The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #11309   Message #83397
Posted By: Joe Offer
02-Jun-99 - 02:33 AM
Thread Name: Tune Req: Ganglat Fran Mockfjard
Subject: RE: Music req: Ganglat Fran Mockfjard
Here's from the album notes, written by Gordon Bok:

GÅNGLÅT FRÅN MOCKFJÄRD

(pronounced) "Gonglot fron Mockfyard" - a walking song from the town of Mockfjard in Sweden. I (Bok) first heard it from Dave Kaynor, who collected this and many other fine tunes over the years of his travels in Sweden. Dave says it was made popular by Anders Frisell of Mockfjard, "a powerhouse in the fiddle tradition over there."

An alternate title is "The Summer Farm and Summer's Joy," harking from the days when the women used to take the children and animals up in the hills for the summer while the men would work the fields down in the floodplains where their winter farms were. Some of these tunes began their lives in those hills, as a way for the women to communicate with each other over long distances.

Dave, who lives in Montague, Massachusetts, uses it as a processional, when musicians have to walk from one place to another in company: a very exciting sound.