the Kroa technical crew leaders when I'm not working a show. And I don't socialize with the very nice Danes that I have met, though that might be more because I am not a real friluftsliv person. It's like when I was a "bicycle groupie" before I learned how to really ride my own bike.
*Three concerts, leaving out the rock concerts at Kroa that have nothing to do with either genre.
**It took me a very long time to ride a bike. I learned when I was 21, and wasn't really comfortable riding until I was 25. By this time I think most non-riders would have given up, either ignoring the beauty of the bike, or becoming bitter and harassing cyclists.
Showing posts with label finland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label finland. Show all posts
1.12.06
kiitos paljon
Last night was "Frigg: thesis concert 2, or I go and have a fun night out and call it school work, continued." I like Finnish fiddle music, but it's a bit circular I don't always get into it as much as other things. The audience continued to be predominantly young, though I did enjoy seeing a couple of grannies at a close table. And I had friends who saved me a seat. Yay friends.
Starting to read Fiddling For Norway, I was thinking about the changes that folk music underwent in this country since religious movements began to associate fiddling and dancing with sin. Fiddlers either set aside or destroyed their fiddles, or they began disassociating their music from dancing and moving into concert performance. Fiddling for an attentive audience rather than active dancers meant that they could start increasing the artistic flourishes and reflect an understanding of classical training. Without dancers the music got more complicated. So what does the pietist movement in Norway have to do with Finnish fiddles? Well, I'm not as familiar with religious movements in Finland, but it seems logical that if there was such a reactionary sin-hunting movement in Finland there might have been something similar in Finland. I don't know. What I do know is that Finnish folk musicians are trained in a folk department at the Sibelius Academy, Finland's only school for higher education in music. I'm wondering if the virtuoso fiddling of Finland is heavily influenced by this formal education, or how far back the complicated fiddling styles go in Finland.
Less academic: I had an easier time understanding the band this time. For starts, the Finnish guys spoke English. I was rather surprised, as I had expected that they would know Swedish. It is an official language of Finland, and Swedish is close enough to Norwegian that the Norwegian audience would be able to understand it. Perhaps they do know Swedish, but are not as comfortable using it, and as an internationally touring band, it might serve them better to be well versed in English instead of Swedish. I did understand the Finnish that they used too, though it was limited to "Terve, tuolla." and "Kiitos paljon." "Hi there" and "thanks a lot" respectively. There was also a string of curses or some other random muttering that I missed, because I didn't hear it clearly. He was changing a broken string and not really talking to the audience, though to be honest, I probably would not have understood anyway. What did really please me, is that I had an easier time understanding the Norwegian spoken. My friend says that I am getting better at conversing in Norwegian, and she is doubtless correct, but as far as differences between the first show and the second, Harv speaks Swedish.
Starting to read Fiddling For Norway, I was thinking about the changes that folk music underwent in this country since religious movements began to associate fiddling and dancing with sin. Fiddlers either set aside or destroyed their fiddles, or they began disassociating their music from dancing and moving into concert performance. Fiddling for an attentive audience rather than active dancers meant that they could start increasing the artistic flourishes and reflect an understanding of classical training. Without dancers the music got more complicated. So what does the pietist movement in Norway have to do with Finnish fiddles? Well, I'm not as familiar with religious movements in Finland, but it seems logical that if there was such a reactionary sin-hunting movement in Finland there might have been something similar in Finland. I don't know. What I do know is that Finnish folk musicians are trained in a folk department at the Sibelius Academy, Finland's only school for higher education in music. I'm wondering if the virtuoso fiddling of Finland is heavily influenced by this formal education, or how far back the complicated fiddling styles go in Finland.
Less academic: I had an easier time understanding the band this time. For starts, the Finnish guys spoke English. I was rather surprised, as I had expected that they would know Swedish. It is an official language of Finland, and Swedish is close enough to Norwegian that the Norwegian audience would be able to understand it. Perhaps they do know Swedish, but are not as comfortable using it, and as an internationally touring band, it might serve them better to be well versed in English instead of Swedish. I did understand the Finnish that they used too, though it was limited to "Terve, tuolla." and "Kiitos paljon." "Hi there" and "thanks a lot" respectively. There was also a string of curses or some other random muttering that I missed, because I didn't hear it clearly. He was changing a broken string and not really talking to the audience, though to be honest, I probably would not have understood anyway. What did really please me, is that I had an easier time understanding the Norwegian spoken. My friend says that I am getting better at conversing in Norwegian, and she is doubtless correct, but as far as differences between the first show and the second, Harv speaks Swedish.
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