Folk music in Sweden

For five years I’ve been following folk music sub culture in Sweden. The people involved literally live and breathe it as they seek out places to get together and play tunes all year round. The old folk music tradition is treated with the greatest interest and respect. The music dates back to the 18’th and 19äth century and thanks to a mission started by the government in the 1920’s to document as much as possible, much of the music has survived. At the time skilled musicians travelled the countryside and wrote down all the tunes they could come across from local fiddlers, singers and other musicians. At that time very few recordings could be made so instead they described the music and dance with notes next to the music sheets. Later the Swedish radio and others started recording a lot of the traditional music and all that documentation is nowadays available for current and future generation to play, develop into something new and carry into the future.