Talk:Nyckelharpa

Sympathetic strings
According to, there were early versions that didn't have sympathetic strings. Isomorphic 00:23, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I have problems in understanding the term "drone strings". Shouldnt that be the same as resonant strings? / Habj 02:00, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
 * A drone string is one that plays only a single note, like a bagpipe drone. I think you still have to pluck/bow/whatever the string in order to make it sound.  Sympathetic strings are never plucked or bowed (I'm not sure if they're ever fretted to resonate with different notes.) Isomorphic 07:07, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Name change
English uses foreign words all the time if they refer to something that's part of a foreign culture. Nobody thinks a kimono should be called a "long robe" in English, or a potlatch should be called a "ceremonial feast". So similarly, in English we call this instrument a nyckelharpa, at least in my experience. Isomorphic 00:43, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Also, "Swedish keyed fiddle" and "Nordic keyed fiddle" get a couple hundred hits each on Google. "Nyckelharpa" gets a couple hundred thousand hits.  The proper title here is clear. Isomorphic 00:46, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Plural
To answer "Why impose an English plural on a Swedish word?", i.e. nyckelharpas v. nyckelharpor:

Mutt Lunker 00:19, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Consistency, as all plurals in the article were previously "nyckelharpas", now it has both forms.
 * Clarity as the article is in English, not Swedish and it may not be clear that a plural is intended with the ending -or, as opposed to, say, someone who plays the instrument. I'd imagine from the context one may guess that the instrument is meant and that the player doesn't have sympathetic strings but why muddy it?
 * A quick web search shows considerably more hits for "nyckelharpas" as opposed to "nyckelharpor", apart from non-English language sites. For instance, amongst other Swedish web sites so doing, the English version of www.nyckelharpa.com uses the form "nyckelharpas", not "nyckelharpor".
 * There are numerous examples of words in English derived from other languages whose plural in their own tongue would end other than in -s (e.g. -a, -ae, -en, -er, -i, -um). Some of these may retain their non -s ending if well known in English (e.g. media, data, cognoscenti, paparazzi) but "nyckelharpa" even in the singular would be regarded as obscure by the vast majority of English speakers, let alone in its Swedish plural form. As a musical comparison, I don't think the advocacy of "Flügelhörnern" rather than "fluglehorns" would garner much support.
 * OK, you see what I just did to the article. Sure beats going through the article sprinkling italics all around. __Just plain Bill 00:43, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, good solution. Changed the word order just to clarify that the translation applies to the singular. Mutt Lunker 12:17, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Infobox
Discussion of the infobox that just showed up is at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Musical Instruments. __Just plain Bill (talk) 23:05, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Unreferenced

 * I have removed the following "At the moment more and more nyckelharpa player are moving to this "Didier François technique"."

Spelling
The title of the article isd of little interest to me. What appears more important by far is that different names and spellings all get to this artilce. So get "nyckelharpe" coming to this page. 203.206.50.66 (talk) 14:47, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Technique
I would like to see more detail here, in particular the use of double- and triple-stops &/or the drone strings to produce chords. A quick read of the article would leave one with the impression that this is strictly a melody-plus-drone instrument, but I just listened to a recording with extensive chording. I do not play the instrument myself, so do not feel qualified. --D Anthony Patriarche (talk) 02:44, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Is this really a Swedish instrument?
How do we know this instrument is Swedish? Depictions have been found in various European countries around the same time. It seems to me there is no reason to assume this instrument was invented in Sweden, nor that it is anything typical Swedish. Rather, wandering musicians would play in Sweden and other places. And it just randomly happened that we have a Swedish depiction of that. But the instrument as such cannot be placed as being invented in Sweden. 77.241.136.32 (talk) 20:28, 18 June 2020 (UTC)


 * It is Swedish for the same reason kilts and bagpipes are Scottish, etc. It has long been part of the cultural identity in comparison to other countries, even though it might not have been invented there from the start, which in turn leads to that country leading the spread of that particular item. It is unknown which country introduced the key harp, but most of the earliest depictions comes from Sweden and Scandinavia, the candidate for the earliest depiction going to the Källunge Church portal from the mid 1300s: https://www.guteinfo.com/?id=3237, although it is impossible to say what instrument is depicted for sure. The tangent idea for string instruments seems to have been introduced in the 900s with the two-man organistrum, which was developed into the solo-played "Symphonia" with diatonic tangents in France or Spain in the 1200s. If this inspired the development of the key harp then there is a 100–200 year gap between the introduction of the Symphonia in Spain/France and the first indications of key harps in Sweden, thus it is not unlikely that the idea to add tangents to a fiddle was first done elsewere before being popularized in Sweden. Even then, the technological level in Sweden during the Late Middle Ages was fairly high, so it is far from impossible that the first key harp was produced by some bored luthier in Sweden.--Blockhaj (talk) 08:42, 1 May 2023 (UTC)