Sunday, January 17, 2010

Ukuleles in Jokkmokk, Norrbottens Lan, Sweden

In Swedish, Jokkmokk is pronounced "Yawk-mawk". So I had a visitor from Jokkmokk, Sweden just recently click onto the Humble Uker Ramblings blog. I found that there are Ukes in Jokkmokk! Ukes are everywhere. Why is Jokkmokk important? We'll it was one of the towns that I visited in my journey up to the far north town of Kiruna.
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So I googled Jokkmokk+Ukulele and found a bit of a journal of an exchange student and her life with a musical family. Here's a really short home-made ukulele video:
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She also commented about her living with a musical family,

"Music fills the house - sometimes lovely music - sometimes the Penny Whistle Orchestra - sometimes the Laponia Ukulele Orchestra but music is loved here! There was always someone noodle-ing around on some instrument or other and the ukuleles were breeding on the sofa. It was delightful to find so much music around all being made as you listened."


A band link was provided for a band named Glesbygd'n. Here's a MySpace Band Page for the band: http://myspace.com/glesbygdn [No ukes in here.]
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This band is influenced by Swedish Folk Music, Soul, Jazz and the New European wave of Roots Raggae and dub. Singer Arvid uses a 400 year old dialectic tradition of Arvidsjaur, Sweden which is in the deepest woods of Lapland.
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Swedish interview of Arvid [In Swedish]









3 comments:

  1. Very well done videos, too. Arvid's dialect may be traditional to Lapland, but Fender, it seems, is a universal language. My two favorite videos using Tele shaped ukuleles are:

    The Corner Laughers - Stonewords
    from: DHeffington

    Bay Area band, not a lot of uke, perhaps, but the cemetery setting more than makes up for that. Karla Kane plays a K Wave Tele.

    Loved By A Looney Ukelele Original From Mick
    from: MalquiLans

    Offbeat, Mick Lans plays an acoustic-electric Mahalo Tele.

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  2. the uke/sofa picture...amazing!!! lovely!!!

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  3. I discovered this post and your blog via a comment from Ron Hale on my blog Ukulele & Languages.
    Thank you for sharing this ukulele midnight sun from Jokkmokk and for making us travel to Northern Sweden. Tack så mycket !

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