No, that’s not misspelled – it’s Swedish for midsummer. And why am I writing it in Swedish? I play a Swedish nyckelharpa, and this time of year there’s usually a midsommar festival in the area where I have been hired to play nyckelharpa. It’s a huge celebration in Sweden, and Swedish Americans also celebrate with music, dancing around a decorated pole much like a Maypole (Junepole?) and eat and drink all day long.
Why is Midsommar such a big festival in Sweden? I expect that
when you live that far north, the longest day of the year, as well as the
shortest day of the year are bigger events than they are here in the middle of
California. The longest day in the farthest parts of Sweden is so long, the twilight
blends into dawn.
This year, I was hired to play nyckelharpa for a very
special small event by two Swedish American sisters who wanted to share a bit
of their heritage with 20 of their friends. It took place in the San Francisco
Bay on a tall ship, and it was a very interesting gig! I played with a wonderful
multi-instrumentalist who brought just his guitar tuned in DADGAD and a tenor
recorder (thanks Jim!)
The Gas Light is a72 foot schooner that
can hold up to 49 people.
The idea was to play a just for 15 minutes as people
boarded, then the ship would motor out to a cove off of Treasure Island, and we’d
play an hour concert after they dropped anchor, and then continue with
background music as they decorated one of the masts with flowers in the Swedish
tradition. The hosts’ chosen music was mostly haunting, exceptionally beautiful
tunes, in minor modes, and I knew we would enjoy playing them in the setting of
a tall ship.
As all plans are susceptible to change, this
was not exactly how it went… The idea of decorating the mast was nixed in light
of the wind, and the stay at the cove was shortened to less a half hour with
the more interesting option of raising the sails and sailing back rather than motoring.
There were flowers that were brought
onboard to decorate, and they ended up making crowns of flowers for the women
to wear.
We were all (guests and serving staff included) asked to wear white or off-white and our hosts, being fashion designers, were very much all about the aesthetics. I had to scramble to find off-white to wear – black is my go-to performance color…
As I always do, I had planned for adapting the set list to accommodate any changes, and so we began with around 30 minutes of our background music as people boarded. The little space way up in the bow is where we were set up.
We took a break as the boat motored over to the cove and then set up again topside and played a couple songs. One of our hosts did a toast and then announced we would be raising the sails to sail back. So we took our instruments back down below deck and got ready to play again once we were underway.
Even though the boat had a flat bottom and didn’t lean over as we sailed, it was still a bit of a bumpy, wavy ride, so I found standing up to play easier than sitting. The space we had was a corner with barely enough room for my little chair, so Jim sat on the built-in bench, and placed a music stand in the walkway.
I also found that sitting made me lose my balance whereas standing with knees slightly bent and shifting my weight from leg to leg (sort of like dancing) gave me more of a sense of being in control of my balance. So I was getting a great lower body workout as I played!
I was positioned next to the stairs up from the cabin – here’s the view I had over my right shoulder of Captain Steve at the helm:
And here is Jim with the captain as he steers us back to
pier 40:
The sails were brought back down as we motored back into the San Francisco South Beach Harpbor.
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