Likely a while ago now. Probably a couple of years by now. I was visiting a friend of mine in Sweden. After not having seen each other for a long time, we spent about one week together in his little house on the country sight. One day when we were sitting in the sofa by the window on the upper floor, we picked up a guitar and a harmonica and started to play along together. I pressed record on my phone and left it there as we were jamming. We have played guitar together before. Sometimes we  jam together on my balcony over a cup of coffee. One of us on a Spanish nylon stringed guitar and the other one on a western steal stringed guitar. And because of that we jokingly called our duo Nylonostål. Which means Nylon and Steal.

Jamming

It was all improvising now. We didn’t say anything to each other. We were just playing. Of course it took some time before we got a hang of it. It was was long time ago since we last played together. But we didn’t lose the flow. We kept on going even though both the rhythm and melody was a little bit unstable in the beginning. A few minutes in it started to feel alright. It was something really simple. As simple as it gets actually, and that’s why I like it. I was just playing the same two basic chords over and over again as I was listening to how the harmonica slowly changed from monotone to progressive. I enjoyed it and after a while I started to change the strumming and threw in some picks between the hits.

A woodpecker

After a while we got company by a woodpecker. There was a bird knocking on the wall on the outside of the house, and we could hear it really loud. The woodpecker wasn’t at all in rhythm with the music or anything like that. It was a noticeable disturbing and my friend on the harmonica shifted over to the window to see if he could see where the woodpicker was sitting. You can hear in the music how the sound of the harmonica changes to a more wondering sensation when he is leaning over, wondering about the woodpecker. Which proves that the music was truly connected to his feelings. You can hear the woodpecker knocking in the background between 6:43 and 7:03 in the music.

Editing it

A few weeks later transferred the recording to my computer and started to cut out the worst parts. I was editing the track and added some other electronic instruments from the computer. Some sort of a discreet wind instrument, synthesizer strings and effect. It was necessary to cut it down as much as possible. It went from about 25 minutes to 8:52. And I named the file Norrlänsk Munspelsvisa. Which simply means Harmonica tune from the northern land.

Below you can listen to it. And here is also a link to soundcloud if you prefer to listen to it there.

The picture was taken just a couple of hundred meters from the house, when we went for a walk afterwards.