The Incredible Sväng Band

According to Finnish mythology, which the national epic Kalevala is based on, the earth was created when wizard-minstrel Väinämöinen was playing the harmonica he’d made out of the jawbone of a pike when an egg which had been laid on his knee fell and broke. The bottom half became the earth, the top half the sky, the yellow yoke became the sun and the white part became the moon and sea. 

Many sources claim that it was the kantele rather than the harmonica that Väinämöinen built, though, but the evidence seems clear from the album cover of Svängo Nuevo (2024) This is the new album celebrating 20 years of the band Sväng. A harmonica quartet is born fresh from an egg. 

The harmonica, or mouth organ, is, or was, one of the most common instruments found in every home, probably in a child’s bedroom. They are cheap to make and quite simple to play. Jouko Kyhälä was the first graduate in harmonica from the Folk Music Department of the Sibelius Academy in 1999. “I remember how some of the classical teachers were looking down their noses at me,” he says. 

But how did Kyhälä, who went on to teach at the Sibelius Academy, end up creating a harmonica quartet which has stunned audiences around the world, recorded ten albums, and become firm festival favourites – as at Kaustinen this July?

“Yes, it’s kind of my fault because I was teaching both Eero Turkka and Eero Grundström. Mr Turkka needed to do his own music or own arrangements for his exam concert and typically people would compose for a folk band – fiddle, harmonium, double bass etc. So I said why don’t we form a harmonica quartet to play the music? And after the concert we thought wow this is really cool with this unique sound.” 

They also drew inspiration from Trio Polifonic, a Romanian band playing arrangements of folk music, although from the beginning Sväng brought a whole new level of invention.

The Kronos Quartet of harmonicas

Sväng actually formed in November 2003, so the 20th anniversary has been stretched a bit. It’s still worth celebrating I remember seeing them at WOMEX in Seville in 2007 and was delighted to have them at our inaugural Songlines Encounters Festival in London in 2011. Then I marvelled at their tango album on the Folklandia cruise in 2020. The idea of harmonica quartet seems like a gimmick, but when you hear the sophistication of the music, you realise it’s no joke. Sväng are the Kronos Quartet when it comes to harmonicas. 

When they started they were not taken seriously, says Kyhälä, but once people saw what they were doing the attitude changed.  “I love to say we are not serious, but we are taking the music very seriously.”

The name Sväng is not a Finnish word, but is close to ‘swing’ and suggests ‘swing with a difference'. In a memorable video Jouko Kyhälä says “if you look out into the woods and there is a moose running and the moose only has three legs, there’s a lot of ‘sväng’ in how it goes.”  

What’s perhaps surprising about Sväng’s sound is how multi-layered it is. That’s because they are masters of many forms of harmonica. The basic model is the diatonic harmonica, also known as the blues harmonica, or in the US as a ‘blues harp’. It’s pretty small with 10 holes and each hole plays a different note depending on whether you blow or inhale – this is true of all harmonicas except the bass. As well as the regular diatonic harmonica, Sväng play a tremolo harmonica which has two reeds, one tuned slightly sharp, the other slightly flat, to create the wavering tremolo effect. “It’s a very traditional sound in Finland,” says Jouko Kyhälä. 

There’s also an octave harmonica where each hole has two reeds an octave apart giving a more substantial sound. They also use the chromatic harmonica, a souped-up diatonic harmonica with a button that rises the tunings of each note rise by a semitone, so every hole produces four notes!

Kyhälä’s speciality is the harmonetta, or chord harmonica, made by Hohner in the 1950s and 60s and looking like a mini-typewriter. It fills out harmonies in the middle and can play both melodies and major or minor chords. Finally there is the bass harmonica, the only one that produces its notes with blowing only. “The bass harmonica is the most difficult,” says Kyhälä. Which gave them a challenge when Pasi Leino announced he was retiring from the band. “There was no bass harmonica player to go to,” says Kyhälä. “So I decided to find a musician I could trust and then ask if they were willing to learn the instrument.”

So born out of the Svängo Nuevo egg is a new member Tapani Varis, a double bass player – who worked in the early version of the Finnish folk group Värttinä before they became famous – and Finland’s leading Jew’s harp player with a Masters from the Sibelius Academy. “It came as a total surprise,” says Varis. “Jouko Kyhälä asked if I’d like to join and it took me all of 30 seconds to say yes. It seemed so crazy and I love that kind of stupid challenge.” 

Tapani Varis had never touched a bass harmonica before and admits it looks quite bizarre – “like you’re trying to eat a toaster or something.” Pasi Leino personally tutored Varis, introducing him to the simpler pieces first – ‘Svängtime Rag’ – and gradually moving to the really difficult ones – ‘Tango Taga’. 

“It has been a challenge,” Varis admits. “I’m a bass player and wind player and it kind of combines these two. But the breathing technique is opposite from instruments like saxophone and clarinet. On the harmonica you put less pressure on the high notes and more pressure on the low ones. And jumping from one ‘comb’ to the other, is tough but it’s a wonderful instrument and you can’t get that sound from anywhere else.”

An exuberant mix of different influences

Tapani Varis also brings a new composing voice into the band. One of Sväng’s strengths has indeed been the different musical inclinations of its members.

“We have such varied interests, I think that’s one of the reasons we’ve managed to be so successful,” adds Kyhälä. His interest is in Finnish and Scandinavian folk and contributes two tunes to the new album. The first is a funeral march for his father-in-law, but one which also remembers the happy moments. And the second is his version of an energetic Finnish folk dance called enkeliska. “I’ve been an enthusiastic dance player on harmonica for the last 10 or 15 years. In the old tradition there was a single person playing fiddle, harmonica or accordion for the dancers.”

Eero Turkka, who’s been living in Bulgaria for the last decade, is keen on Balkan music and the blues. He’s contributed Balkan-style tunes to the new album in 5/8 and 7/8 as well as ‘Svänging the Blues’ which combines that edgy blues harmonica style of Little Walter or Charlie Musselwhite with some irregular Balkan accompaniment. Jouko Kyhälä credits Eero Grundström for bringing a classical vibe to the band and being able to compose big tunes. On the new album he wrote the opening title track ‘Svängo Nuevo’, an Argentinian-inspired tango, ‘Nälkämaan lokari’ (Lumberjack from Hungerland), a tribute to the musical culture of the many Finns who left for North America to escape hunger and poverty from the 1870s, often to work as lumberjacks. “I hope Finnish people today could identify and relate more with current immigrants from current hungerlands,” Grundström says. 

Tapani Varis contributes two tracks to the new album. ‘Vaaran takana’ (Behind the Hill) is inspired by old shepherds’ music but underpinned by notes on his growling bass. And ‘Marrasvalssi’ (November Waltz) is a haunting and melancholy waltz full of delightful twists and turns. 

From tango and folk to Sibelius and Chopin

The Svängo Nuevo album is the first for some time of completely original material. Sväng’s recent albums have been arrangements of folk pieces (In Trad We Trust, 2020), Finnish tango (Sväng Plays Tango, 2018), a sort of ‘Best Of’ (Hauptbahnhof, 2017) and their celebration of Finland’s national composer (Sväng Plays Sibelius, 2015). This includes ambitious arrangements of the Karelia Suite, with an ebullient final “Alla Marcia”, the dramatic Lemminkäinen’s Return and a rather sombre Valse Triste. 

The album cover references one of the best-known paintings of Akseli Gallen-Kallela called Symposium, a group of friends that met regularly in the 1890s for drinking and discussion. The four members of Sväng stand in (left to right) for Gallen-Kallela (Jouko Kyhälä), composer Oskar Merikanto (Pasi Leino), conductor and composer Robert Kajanus (Eero Turkka) and Sibelius (Eero Grundström) with harmonicas scattered on the table alongside bottles and glasses. They look much less drunk than the figures in the original canvas! 

“2015 was the 150th birthday of Sibelius and there were concerts everywhere,” explains Kyhälä. “It felt natural that Sväng should celebrate too. We didn’t want to make a joke but get away from this stiff attitude of classical music. You can respect the music but give it a little more groove and more Sväng.” They’d also done an album of Chopinarrangements in 2010. 

An unintended outcome of this is Sväng’s own music being adapted into orchestral arrangements in a project called Svängfonia. “With the Sibelius concerts we often appeared in the same venues as orchestras and classical musicians started to know us and take us rather more seriously.”  

On the new album ‘Marrasvalssi’, by new member Tapani Varis, is a strong candidate for orchestral arrangement, with its beguiling and catchy melodies and moods. “This was the first tune I wrote for them and all the band, particularly Eero Grundström, helped a lot,” Varis says. “In that song the melody is played by Eero Turkka and he plays it on the blues harp and he does all this bending of the notes which I don’t know so much about.”

“But I’m now getting in friendly terms with the bass harmonica and no longer have to fight with it. And it’s nice to play these new songs in concert which feels special because it’s new for all the band, not just me.” 

Featured photo: Kimmo Syväri