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Spelemannslaget Laust & fast 2021
Akebakken Spelemannskag 2021

From left: Magnus Leite, Einar Mellingseter, Runa Bergitte Sødal, Ronny Kjøsen, Truls Rønning, Sturla Eide, Kai Roger Magnetun, Ingrid Gausemel Remøy, Daniel Falcon Græsdal, Anders Holmås, Skogen Sällström, Eirik Hagerup Holm, Øyvind Engen.

Kattapols & Kattalender

Easy tunes in Scandinavian style
Instructional videos

The books haves contains tunes written in a traditional Scandinavian folk music style, suitable for customized teaching, and for use in fiddling groups and with other instruments. Kattapols is the first book with the easiest tunes, and Kattalender is a bit more challenging. The tunes are arranged to be as easy as possible on the fiddle, rather than focusing on stylistically correct notation. The Norwegian titles of these tunes reflect that they were written during a period of fabulous ski conditions!

The melodies are considered the easiest parts; the harmony parts are recommended after you have finished learning the melodies.

Some of the tunes will not be as easy to play on cello. Nonetheless, I have chosen to write cello parts so that cellists may have the possibility of joining in. A big thank you goes out to Sivert Skavlan for his help and guidance in connection with the cello parts.

Apart from chords, the arrangements are not written out for accompaniment instruments such as bass, guitar and drums. Chords will be the best starting point for accompaniment, in addition to learning basic principles of accompaniment. Scandinavian traditional music like this has a rather solid framework, and after a while this will become predictable and logical with a bit of practice. There are more details in the accompaniment on the recordings, which makes the recordings a recommended source of reference.

All the tunes are available on all widely used streaming services. For those who are unfamiliar with the style, it is vital that you listen to the tunes before you start reading the music. And from experience, I highly recommend to approach the melodies by ear, and then later use the sheet music as a guide to any parts you might be uncertain about. Learning by ear is the most common way of learning any traditional style around the world.

The tunes are tested by Spelemannslaget Laust & Fast (The Spelemannslag “Loose and Solid”), a fiddling group which has been an important source of inspiration for the entire project. I thank all my predecessors who have worked with recruitment and published music for use in teaching. It is with great respect that I also have gained inspiration and experience from them.

The tunes are recorded in Øra Studio with the group Akebakken Spelemannslag, and are available for streaming.

Thank you to:

Daniel Falcon Græsdal, Eirik Hagerup Holm, Ingrid Gausemel Remøy, Jo Ranheim, Kai Roger Magnetun, Magnus Leite, Runa Bergitte Sødal, Sivert Skavlan, Skogen Sällström, Truls Rønning, and Øyvind Sandum, Øyvind Engen, Ronny Kjøsen, Einar Mellingseter, og Anders Holmås for making this recordings possible.

Thank you to the Norwegian center for folk music and folk dance, as well as Trøndelag Municipality for its economic support.

Translation by Rebecca Loft. And thank you to my English speaking friends that helped me a long, Sarah-Jane Summers and Mary Barthelemy.