Humppa

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Humppa is a type of music from Finland. It is related to jazz and very fast foxtrot, played two beats to a bar. Typical speed is about 250 to 280 beats per minute. Humppa is also the name of a few social dances danced to humppa music. All dances involve bounce that follows the strong bass of the music. In Finnish language, the word humppa can also be used for all social dancing. The name humppa was invented by Antero Alpola for a radio show in 1950s. He picked it up from German Oktoberfest where the locals used the word to describe the playing of the band. The band probably used a tuba, as the sound of tuba on the first beat is like hump, the second beat coming as a pa. (The related German style is known as oompah.)

One form of Humppa dance is related to One-step, that arrived in Finland 1913. In this kind of humppa, both dancers take a step on each first beat (on "hump") and progress to the direction of dance. This is danced making turns in closed position or making figures by changing various open positions. The second Humppa form is related to Two-step, that came to Finland in 1910. This Humppa has some rhythm and movement from Samba and Waltz. A third form of dance, Nilkku, is based on a slow, slow, quick, quick rhythm. The first quick step hardly takes any weight and gives the dance an appearance of limping.

Social dancing in Finland had a decline due to new dances that were danced alone, such as the Twist, becoming popular in 1960s. Social dancing however never died and Humppa has maintained an important role in the dance events until today.

Due to the joyfulness of the music style, even those who don't know how to dance know the music style at least from various humorous artists, such as the Eläkeläiset.

Humppa is also popular among BSD programmers and other hacker culture aficionados. Especially Eläkeläiset is popular, especially since they make humppa versions of popular mainstream music.

The Finnish metal band Finntroll combines black metal and humppa elements. They describe their music as "trollish humppa metal" (with Swedish lyrics).