From cohorn to Sabaton
Sometime during the ninth century, someone put a cohorn to his mouth to blow out sharp and characteristic tones. Maybe these tones attracted grazing cows, or they sent signals to someone who herded cattle elsewhere. Such a cohorn was found in a bog near Västerby in Hedemora and it is in our collections. The kohornet, which is still fully playable, is currently deposited at Folkmusikens Hus in Rättvik.
From medieval cohorts, via jazz orchestras and Hagström's carefully designed electric guitars, to contemporary musical acts such as Good Harvest, Sabaton and Stiko Per Larsson, Dalarna's exciting music history runs. Just like this story, the collection of musical instruments with us at Dalarna's museum is multifaceted. Here you can find a lot of impact on the musical timeline in the form of musical instruments. In the collections you will find bagpipes, diaphragms, idiophones, pedal organs, violins, harps, psalmodicons, lullabies and a rich variety of various wind instruments.
But a collection of music is far more than just physical objects in the form of instruments. There is also a large audio archive here. In the 1960s, sound was recorded with the help of conveyor belts and Dalarna's museum has about 800 conveyor belts with stories, songs, fiddler music, grass music, jazz and accordion music.
This also includes the Swedish Visar Archive's Dala material. The material is obtained from all over Dalarna and the audio tapes contain very exciting knowledge and not only consist of music recordings, but also contain interviews about Dala traditions, dialects and music life throughout history.
Interviews and music are now documented with digital aids and this intangible cultural heritage is registered in our database PRIMUS and preserved in digital magazines in our server solutions.
In terms of music, our archives also contain a phonogram collection with material from various music genres and an archive of musicals where you can, for example, find the organist Fredric Salling's collections with sheet music from the 1700th century. Documentations of various music activities and music movements are also available in our archives, as well as notes of music in many different forms.
