05/22/2026
🎻 Did you catch that uniquely resonant instrument during the Southern Oregon Repertory Singers concert?
Violinist Vicki Gunn was playing the Nyckelharpa and shares more about the instrument below:
The Nyckelharpa, or "keyed fiddle", was first depicted on a 14th century church portal in Sweden, though the details of the instrument's origins remain unknown. Depictions of Nyckelharpas can be found in Denmark, Germany, Italy (one from 1408 in the Palazzo Pubblico chapel in Siena), as well as other places in Europe. While the violin was used more often in Swedish folk music, the Nyckelharpa became a popular folk instrument in Uppand in the 17th century. By the 19th century it was considered more refined, played in concert halls in Stockholm, and by the early 20th century it was considered the archetypal instrument for Swedish folk music, along with the violin. Now some call it the national instrument of Sweden.
While it's called a "fiddle" in many languages, it differs from the violin family in a number of ways. The player's left fingers never touch the strings; instead, one presses keys on the side of the neck, and those keys stop the strings as a finger would. One can't use vibrato or make a glissando on the nyckelharpa for this reason. The neck is huge, way too thick for most human hands to wrap around, so those keys are essential!
Another way in which it differs from the violin family is the way it's held. Violins and violas are held beneath the jaw, on the left shoulder, but nyckelharpas are held across the chest, the exact location depending on the size of the player. Many players rest their right arm on top of the instrument when they play, but when I do that, my hand goes completely numb within seconds, so I use Didier Francois's technique, in which the arm comes up from beneath the tailpiece. The Nyckelharpa bow is much shorter than a violin or viola bow; a longer bow might poke the player in the eye!
Nyckelharpas have four strings that get played with the bow and stopped by keys, with the exception of some traditional Swedish instruments, which have keys for the top three out of four strings, the bottom (fourth) string being used as a drone. In addition to these strings, the Nyckelharpa has twelve sympathetic strings, each tuned to a note in the scale. These twelve strings don't get played, they just resonate.
Instrumentalist Vicki Gunn bought her nyckelharpa in 2019 and immediately started to learn how to play it. She started learning to play it right away and then had two lessons from Amy HĂĄkanson.
During the pandemic, she had lots of time to practice, so she started with Scandinavian folk tunes on Folkwiki, and then bought the books published by the Swedish group Väsen. One of the main players in that group, Olaf, is a nyckelharpist extraordinaire, and he and his colleagues have written lots of wonderful music for the instrument. Then Vicki started playing medieval tunes, such as Ma Douce Dame Jolie, on nyckelharpa. She finds that medieval music sounds especially great on nyckelharpa.
At the moment, Vicki is transposing the Bartok Violin duos down a 5th and learning them on nyckelharpa; She has a friend near Ashland who is a good nyckelharpa player, and they're going to try those duos out.
Someday, Vicki hopes to buy a treble nyckelharpa (violin range) and a contrabassharpa. She has started learning Bach on my traditional nyckelharpa, which is in the viola range, but it's difficult to do that with only keyed strings.
For more information about nyckelharpas check out The American Nyckelharpa Society at https://www.nyckelharpa.org
