Folk dance music with improvisations

Høstdans (Harvest Hopsa)

Niels Mejlhede Jensen, Bøgeløvsvej 4, 2830 Virum, Denmark. e-mail (web master)

Old tune used for folk dancing in Denmark 1999 arranged with improvisations

Link to index to other dances.

CONTENTS: (remember: you can use Ctrl Home in usual browsers to get to the top of this page, to the links here)


Photo of dancing hopsa at Open Air Museum

Photo of this week: The dance of this week, hopsa, danced at the Open Air Museum (Northern Copenhagen Metropolis). This museum shows many farm houses and buildings from the rural old Denmark, spread over a big area, my favourite museum. On this photo Spillemandsdansen (Fiddlers' Dance) is playing here a sunday in august, inviting the visitors to participate in the dance. Spillemandsdansen has the tradition to play here and invite everybody to come and dance every 2' day of Pentecost (Whit monday), i.e. monday following Pentecost Sunday in May or June (2' pinsedag).
 

A little story:

I plan to place a dance from my music book *117* here on this home page, maybe once a week. This is the 7' dance.

Hopsa is a fast dance and demands energy.  So do not repeat the music more than once, or not at all. (I sometimes play it even a little faster than given here). We often have a hopsa to end a group of dances. So in Spillemandsdansen we have two hopsas an evening with 30 dances: one before the coffee break and one before going home. Hopsa is physically demanding, but you can "cheat", specially as a gent. We have another energetic dance: "galop", which is very rare now a days here in Copenhagen. There you cannot cheat. When I did research for my family genealogy book (my roots) on the island of Mors, I was told of my long deceased grandfather that he as young was notable good in dancing a beautiful galop. So that was what would count 90 years ago.
 

Dance of the week, 1999, February 15:

Høstdans . 

(English: "Harvest Hopsa, or Harvest Hop Dance").
Dance of couples.
Music from Denmark.

The melody can be heard in midi on computer piano in my tempo (if you have a sound card). (The melody will loop here until you stop it. In the table below it will play once). (I have not played the tunes here with the "drive" I want for dance music).
 
 

Music description:

The music notes are written as a score of 12 staves on one A3 page = two A4 pages side by side (= an open A4 book).
Place the two note sheets side by side. Then staff 1 (= melody) on the left page continues as staff 1 on the right page.
The 12 staves:
 
1 melody the traditional good dancing melody, polished through generations of use on the fiddle
. chord
text
Midi metronome = 180 simple (folk music) chords, natural for playing the accordion;
these chords are used to make the other parts or voices in triad harmony;
there should be no tension from dissonance anywhere including in octavo
2 A (Above), parallel part nearest above in third or little more above
3 B (Below), parallel part nearest below in third or little more below
4 ns simple n part; often with the tonic feeling and often with the basic dance rhythm ("motor part"); n is a less constricted part, and tones from the melody are freely included
5 C1 C parts are made from A and B parts, and so they are two parts to the melody
6 C2 C2 is less simple than C1
7 mod = 
contra part
voice up and down (mostly) contra to the melody; it is also made from A and B
8 n1 n is a less constricted part, and tones from the melody are freely included
9 C1 C1 in octavo down
10 C2 C2 in octavo down
11 n1 n1 in octavo
12 blank . blank staff for making your own part according to the principles here

(The midi music is not repeated, except for 1' and 2' voltas).
Use also octavo, up and down.
Where wanted, notes can be changed according to the principles (use a colour pencil), e.g. to improve the B part  with some notes from A.
The music is aimed at dancing, so part of the orchestra can be the underlying "motor" when another instrument group is playing its "solo" part (improvisation) as one of the many repetitions.
The double bass may play its usual notes, because of its low pitch.

It is better to choose a more simple part and play it well.
 

Accordion: beats per bar: 2+2 (light after beat); if that is too fast for you then: 1+1 (more equal beats). Beat 1 is well marked.
 

Music scores:

Each score consists of 2 pages: page left and page right. They are given on separate pages with links on the top of this page (use Ctrl Home to go to the top). The links are repeated here:
(c1, c2), (a1, a2), (b1, b2), (e1, e2), (f1, f2), (bass1, bass2)
When you click a link the music note sheet will (should) open as a new page on top of this main page, so that you can easily return to this main page. And you can easily open 2 windows of note pages to have both the left and right page in smaller windows, the right below the left.

(Help coming back from that note sheet: CLICK note sheet to come back to this page, or just close note window.
Remember: the note sheet opens in a new separate window, and that may cover the whole screen. The back button in the tools bar does probably not work because the window is new, with no history. All you see on the page are notes because I have placed no link back here for not disturbing easy submitting to the printer. Close the note window with a click at the top or with Alt F4, or minimize or reduce the window, or ..., and you are back to the main page that was there behind all the time).
 

Bottom of this page.