Stødt kanel (Pounded Cinnamon) |
| Niels Mejlhede Jensen, Bøgeløvsvej 4, 2830 Virum, Denmark. e-mail (web master) |
CONTENTS: (remember: you can use Ctrl Home in usual browsers to get to the top of this page, to the links here)
Photo of this week: The dance of this week, the family waltz,
danced at the Open Air Museum with "Spillemandsdansen" ("Fiddlers' Dance").
2 big circles are dancing, one inside the other. We are at the moment when
the dancers dance waltz towards "the stranger". Some of us wear our folklore
costumes at this special occasion. We do not have a national folklore costume
in Denmark (like they have in big Norway), but we have a whole variety
of regional costumes. In Denmark we usually think of our costume as the
costume
of all the old days. But as you will see next week, old-time clothes could
also change (a little) in time according to some change of local fashion.
Christmas is a joyful time. Together with all your family. But away from your family, left alone, in a far away country, Christmas can be some difficult days to get through. In 1974, when I worked at the Technical University because a professor was on leave for two years, I participated in a French language refreshing course offered by Institut Française to the Technical University staff this year. Half of the class were foreign guest researchers, coming there to learn French, and - to seek company with new Danes. The Technical University is a big place, build for a future with more people. So the guest researcher will often get the fine conditions of being placed alone in an office of his own, alone in peace, with his research all day - month after month. At the last lesson in French before Christmas we celebrated the coming Christmas, and afterwards the foreign group decided to have a cosy time in the staff canteen. I went along. After a while they started to talk about how difficult it was to get into contact with the Danes, how alone you were in Denmark. You feel to be all forgotten here by everybody. But no. After one year here, they told, you suddenly discover that you are not at all neglected by everybody, because then somebody tells the police, that you have stayed in Denmark with your foreign car for a whole year, and you now have to remember to pay the very high Danish car duty! I felt so ashamed on behalf of Denmark. I asked a Norwegian guest researcher at our institute who had been here for almost a year. He had then not yet visited a Danish home. I was busy with 5 Russian guest researchers, because I previously was so very well received from the very first day when I was a guest at the Hydrodynamic Institute in Siberia for 4 months.
It can be hard to be alone, away from home, specially when sitting alone
doing research. What could I then do about this problem here at the Technical
University? My contribution to all interested could be: folk dancing. First
as an introduction, and then every tuesday evening in "Spillemandsdansen"
("Fiddlers' Dance") at the Technical University, with the happenings and
private get togethers this could include. In 1983, after 4 years of practising
the music and leadership I felt strong enough to go ahead with this. I
would very much like to have the same possibility for social contacts when
in an another country. So I then offered this idea to the leadership of
the Technical University to promote. But they apparently did not feel the
same interest for folk dancing. So it is good we now have the Web to promote
those events around in the world.
Dance of the week, 1999, March 1':
The melody can be heard in midi on computer piano in my tempo (if you
have a sound card). (The melody will loop here until you stop it. In the
table below it will play once). (I have not played the tunes here with
the "drive" I want for dance music).
| 1 | melody | the traditional good dancing melody, polished through generations of use on the fiddle | |
| . | chord
text |
Midi metronome = 160 | simple (folk music) chords, natural for playing the accordion;
these chords are used to make the other parts or voices in triad harmony; there should be no tension from dissonance anywhere including in octavo |
| 2 | A | (Above), parallel part nearest above in third or little more above | |
| 3 | B | (Below), parallel part nearest below in third or little more below | |
| 4 | ns | simple n part; often with the tonic feeling and often with the basic dance rhythm ("motor part") | |
| 5 | C1 | C parts are made from A and B parts, and so they are two parts to the melody | |
| 6 | C2 | C2 is less simple than C1 | |
| 7 | mod =
contra part |
voice up and down (mostly) contra to the melody; it is also made from A and B | |
| 8 | n1 | n is a less constricted part, and tones from the melody are freely included | |
| 9 | n2 | . | |
| 10 | C1 | In octavo | |
| 11 | blank | . | blank staff for making your own part according to the principles here |
(The midi music is not repeated, except for 1' and 2' voltas).
Use also octavo, up and down.
Where wanted, notes can be changed according to the principles (use
a colour pencil), e.g. to improve the B part with some notes from
A.
The music is aimed at dancing, so part of the orchestra can be the
underlying "motor" when another instrument group is playing its "solo"
part (improvisation) as one of the many repetitions.
The double bass may play its usual notes, because of its low pitch.
It is better to choose a more simple part and play it well.
Accordion: beats per bar: 1+2
(Help coming back from that note
sheet: CLICK note sheet to come back to this page, or just close note
window.
Remember: the note sheet opens in a new separate window, and that may
cover the whole screen. The back button in the tools bar does probably
not work because the window is new, with no history. All you see on the
page are notes because I have placed no link back here for not disturbing
easy submitting to the printer. Close the note window with a click at the
top or with Alt F4, or minimize or reduce the window, or ..., and you are
back to the main page that was there behind all the time).