Customer Reviews

Folk Dance Music of Finland 31 Tunes Arranged for 1-3 Violins, Fiddles, or other "C" Instruments

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Of the thousands of Finnish fiddle tunes in existence, the 31 tunes included in this book are all wonderfully fun to play. Some are well known Finnish standards such as "Humfidifixin" and"Tuusteppi". A few are in minor keys.

The harmonies are pretty and the tunes are all quite danceable. The tunes are great for intermediate level fiddlers. The book includes waltzes, marches, polkas, schottises, polskas, jenkkas and a humppa!

I find this book to be an excellent introduction to Finnish folk dance music. I was happy to find a Finnish folk dance music book in English available. Maybe someday there will be a Folkdance Music of Finland II...Wouldn't THAT be cool?

It baffles me how these tunes can have been transposed from "field recordings in all parts of Finland" as hardly any of the 31 tunes have Finnish language titles - they are mostly in Swedish. Furthermore, many of the tunes are attributed to people with Swedish names like Nyholm and and Bjork. This means that if/when Beth Weber was making her recordings she can never have left the Swedish-speaking areas of the West Coast. In particular she can't possibly have gone to Savo or Karelia where some of the best traditional music comes from. Hence this book gives a very distorted idea of what Finnish music is about.