Abstract
The springars of Norwegian folk music are known for their unusual meters—lilting grooves with beats of varying lengths. Dance fundamentally shapes these meters, even when a solo fiddler plays for a seated audience. In this presentation, I will share work-in-progress from two projects investigating the role of dance in the performance of springar meters.
Fiddlers frequently say that the rhythm of playing for dance is different than when playing as a solo performer. Analysis of this difference proves tricky, confounded by the influences of melodic structures, micro-regionality, and individual fiddler preferences. In an attempt to isolate the effect of playing for dance, I examine pairs of performances with as many similarities as possible: the same tune, played by the same fiddler, in competition contexts. Using the MIRAGE project’s toolkit, I analyze the metrical performance in these recordings to understand the specific nature of their metrical elasticity. This narrow and specific information offers insights into broader questions of how dance influences musicking, even when divided in practice.
North American fiddlers who adopt Norwegian folk music and dance tradition are often assumed to be straightforwardly enacting an identity-driven diasporic search for cultural heritage. But even a cursory engagement with these communities shows that this oversimplification elides the role of musical preference in the fiddlers’ choice of tradition. Through semi-structured interviews, I study the repertory choices of these North American fiddlers to ask how dance and pleasure affect tune selection. Early results indicate that self-identification as a dancer correlates with preference patterns within the broader springar repertory. These danced experiences of springar meters inform ongoing discourses of nationalism and exoticism in these traditions, both in the North American context and in Norwegian practice.
Bio
Vilde Aaslid is an associate professor of musicology at the University of Rhode Island. Her previous research has focused on the intersection of music and language in improvising contexts, especially in jazz poetry. During her sabbatical year at RITMO, she is developing new research on Norwegian music and dance traditions. She is an active performer on the hardingfele and especially enjoys playing for dance.