Open mic origins to local stages with Folk-rooted storytelling, emotion & exploration.
Have you ever heard a Swedish Nyckelharpa? Here's your chance!
If a Tree Falls is a Berkeley-based folk trio featuring Mark Walstrom and daughter Jennie Walstrom - who together do that epic Everly brothers harmonizing - along with musical pal Bernie Lenhoff. Together they play the nyckelharpa, the dobro, guitar, and mandolin and sing beautiful traditional songs. Many know Mark through his work at his shop, Timbre Folk & Baroque, where he sells and repairs stringed instruments. The trio are regulars at the HOOT!
"The sound this trio makes isn't heard, it's felt - like a pang of love, or longing, or loss. And their alchemy not only carries you through such emotions, but leaves you in a place somewhere beyond them. This is sound that purifies." - Jxo
A nyckelharpa has 16 strings: 3 melody strings, one drone string, and 12 sympathetic vibration (or resonance) strings. It has about 37 wooden keys arranged to slide under the strings. Each key has a tangent that reaches up and stops (frets) a string to make a particular note. The player uses a short bow with the right hand, and pushes on the keys with the left. It has a 3 octave range (from the same low "G" as a fiddle's 4th string) and sounds something like a fiddle, only with lots more resonance.
Bernie Lenhoff (Guitar, dobro, voice)
Mark Walstrom (Guitar, mandolin, nyckelharpa, voice)
Jennie Walstrom (voice, nyckelharpa)
$15-$30.
Presented by Calliope: East Bay Music & Arts