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Page 413 - May 1, 2013

Uh-oh, looks like these two aren't going to be very helpful. So, many of you guys guessed correctly a few pages back: the instrument was a kantele! I won't elaborate just yet on the mythological aspects of the instrument for those of you who have no idea , because you really don't need to know (yet). (But yes, it does have magic powers.)

I did, however, promise I would dig up some examples of the kantele used in Finnish folk music, so that I did! This first one here is "Kun mun kultani tulisi" (When my loved one would come) by Loituma, the lyrics are from an ancient Finnish poem found in the Kanteletar compilation, author unknown naturally. I don't know if the kantele in this one is a 5 or 15 string (more modern) kantele, but eh:


Well these guys clearly use a traditional 5 string kantele, since that picture is of a dude with one in his lap. Karelian (far eastern Finnish) folk music assemble, Tui Tui Tuomen Kukka:


The band Suden Aika (The time of the Wolf) has quite a few kantele-accompanied songs on their Ilokivi-album from 2011, with lyrics that are clearly built out of various poems and verses from both the Kalevala and Kanteletar. Couldn't find them on youtube but they do have a myspace page with a few songs from the album for free, including these three:

Suden Aika - Ilokivi (Rock of Joy)
Suden Aika - Raudan Synty (The birth of Iron)
Suden Aika - Emon Tuomat (The ones brought by the mother (or something like that))

There we go, that should be plenty to get a feel of how Tuomi's little harp instrument sounds in action. Have fun listening to those, even though every one of them sounds pretty moody (except "Ilokivi", which literally means "rock of joy" so it better be more cheerful.)

And today's update is a few hours later than usual because 1st of May is a holiday here in Finland so no school -> yes sleep. See you all tomorrow with Hannu's reaction to little Tuomi's stubbornness!

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