{"id":1708,"date":"2022-04-28T15:45:47","date_gmt":"2022-04-28T15:45:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/folksweden.com\/?page_id=1708"},"modified":"2022-04-28T15:53:52","modified_gmt":"2022-04-28T15:53:52","slug":"vallat-fran-valo","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/folksweden.com\/index.php\/vallat-fran-valo\/","title":{"rendered":"Vall\u00e5t fr\u00e5n Val\u00f6"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\u00a0 This is a\u00a0Vall\u00e5t fr\u00e5n Val\u00f6<\/strong> in Uppland.\u00a0 A Vall\u00e5t is a special kind of tune in Sweden, which might be called a “pastoral” in English.<\/p>

In bygone times, Swedish farms were small.\u00a0 \u00a0In some areas in the summertime the limited acreage was used entirely for food crops and hay to be saved for the winter, while the farm animals were taken up to the hills where they could forage in the open summer pastures.\u00a0 Women on the farms were charged with this responsibility, called “going to\u00a0vall<\/strong>“.\u00a0 \u00a0In different parts of the country, the name for these pastures was usually “f\u00e4bod<\/strong>” or “s\u00e4ter<\/strong>“.<\/p>

Music was played in the f\u00e4bod, of course, but most often on simple instruments like the cowhorn, birchbark horn, wooden flute, or just sung.\u00a0 \u00a0A tune in this tradition was a\u00a0vall\u00e5t<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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These tunes might be just for passing the time, but there were also many with specific purposes.\u00a0 They would be used to communicate with others with messages such as “We are missing a calf”, “There are strangers approaching”, or “There are wolves in the neighborhood”.<\/p>

The message with this particular tune was simply a\u00a0lockl\u00e5t<\/strong>, or “cow call”.\u00a0<\/p>

I first heard this tune played by the iconic fiddler\u00a0Henry Wallin<\/strong>, brother and fiddle partner of nyckelharpa great\u00a0Ceylon Wallin<\/strong>.\u00a0 \u00a0There is a family version of the tune that is simply a polska, but I was very impressed with Henry’s bow work in the Vall\u00e4t version, presented here.<\/p>

To the left is a photo of Swedish cows in a summer pasture.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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<\/div>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\u00a0<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Here is a video of me playing the Vall\u00e5t fr\u00e5n Val\u00f6, as I learned it from Henry Wallin.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 This is a\u00a0Vall\u00e5t fr\u00e5n Val\u00f6 in Uppland.\u00a0 A Vall\u00e5t is a special kind of tune in Sweden, which might be called a “pastoral” in English. In bygone times, Swedish farms were small.\u00a0 \u00a0In some areas in the summertime the limited acreage was used entirely for food crops and hay to be saved for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1708","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","wpbf-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/folksweden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/folksweden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/folksweden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/folksweden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/folksweden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/folksweden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/folksweden.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}