Camilla Granlien knows well why she loves folk music so much.
/ 08/03/2019 / Willy MartinsenName: Camilla Granlien
Age: 44
Current with: New album recorded in January, will be released in the fall of 2019. The cultural schoolbag tour in the Gjøvik district together with fiddle player Mari Skeie Ljones and the concert Spring du fela.
TONO member since: 2007
All photos: Photographers BeckBack
– When did you find folk music? Or did it find you?
– I think we found each other. Folk music and especially the vocal material with ballads, country songs and beautiful love songs really moved me. Folk music has probably been there since childhood, but I think I only became consciously involved with it in high school.
– What is it about folk music that you love so much?
– There is something about the unpredictability of folk songs and folk music. Both the melodies and the tonality. You think the melody is going to go one place – and then it takes off in a completely different direction. It doesn't follow the laws and rules for building a song. It can be weird, strange, painful and beautiful. And I like that. So are the lyrics. They are a chapter in themselves. They are the craziest, strangest stories, both fantasy and true. I have wondered many times why more people don't draw inspiration from this world. There is so much strange to take from! In addition, it is fun and a challenge to make old lyrics relevant today. For me, these stories are eternal and universal. They are about you and me, even if they use titles like knights and maidens.
– What is your musical background?
– I started playing in a rock band in the 6th grade, and I wanted an electric bass for my confirmation, and I got it. At first, I was into bands like Bon Jovi, Guns'n'Roses and Mötley Crue. We found sheet music and notation in the library, and tried our best to make it look like our heroes. Then I started studying music at Stange High School, and eventually I got the urge to play double bass, jazz and folk music, and preferably in combination. During these years, Arild Andersen and Kirsten Bråthen Berg came up with the commission and the record Legend, which made a huge impression. At the same time, we learned about Grieg and folk music at school, and the lesson where we heard the sound of Gjendine Slålien singing Gjendine's boat song on a scratchy, old recording I still remember.
Then the trip continued to the music department at Voss Folkehøgskole, because I had heard rumors that it was possible to get more folk music there. We were on a course at the Ole Bull Academy, met Hans W. Brimi and Knut Reiersrud, and I was a big fan of both. In a rehearsal room at the school, I found a double bass, and finally found the sound I was looking for! This year I also tried my hand at being a solo singer, which was terribly scary. After Voss, several of us went on to Rauland, University of Southeast Norway and study folk music there. There I was told that the double bass was not a traditional folk music instrument, so I had to find something else, and then it became the voice. I had listened a lot to Kirsten Bråten Berg, Agnes Buen Garnås and Sondre Bratland. And suddenly I was sitting there with Sondre as my singing teacher! He pointed me in the right direction, which was Per Åsmundstad in Ringebu. Per had a lot of archive recordings of his father, Kristian P. Åsmundstad, one of the greatest vocal sources in Gudbrandsdalen. And I was able to borrow cassettes with recordings of Kristian singing, and started practicing. Song after song stuck in my head. Then I became a teacher at Notodden before I delved even deeper into folk music with the Kvedarskulen at the Ole Bull Academy (now a bachelor's degree in folk music), where I had Jarnfrid Kjøk as a singing teacher, and from whom I have learned a lot. After this, I did a master's degree in traditional art at Rauland, University of Southeast Norway, where I worked specifically with the dissemination of vocal folk music. I have now worked as a freelance folk singer, songwriter and cultural worker for approximately 14 years.
– What was the name of the first piece of music you ever wrote, and what was it about?
- It's probably not the first song I wrote, but it's the one I can remember today and it has to be Dead flowers which was written for my album Iron nets (ta:lik records) which was released in 2007. The lyrics are by the poet Tor Jonsson.
– How does your music come about?
– I very often start with a text. I have worked a lot with setting poems to music and I find that the melodies come quite quickly once I have read the text a few times. In folk songs we sing in dialect, and the rhythm of the song is strongly linked to the rhythm of the dialect. Maybe that is why I am so dependent on the text to find the melodies? Sometimes melodies come while I am doing other things. I think of stanzas and lines in the melodies. I don't necessarily hear chords and arrangements. I create songs that must be able to be sung completely alone and in arrangements with others. Just like folk songs.
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– What are you working on now? What does 2019 bring for you?
- Now I'm on a school tour with fiddle player Mari Skeie Ljones. Here we present new songs and new lyrics to old stories. In January I recorded an album in Reelbeat studio in Lillehammer with folk songs taken from the archives at the Glomdal Museum, and as written down by, among others, Ludvig M. Lindeman around 1860. Andreas Utnem is on the grand piano, Helge Norbakken on percussion and Jo Skaansar on double bass. It's going to be so great! The album will be released in the fall of 2019, and I hope to play many concerts with this band.
I am also part of a group called MjøsFolk together with folk singers Solbjørg Tveiten, Margrete Nordmoen, Annar By and guitarist Frode Berntzen. We will release a single very soon with the title Springtime, which has a text written by Edvard Storm in Vågå in the 1770s with a traditional melody I have after Kristian P. Åsmundstad. MjøsFolk planning several concerts throughout the year and a Christmas tour at the end of the year. And then Festkonsert 2020 in connection with the merger of Hedmark and Oppland counties. In June there will be a record recording with Do you play the fiddle?, I am writing a musical theater piece titled Jørgine and Gjendine. In addition, there are many large and small projects throughout the year. There is a lot to look forward to!
- What is the musical career highlight so far?
-It was a difficult question, but I think the answer must be when I feel that I reach people and that my music touches and means something to others. Getting to play with other musicians and feeling that the music we make together is lifting is also a highlight. When I feel that I am just in the music, it is fantastic. In addition, I must mention that getting to take singing lessons with good singers and role models is great. Most recently with the Iranian singer Mahsa Vahdat. Learning from her is a dream come true!
– What is your greatest musical experience?
– Again, a difficult question, but sitting close and listening to a good fiddle player late on a competition night, or hearing a folk singer convey a song well so that I immerse myself in the story and the melody gives me chills – it makes me happy.
– Is there anything we should have asked you about?
- Yes.
- And what is the answer to that question?
– The answer is: Because there is so much great folk music out there just waiting to be listened to!