spelaträff

Today we went to a gathering of musicians, held at the home of the couple who teach the nyckleharpa course. Theirs is a lovely old farm house on the Luleå river, about half way between the cities of Luleå and Boden (so about 20 or 30 minutes drive from our place). I always love visiting them, since their house and property are so beautiful, and it is even more fun when they host one of these gatherings.

Picture, if you will, a beautiful summer day with one group of five to ten musicians gathered at the porch to the house, all playing, another group of 4 to 8 musician a short way across the yard, under the trellis, also playing, another small group gathered inside the house to play, in the room that is furnished authentically for when the house was built, sometime in the 1800's, and other small groups scattered here and there for conversation or yet more music.

I set my hammer dulcimer up inside, in that beautiful old fashioned room, and spent a the first couple of hours after we arrived with it, either playing or, more often, showing it to others and encouraging them to try playing it. Most people had never seen one before, and it was fun to share it with them. Not everyone was willing to try, but most of them were. I taught one friend, who had come out with us, how to play a simple waltz on it (with the ironic name of Svara valsen). Another guy is one of those confidant musicians who knows he can play anything, and he did--I think he was making up the tune as he went, but he sat down and just started playing with confidence, and it sounded great.

I took a break from demo mode when food was served, and then spent most of the rest of the afternoon relaxing and occasionally chatting with people (and still, sometimes, taking them in to see the dulcimer and try it), and also spent a bit of time reading, and even got in a half an hour nap on a couch listening to the musicians on the porch. All and all a wonderful, relaxing day.

The only people I spoke English with all day was David and the two friends we drove out there with, and only rarely had to ask people to repeat themselves, so, clearly, my Swedish is getting better. However, my accent must still be strong, since pretty much everyone I spoke with asked me where I come from and how long I have been in Sweden. However, by the time we got back in the car to head home I was really ready for English again. I look forward to the time when it is as easy to speak Swedish as English, and wonder when it will happen. No doubt sooner if I keep making the effort.

Next weekend is the big Spelmansstämman event where our folk music group will be performing, and there will be dances in the evening. After that we only have Midsummer's dance performance, and the folk music season will be done and we can focus on the Earth Cellar. (Hopefully lord_kjar will have time to go fetch his dad's tractor sometime between now and then.)

hos vs hus

Some things take longer to notice than others. I learned fairly quickly after moving to Sweden that the word "hus" means both "house" and "building" in Swedish--they don't distinguish if the building is residential or not. I have also been hearing them use the what I thought was the same word as part of a phrase that meant, so I assumed "at _X__'s house", and, since I was already ok with the word applying to many different types of buildings (even though it sounds much like our word "house"), it didn't worry me that sometimes the context clearly didn't actually include their house, but just meant with them.

It turns out that, actually, it is my hearing that is an issue (again!), and when someone says what sounded to me like "hus ___X___", they were actually saying "hos ___X___", and hos = at or with (or in or among, or about, depending on context). Oops. Funny that it has taken me 3.5 years living in Sweden to realize this, and then only because I tried to use the phrase myself in writing, and it got edited. It had to be in writing to figure out my mistake though--if I had used the phrase in speech they would have just assumed it was my bad accent that was the issue, and not realized that I was trying to say a different word than is meant to be there...