Humppa

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From a musical point of view, Humppa is a Finnish variant of the foxtrot , i.e. music in 2/4 time that works with offbeat elements. Humppa also describes the dance that goes with it, but its simple steps have nothing in common with the foxtrot.

development

Humppa "accidentally" developed out of the foxtrot at the end of the 1950s: a band played a funny parody of the foxtrot on a radio show. The success was surprising and the Humppa-Veikot group formed. Vanhasalo describes 4 phases of development of the humppa in his dissertation:

  1. 1930s: the original foxtrot (interpreted by Dallapé)
  2. 1950s / 1960s: resurgence of the foxtrot in a simplified form, from which the humppa evolved
  3. 1970s: Humppa as "an ossified style of Finnish dance hall music"
  4. Rearrangements of the Humppa in different contexts

Today the humppa partly contains elements from polka, punk or rock. The name Humppa is onomatopoeic , i. that is, the sound of the word is similar to that of music. The rhythm is somewhat similar to a spoken "um-paa".

The performers include Erkki Junkkarinen , Humppatyttö Berit , Humppaveikot , Pispalan laulava pystytukka , Eläkeläiset , Pauli Räsänen and Solistiyhtye Suomi .

Humppa became popular again in Finland in the late 1970s and 80s. Many new bands, including protest bands, were founded, especially in Lapland , including Hannu Merkku , Koillis-Humppa , Tarja Ylitalo and Souvarit .

Current representatives

Humppaman Shakhti at the Black Way Open Air 2014

Famous representatives of the foxtrot, from which the humppa developed, was the Dal-lapé orchestra in the 1930s.

The musicians of the group Eläkeläiset ("The Pensioners") made Humppa known to wider circles by initially giving only well-known pieces from the rock / pop area new Finnish text and reproducing them in their style. The speed was increased and the music was expanded with many different instruments, for example a singing saw or a biscuit tin drum.

The Finnish bands Finntroll , Korpiklaani and Turisas combine the traditional Humppa style with metal and Swedish (with Finntroll) or Finnish and English (with Korpiklaani) lyrics. Similar to this band, the Norwegian band Trollfest calls their music "Norwegian Humppa Metal".

A band that is also a little better known outside of Norway is Kaizers Orchestra . The formation, which has won several awards, was inspired by Humppa, among other things - the Norwegian name “Ompa” was used in the title of their first album Ompa Til Du Dør (“Humppa until you die”).

In Germany, too, there are now some individual artists and bands such as Humppaman Schachti , Die Wallerts , die Pankepiraten and Humppa con Panhas , who are based on the Finnish band Eläkeläiset and present more or less clear Humppa elements in their music.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Mikko Vanhasalo: Humppaa! Uudelleentulkinta ja kiteytyminen Dallapén ja Humppa-Veikkojen sovituksissa (= Acta Universitatis Tamperensis. 1488 = Acta electronica Universitatis Tamperensis. 923). Tampere University Press, Tampere 2009, ISBN 978-951-44-7938-0 ( online ).
  2. ^ Dirk Kruse-Etzbach: Finland. 6th edition. Reiseuchverlag Iwanowski, Dormagen 2012, ISBN 978-3-86197-042-2 .

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