photo source: Stein Villa
Marit Steinsrud & Stein Villa from Gjøvik, Norway:
Marit Steinsrud plays the langleik, a dulcimer-like instrument with one melody string and
additional drone strings, which has a tradition in Norway dating back at least
to the 16th century. She learned to play many langleik tunes
"the traditional way" when she was a small girl from an old neighbour woman.
A lot of ancient Norwegian tunes survived to our days in this langleik
tradition - who knows, perhaps some of them had been harp tunes in earlier times?
(Note that there was a similar situation in Scotland where many ancient harp tunes
have survived in the folk bagpipe tradition - pìobaireachd).
Stein Villa, Marits husband, plays many instruments which had earlier been a part of Norwegian music tradition,
e.g. the Norwegian folk harp ("bondeharpe"), the plucked lyre, the bowed lyre, the langleik,
the bagpipes and many more. He tries to bring these instruments into use again,
since they represent sound possibilities which are not present in today's folk music instruments.
He is also a flute maker, specialised on bone flutes, and he likes to explore
which possibilities are hidden inside every musical instrument.