Traditional Nordic dance music
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Traditional Nordic dance music is a type of traditional music or folk music that once was common in the mainland part of the Nordic countries — Scandinavia plus Finland. The person who plays this kind of music might be called speleman (Swedish/Norwegian), spelman (Swedish), spel(l)emann (Norwegian), pelimanni (Finnish) or spillemand (Danish). Finnish traditional dance music is often called pelimanni music in English, while there does not seem to exist a similar, widespread term for the corresponding music from the other countries. It is often more meaningful to distinguish between the traditional dance music from different regions than between music from the countries as such. Some concepts in the field can be defined as Norwegian or Finnish, but most are either common to all four countries or local. Besides the dance music tradition, all countries also have other traditions of folk music that are not shared to a similar extent.
Nordic folk dance music consists of various dance rhythms, that do not originate in the Nordic countries but once were the fashion dances among the European nobility. With time these dances spread to common people, and in some cases they remanined there long after the nobility had exchanged them for new fashionable dances. Many of these rhythms can also be found in other parts of Europe, and some of them has also been used in classical music.
The majority of the tunes are in minor keys. Traditionally, there were many tunes in keys that can not be classified as either minor or major. Traces of this still exist, but most of that disappeared when the accordion got popular. The majority of the dances that goes with this music are partner dances, but exceptions exist such as the minuets that are common in some parts of Finland and also can be found in parts of Sweden, the solo-dance halling, generally considered typically Norwegian but also found in parts of Sweden, and the Finnish quadrille danced by several couples in formation. The most common dance rhythms is the polska. It is in 3/4 (three beats to the bar). In the most common polskas, the third beat is accentuated as well as the first. There are extremely many local versions of the polska rhythm, and generally a local version of how it is danced goes with the local music although many of these have disappeared. The schottische, also known as reinlender, polka and waltz are other common dance rhythms. In addition there are many other more uncommon dance rhythms, where only a small number of tunes survived such as the anglais (Swedish: engelska).
The most typical instrument is the fiddle. In most cases normal violins are used, but there are exceptions such as the hardingfele, used in parts of Norway, which has a set of sympathetic strings in addition to the normal four strings. The instrument nyckelharpa (keyed fiddle) probably once existed in a large part of Europe, but survived until modern times only in Sweden. Other instruments that traditionally often were used are simple clarinets, mainly home-made, and later accordion. Musicians in this type of music today also might use other instruments that were not used traditionally, as well as writing new tunes in more or less old style.
