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Written in fRoots issue 246, 2003


VARIOUS ARTISTS
Hiien Hivuksista – Jouhikko Music From Finland
Folk Music Institute KICD 82 (2003)

The jouhikko is the Finnish version of the bowed lyre found around Norden and the Baltic. Designs vary quite widely, with players often making their own instrument, these days based on old examples, but it’s essentially a soundbox bearing usually three, sometimes four, twisted horsehair strings, two of which are drones. The player bows across all or some of them with a short arched bow, while putting the fingers of the other hand through a hole in the instrument to press their backs – the backs of their fingers, that is - against the melody string to make the notes of the tune. (Got that, teams? There will be points… and what do points mean…?)
      Hiien Hivuksista is the first ever full CD of jouhikko playing, which today is considerably revived after nearly dying out. It features ten of the leading players, including revival pioneer maker and player Rauno Nieminen, who wrote the book, Jouhikko, that has become key reading to the new players for its tunes and building plans.
      They play solo and together, sometimes with vocals, occasionally joined by nyckelharpa, jew’s harp, harmonium or birchbark clarinet. The material is largely their own compositions, but still inspired by the styles and techniques of the last of the old players, most influential among them Feodor Pratšu, whose music was recorded and transcribed early in the 20th century.
      The jouhikko’s sound is distinctive; fairly quiet, like a drily husky fiddle with chugging drones, the changes in bow direction giving a lively rhythmic impetus or a menacing surging pulse. Particularly when ganged up, it’s the sort of whispery, elusively threatening sound of the forest that the first, acoustic trio incarnation of Sweden’s Hedningarna was built on.


© 2003 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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fRoots - The feature and review-packed UK-based monthly world roots music magazine in which these reviews were published, and by whose permission they're reproduced here.

Kansanmusiikki-instituutti (Finland's national Folk Music Institute).

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