Earbrass

P necks are thicker, so they need to use more wood. That stuff doesn't grow on trees y'know.

Pretty sure this is complete, though until now I've not had it open for a couple of decades (?). Complete with manual and CD. The box says "PC required", and the CD is for Win 95/98, but in fact the control unit has (I think) 7 different behaviours pre-programmed that you can use without using the CD or a computer. Really not sure what this is worth, so will start out at £55 including postage within UK and see how we go.

Left one is smiley, right one is gritting its teeth.

No. It's just the size of the gap between 2 notes. The "root" changes with the key you're playing in, but the size of the gap between any 2 given notes is independent of the key (at least in equal temperament tunings, which is what we overwhelmingly use). A perfect 4th is a 5 semitone (or 5 fret) gap.

My advice would be to start by learning to recognise the different musical intervals. It can be helpful to have memorised examples of each (eg perfect 4th - first 2 notes of Away in a Manger, perfect 5th - first 2 notes of Thus Spake Zarathustra (2001: a Space Odyssey theme) and so on). Good luck!

"Version" is about right. Sorry, but I think she completely ruins it. Catherine Bott / Christopher Hogwood / The Academy of Ancient Music FTW.

When I am Laid in Earth (Purcell's Dido and Aeneas) Gloomy Sunday - Diamanda Galas Follow those with one of mine, so any attendees can reflect that it's actually no great loss after all.

My GAS rule of thumb: give it 3 months - if I still want it after that I'll usually get it, but often I've lost interest and started GASsing for something different by then.

You can bow up to 2 strings at once (or 3 if you have your bow very slack). You can bow only the four main strings - the other 12 strings are sympathetic, and usually tuned in a chromatic scale, so equally good for all keys. Pressing a key moves a piece of dowel against the string, stopping it at the appropriate length - like moving frets against the string instead of the other way around. Traditional Swedish tuning is (low to high) C-G-C-A, but some players, especially those from a violin or viola background prefer have the second string a D rather than a C, thus giving straight fifths - C-G-D-A - pitched like a viola. The traditional design has 3 row of keys, one for each of the top 3 strings - so the lowest string can function only as a drone on its open note, but these days more builders, especially perhaps those continental builders outside Sweden, are also producing more "4 row" harpas, on which there 4 rows of keys, one for each of the main strings.

I wonder why you think it acceptable to express and incite hatred of a group of people based purely on their age, when I'm sure you'd condemn similar treatment based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or disability.

Hi Robbie, thanks very much for your comments. Yes, big fan of Väsen myself, and have seen them live a couple of times. I was lucky enough to attend a nyckelharpa masterclass by Olov Johansson when they came over and played a gig in Shoreham-by-Sea in 2016 - I had only been playing the instrument a little while, and he was very patient and helpful.

...and you only discovered all this during the lockdown? Must have been quite an afternoon on Google.

Yes, I know Vicki (nyckelharpa is a small world!) - I first played a nyckelharpa at her house, before buying one of my own. She's a great player and has done a lot to popularise the instrument in the UK.

Here are my nyckelharpas. The acoustic one was built by Kjell Lundvall in 2015, and the solid body was by Olla Plahn, 2019, and features a piezo pickup under the bridge and a built-in preamp. The "band" pickup on the Lundvall harpa is used for live performances - for recording I find a ribbon mic gives the best results - an example can be heard here: