Geitungen

Geitungen is:

Vidar Skrede on hardanger fiddle, fiddle and guitars. He is a freelance musician and a member of numerous Nordic bands, like The Great Norwegian Guitar Quartet, NOMAS, The Secret Carpet Club, Fant&Fente, Aamos, Stimenn, and Vidar Skrede Dynamo Band. He has a masters degree in Nordic folk music from the Royal School of Music in Stockholm.

Christer Rossebø plays fiddle, mandolin, mandola and guitar. A freelance musician, known from bands like Bergen Mandolin Band, Earlybird Stringband, Fant & Fente and Filibuster, Christer is a candidate in folk music performance at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo.

Håvard Ims plays button accordion. He is a former Norwegian champion on the instrument.

Geitungen is a Norwegian trio that presents tunes that were once popular with party-goers in the hinterland of Rogaland county, tunes that were dance-floor favorites – the hits of yesteryear. Geitungen plays the tunes in the rhythmic fashion that were played then and there. The three musicians’ fiddles, melodeon, mandolin, hardanger fiddle, mandola and guitars combine to color the soundboard. The expression is straightforward and the music ranges from cosy, warm mazurka to hot-headed hopsars and plaintive waltzes, sometimes with elements of more contemporary popular music styles in the arrangements. With their capricious and compelling playing, Geitungen takes you back, far out to the poorly lit dance floors of the more festive parts of rural Rogaland.

Rogaland is a county on the South West coast of Norway and is surrounded by the counties Hordaland, Telemark and Vest-Agder and the North Sea in the West - all of these areas having rich folk music traditions give Rogaland good musical connections. However the tunes from Rogaland have been a secret until early 80's and have been kept in a environment beyond national romanticism and avant garde fiddling, just simple, groovy, downhome essentials of catchy tunes. They are highly suitable for playing at any Scandinavian jam session like in the kitchen, at the pub, in a bush, on the dance floor and even on a stage... These tunes cover it all: from the old springar, halling and hullaslag (huldre tunes), to the newer types like waltz, shottish, hopsar (polka) and mazurka. The newer tunes are strongly colored by the older springar and halling music both in tonality and in form.

In the Tunes from Rogaland workshop (on Friday, June 11) you will get a close up meeting with the most outstanding young musicians of the Rogaland fiddle tradition of today through the trio Geitungen and their tunes. They play a wide range of instruments like fiddle, harding fiddle, two-rowed accordions, guitars and mandolins, and will also welcome any kind of instruments to join in. Besides teaching the tunes, they will also also teach usable arrangements for the tunes. The workshop will, in other words, give you a broad perspective of the tunes both in what they are all about and and how to make the most out of them in your own playing.

The workshop is for any melodic instruments, percussive and harmonic instruments are also welcome to join (the teachers will be playing harding fiddle, fiddle, guitar, mandolin, and melodeon) You should be able to learn and play melodies by ear (but we will have a backup on sheets just in case...)

For more information, check out www.geitungen.no - listen to tracks from Geitungen's two latest albums in the player on their website for inspiration. They also have a myspace page here: http://www.myspace.com/geitungen