Under the microscope: Fanitullen – the devil’s lilt

The Jew’s harp player and maker Mikkel Kaavenes.

By Ånon Egeland
Translated by Lucy Moffatt

Under the microscope: Close readings of Jew’s harp tunes

As many readers will know, the ‘Fanitullen’ of the Setesdal tradition is different from the iconic tune performed on a Hardanger fiddle in troll tuning (AEAC#), which is often linked to the legend on which the 19 th century Norwegian poet Jørgen Moe based his famous poem.

In Setesdal, ‘Fanitullen’ is played on a fiddle tuned to ADAE and bears no melodic resemblance to its better-known namesake. You might think that this was the fiddle tune that served as the basis for the version that the Jew’s harp player and maker Mikkel Kaavenes (1872-1939) recorded for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) in August 1938.

But it isn’t. The tune is related to a quite different, relatively rare tune with a similarly devilish name that Eivind Groven called ‘Gamle-Eirik,’ the Norwegian equivalent of Old Nick.

More recently, Bjørgulv Straume (1938-2024) and Sigurd Brokke (b. 1971) have recorded the tune on albums, and both probably based their versions on the NRK recording of Mikkel Kaavenes.

Straume and Brokke are both important role models for many of the younger guard of Jew’s harp players. It is fascinating to hear how much the tune changes with each new link in the chain of transmission. It’s a little like the whispering game, Pass it on – only for Jew’s harp.

In some cases, the changes are so dramatic that it’s barely possible to recognise the fundamental motifs from Mikkel Kaavenes’s ‘original.’ That’s why I thought it would be good to take a closer look at his version of the tune.

The original recording is the natural place to start.

And here is a full transcription of the same recording:

A transcription like this can be an important tool for trying to identify different aspects of Mikkel Kaavenes’s style, such phrasing/placement of the strokes relative to the stomping, ornamentation etc. It also helps us understand how Mikke Kaavenes varies his performance both melodically and in terms of the musical structure (number of repeats, order of the parts etc.).

But this kind of transcription is too long and complicated for learning purposes. Besides, to produce an identical version of the NRK recording would be to miss the point.

Instead, the performer should have a mental map in their head, a kind of template that should generally be varied not just in melody, ornamentation and phrasing but also in the order of the parts/motifs and the number of repetitions.

Based on the two playthroughs on the 1938 recording, I have tried to recreate something akin to the map Mikke Kaavenes may have had in his head. Of course, it’s impossible to say anything definitive about this. In this style, even defining where motifs begin and end is an entirely subjective matter.

So the following mental map of ‘Fanitullen’ is, ultimately, my own, but the result will hopefully work fine for the purposes of learning.