Rautalanka
Encyclopedia
In common usage the Finnish word rautalanka (literally "iron wire", referring to the strings of the electric guitar) means instrumental rock
in general. Some enthusiasts use the term more narrowly to refer to the somewhat distinct style of playing it that has developed in Finland over the years. This article is written from that more narrow point of view.
Rautalanka is typically played by a quartet consisting of a lead guitar
, rhythm guitar
, bass guitar
and drum kit
. Rautalanka music can also include other instruments and vocals. The heyday of rautalanka was in the early 1960s, but it has enthusiasts even today. Typical features of rautalanka are sharp and clear melodies, fast tempos and extensive use of tape echo, but little or no overdrive or fuzz
. What distinguishes rautalanka most clearly from other twang
y guitar genres is that the melodies tend to be in minor keys and melancholic, based on slavic folk tunes and schlager songs.
had a monopoly on radio in Finland and it played little in the way of pop music. Foreign radio stations played pop music around that time. Those stations were eagerly listened to in Finland, and the most popular was Radio Luxembourg
. It aired guitar music, which prompted the Finnish youth to set up bands and play this music. Bands such as The Shadows
and The Ventures
served as examples for rautalanka bands.
Rautalanka was the first youth-oriented style of music, played by young people, to receive mass distribution in Finland. Before rautalanka, music recording and live performing had been more or less monopolized by (often older) professional musicians.
The first Finnish rautalanka band was the Strangers, which was heavily influenced by The Shadows
. The second was The Saints, which consisted of Helsinki schoolboys. Third was The Sounds, which was the first to gain a recording contract. Their first single, "Emma", experienced great success on the charts. The first Finnish Rautalanka Championships were held in the Helsinki Messuhalli in 1961. The first champions were The Saints. The second champions were Danny and the Islanders, led by Ilkka Lipsanen (Danny), who later became a pop music star in Finland.
The golden age of rautalanka in Finland lasted from early 1961 to late 1963, when the interest of youth at large shifted away from the Finnish style to merseybeat
, led by The Beatles
. While instrumental rock music was popular all around Europe, the term rautalanka is used only in Finland, Sweden (taggtråd) and Norway (piggtråd). It refers to instrumental music which is too melodic and clean to be true rock music
, but also too rhythmic to be folk music
.
Worldwide, the best known representative of this style is the British band The Shadows
, who have visited Finland several times, most recently in 2005. Their best known song is Apache. Their American counterparts are The Ventures
, whose song Walk, Don't Run
was a hit in Finland and used by Yleisradio as their theme melody. The first real Finnish rautalanka hit was "Emma" by The Sounds, which became the image of Finnish rautalanka music. Many bands employed folk music and other styles of popular music as ingredients of their musical pieces. While rock music
eventually superseded both Merseybeat and rautalanka in Finnish youth culture, the style survived as background music for many Finnish popular music performers, and Hank Marvin
has been the example for many modern Finnish rock musicians.
, usually a Fender Stratocaster
(or its clone) with single coil
pickups and tape echo guitar effect (in contrast to the reverb style spring echo used in surf music
). Genuine tape echo devices are used often, and many bands do not use digital effects out of respect to the traditions.
The traditions of rautalanka music in Finland are strong, and some of the most persistent traditions are:
While traditional rautalanka is today a marginal musical genre, followed by relatively small but enthusiastic circles, it didn't cease to exist in 1964. It has formed the basis for the whole of Finnish youth music, and the strong melodic heavy metal
tradition in Finland has its roots in rautalanka guitar work. It is performed today not only as instrumental, but it has also been combined with popular and dance music, not the least because of the work of Topi Sorsakoski & Agents in the 1980s. The strong, echoing electric guitar
in Finnish dance orchestras may today be more a rule than an exception.
Instrumental rock
Instrumental rock is a type of rock music which emphasizes musical instruments, and which features very little or no singing.Examples of instrumental rock can be found in practically every subgenre of rock, often from musicians who specialize in the style, most notably Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Link...
in general. Some enthusiasts use the term more narrowly to refer to the somewhat distinct style of playing it that has developed in Finland over the years. This article is written from that more narrow point of view.
Rautalanka is typically played by a quartet consisting of a lead guitar
Lead guitar
Lead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...
, rhythm guitar
Rhythm guitar
Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...
, bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
and drum kit
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
. Rautalanka music can also include other instruments and vocals. The heyday of rautalanka was in the early 1960s, but it has enthusiasts even today. Typical features of rautalanka are sharp and clear melodies, fast tempos and extensive use of tape echo, but little or no overdrive or fuzz
Fuzz
Fuzz may refer to:*Vellus, a type of short, fine body hair on an animal*Tomentum, a filamentous hairlike growth on a plant*Focus , a blur effect*Fuzzbox, an electric guitar distortion effect*A derogatory slang term for the police...
. What distinguishes rautalanka most clearly from other twang
Twang
An old onomatopoeia for the sound of a vibrating string - for instance of a bow or a musical instrument, or the sound of a vibrating spring of an air gun....
y guitar genres is that the melodies tend to be in minor keys and melancholic, based on slavic folk tunes and schlager songs.
History
Rautalanka began in the early 1960s, when YleisradioYleisradio
The Finnish Broadcasting Company , abbreviated to YLE , is Finland's national broadcasting company, founded in 1926. YLE is a public-broadcasting organization which shares many of its characteristics with its British counterpart, the BBC, on which it was largely modelled...
had a monopoly on radio in Finland and it played little in the way of pop music. Foreign radio stations played pop music around that time. Those stations were eagerly listened to in Finland, and the most popular was Radio Luxembourg
Radio Luxembourg (French)
Radio Luxembourg - 1933-1939 and 1951- is the name of a Long Wave commercial radio station that began broadcasting from the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg in 1933 as a daytime and evening service in the French language from Monday to Saturday and until 12 Noon on Sundays.The station closed down at the...
. It aired guitar music, which prompted the Finnish youth to set up bands and play this music. Bands such as The Shadows
The Shadows
The Shadows are a British pop group with a total of 69 UK hit-charted singles: 35 as 'The Shadows' and 34 as 'Cliff Richard and the Shadows', from the 1950s to the 2000s. Cliff Richard in casual conversation with the British rock press frequently refers to the Shadows by their nickname: 'The Shads'...
and The Ventures
The Ventures
The Ventures is an American instrumental rock band formed in 1958 in Tacoma, Washington. Founded by Don Wilson and Bob Bogle, the group in its various incarnations has had an enduring impact on the development of music worldwide. With over 100 million records sold, the group is the best-selling...
served as examples for rautalanka bands.
Rautalanka was the first youth-oriented style of music, played by young people, to receive mass distribution in Finland. Before rautalanka, music recording and live performing had been more or less monopolized by (often older) professional musicians.
The first Finnish rautalanka band was the Strangers, which was heavily influenced by The Shadows
The Shadows
The Shadows are a British pop group with a total of 69 UK hit-charted singles: 35 as 'The Shadows' and 34 as 'Cliff Richard and the Shadows', from the 1950s to the 2000s. Cliff Richard in casual conversation with the British rock press frequently refers to the Shadows by their nickname: 'The Shads'...
. The second was The Saints, which consisted of Helsinki schoolboys. Third was The Sounds, which was the first to gain a recording contract. Their first single, "Emma", experienced great success on the charts. The first Finnish Rautalanka Championships were held in the Helsinki Messuhalli in 1961. The first champions were The Saints. The second champions were Danny and the Islanders, led by Ilkka Lipsanen (Danny), who later became a pop music star in Finland.
The golden age of rautalanka in Finland lasted from early 1961 to late 1963, when the interest of youth at large shifted away from the Finnish style to merseybeat
Beat music
Beat music, British beat, or Merseybeat is a pop and rock music genre that developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1960s. Beat music is a fusion of rock and roll, doo wop, skiffle, R&B and soul...
, led by The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
. While instrumental rock music was popular all around Europe, the term rautalanka is used only in Finland, Sweden (taggtråd) and Norway (piggtråd). It refers to instrumental music which is too melodic and clean to be true rock music
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
, but also too rhythmic to be folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
.
Worldwide, the best known representative of this style is the British band The Shadows
The Shadows
The Shadows are a British pop group with a total of 69 UK hit-charted singles: 35 as 'The Shadows' and 34 as 'Cliff Richard and the Shadows', from the 1950s to the 2000s. Cliff Richard in casual conversation with the British rock press frequently refers to the Shadows by their nickname: 'The Shads'...
, who have visited Finland several times, most recently in 2005. Their best known song is Apache. Their American counterparts are The Ventures
The Ventures
The Ventures is an American instrumental rock band formed in 1958 in Tacoma, Washington. Founded by Don Wilson and Bob Bogle, the group in its various incarnations has had an enduring impact on the development of music worldwide. With over 100 million records sold, the group is the best-selling...
, whose song Walk, Don't Run
Walk, Don't Run (song)
"Walk, Don't Run" is an instrumental composition written and first performed by jazz guitarist Johnny Smith in 1955. The tune is essentially a counter-melody to the chord changes of the old standard, "Softly, As in the Morning Sunrise"....
was a hit in Finland and used by Yleisradio as their theme melody. The first real Finnish rautalanka hit was "Emma" by The Sounds, which became the image of Finnish rautalanka music. Many bands employed folk music and other styles of popular music as ingredients of their musical pieces. While rock music
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
eventually superseded both Merseybeat and rautalanka in Finnish youth culture, the style survived as background music for many Finnish popular music performers, and Hank Marvin
Hank Marvin
Hank Brian Marvin is an English guitarist, best known as the lead guitarist for The Shadows. The group, which primarily performed instrumentals, was formed as a backing band for vocalist Cliff Richard...
has been the example for many modern Finnish rock musicians.
Style
The essential hallmark of rautalanka sound is a strong lead guitarLead guitar
Lead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...
, usually a Fender Stratocaster
Fender Stratocaster
The Fender Stratocaster, often referred to as "Strat", is a model of electric guitar designed by Leo Fender, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares in 1954, and manufactured continuously by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation to the present. It is a double-cutaway guitar, with an extended top...
(or its clone) with single coil
Single coil
A single coil pickup is a type of magnetic transducer, or pickup, for the electric guitar and the electric bass. It electromagnetically converts the vibration of the strings to an electric signal...
pickups and tape echo guitar effect (in contrast to the reverb style spring echo used in surf music
Surf music
Surf music is a genre of popular music associated with surf culture, particularly as found in Orange County and other areas of Southern California. It was particularly popular between 1961 and 1965, has subsequently been revived and was highly influential on subsequent rock music...
). Genuine tape echo devices are used often, and many bands do not use digital effects out of respect to the traditions.
The traditions of rautalanka music in Finland are strong, and some of the most persistent traditions are:
- Rautalanka is a highly do-it-yourself music. Many rautalanka artists build their own custom guitarElectric guitarAn electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
s and amplifiers - The music is very melodic, and the rhythm section only supports the lead guitar.
- Melodies tend to be melancholic and in minor keys.
- The names of rautalanka bands usually are English languageEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
plurals ending in letter 's', although there are exceptions. This is inherited from foreign groups such as The Shadows and The Ventures. - Many rautalanka bands use uniform stage costumes in 1960s style.
- The lead guitar is prominent, melodies are crisp and stark, and the guitar playing style can be almost virtuosic.
- Overdrive and distortion are avoided, but tape echo is employed extensively.
- If there is a singer, he or she almost always plays the bass or rhythm guitar.
While traditional rautalanka is today a marginal musical genre, followed by relatively small but enthusiastic circles, it didn't cease to exist in 1964. It has formed the basis for the whole of Finnish youth music, and the strong melodic heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
tradition in Finland has its roots in rautalanka guitar work. It is performed today not only as instrumental, but it has also been combined with popular and dance music, not the least because of the work of Topi Sorsakoski & Agents in the 1980s. The strong, echoing electric guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
in Finnish dance orchestras may today be more a rule than an exception.
Finland
- ViikateViikateViikate is a Finnish metal band from Kouvola, formed in 1996. The band is known for its melancholic lyrics, drawing inspiration from Finnish romance movies of the 1950s and Finnish singers of the era, including Reino Helismaa...
- The Beatfox
- The Charades
- The Saints
- The Strangers
- The Steelers
- The Spectre
- The Sounds
- The Mutants
- Danny and the Islanders
- AgentsAgents (band)Agents is a Finnish band formed in 1979, playing rautalanka, schlager and rock'n'roll music. The head figure and musical director of the band is solo guitarist Esa Pulliainen.-Founding of Agents:...
- Beatmakers
- Laika & the CosmonautsLaika & the CosmonautsLaika & the Cosmonauts were a Finnish rock band. They had the same lineup from the time they formed in 1987 until they stopped recording in 2008. Their sound is usually described as Surf Rock, but a Boston Globe review noted that the band's sound is "far beyond the limitations of any specific...
- The Regents
- The Mustangs
- The Quiets
- The Twangers
- The Youngers
External links
- Rautalanka.org, Finnish rautalanka musicians' pages
- Rautalankamusiikin Ystävät RAMY r.y. Friends of Rautalanka Music