Talk:Hardanger fiddle

hardingfele in the film Fargo
I have also heard about this. But all I was able to hear was Swedish nyckelharpa. So in which scenes is the Hardangerfiddle to be heard?

--Frode Inge Helland 17:56, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Someone have to remove the controversy part or at last cite the sources

More info
I can get a lot more information on this. The county I'm studying in is the birthplace of this fiddle, and a number of communities feature the fiddle in their coat of arms. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jkdeadite (talk • contribs) 15:51, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Transposition
The article says that this a B-flat instrument because a written A produces a B-flat, a half-step higher. According to what I know and what is in Transposing instrument a B-flat instrument is one that produces a note two half-steps lower than is written, i.e. a written C produces a B-flat, hence the name. Therefore, a Hardingfele, that plays B-flat for a written A or, presumably, D-flat for a written C, is really a D-flat instrument. JimCubb (talk) 20:50, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

JimCubb's comments and the Wikipedia article on transposing instruments (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposing_instrument) look correct to me; so the first paragraph under the heading tunings is incorrect in describing the hardingfele as a B-flat instrument. According to an expert hardingfele player with whom I play regularly the hardingfele is a D instrument, i.e. when she plays a note written as C the pitch played is a concert D. When she plays a tune written in D major I accompany her in E major. Thumbdropper (talk) 22:17, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

On second look I see that JimCubb's third sentence phrase "a Hardingfele, that plays B-flat for a written A" is incorrect because a hardingfele plays a B-natural for a written A.  I will leave it someone with first hand knowledge to correct the article. Thumbdropper (talk) 22:38, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm the hf player Thumbdropper is referring to, and we tune our A strings to a concert B natural, or thereabout. Different instruments sound best at different pitches, and since it's usually a solo instrument, we can tune to the pitch our instrument sounds best at. This can depend on a lot of things, including string thickness. There are many strings thicknesses available for each of the four upper and five lower strings. The man I bought my hf from kept weaker strings on it, and habitually tuned the A string to C natural. This allowed him to play in the key of A, a comfortable fiddle key, when playing with diatonic accordions tuned to C & G. 173.228.28.175 (talk) 01:35, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I've corrected the transposition section. The Hardanger Fiddle is actually a D instrument, not a B-flat, as Thumbdropper says. I also added sources for this, and for the understings. Opus 132 (talk) 13:54, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Sinclair Lewis and allusion to religious controversy over the fiddle
In his novel Main Street (1920), Sinclair Lewis alludes in chapter 20 to the "fiddle controversy" among Norwegian Lutherans:

In the manner of one who has just beheld a two-headed calf they repeated that they had "never HEARD such funny ideas!" They were staggered to learn that a real tangible person, living in Minnesota, and married to their own flesh-and-blood relation, could apparently believe that divorce may not always be immoral; that illegitimate children do not bear any special and guaranteed form of curse; that there are ethical authorities outside of the Hebrew Bible; that men have drunk wine yet not died in the gutter; that the capitalistic system of distribution and the Baptist wedding-ceremony were not known in the Garden of Eden; that mushrooms are as edible as corn-beef hash; that the word "dude" is no longer frequently used; that there are Ministers of the Gospel who accept evolution; that some persons of apparent intelligence and business ability do not always vote the Republican ticket straight; that it is not a universal custom to wear scratchy flannels next the skin in winter; that a violin is not inherently more immoral than a chapel organ; that some poets do not have long hair; and that Jews are not always pedlers or pants-makers.

Born in a small Minnesota village, Lewis must have gotten wind of this controversy and included it in this list.

--Janko (talk) 18:52, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

diagram of the multiple strings
Please add a better diagram of the multiple strings. Perhaps a cross-sectional drawing?-71.174.188.32 (talk) 16:12, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Introduction to Public Musicology
— Assignment last updated by Anacasb (talk) 14:25, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Other notable players
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigbj%C3%B8rn_Bernhoft_Osa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ola_Mosafinn MVH, T 84.208.65.62 (talk) 00:05, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Bridge size and shape
The article says:

"The Hardingfele's bridge is unique compared to other bowed instruments. It is somewhat taller and wider, resulting in the strings being slightly lower and farther apart; this allows for the easy execution of double-stops (playing of two strings at once)."

But how can a taller bridge result in lower strings? That makes no sense. This could be a basic mistake, or just unclear writing. Is the bridge perhaps arched differently, rather than being taller? Changing the amount of arch to the bridge would certainly affect the playing of double stops. (In particular, flattening the arch would make double and triple stops easier to play, though also more likely to be played by accident.) TooManyFingers (talk) 18:29, 26 March 2024 (UTC)