Josefina Paulson
musician, composer, producer, playing the swedish instrument nyckelharpa
About
For the past fifteen years I have worked as a freelance musician and producer touring all over the world with my nyckelharpa, visiting passionate dancers and listeners in Australia, USA, Japan, all around Europe and Sweden. I work both as a solist and in different constellations. I love traveling in music, culture (and food!) and a lot of my collaborations has started out of curiosity for fellow musicians/dancers way of expressing the same thing, in movement and sound and sometimes later resulted in a fusion of our traditions.
Play for dancing
One of my greatest passions in playing folkmusic is to play for dance. Most of the traditional material is ment for moving to and the dance groove is always in the center of the music I play, also when playing concerts. Meet me on the dancefloor solo or in any of the project I´m touring with, in smaller venues as well as balfolk festivals around Europe.
Instruments
I am a spelman and bring that flavour into all music I do. I play a traditional Swedish instrument called the nyckelharpa. This chromatic instrument, which is related to the violin and played with a bow, has three rows of wooden keys that are used to stop the strings to make notes. As the notes sound, untouched sympathetic strings resonate with rich overtones, giving it a haunting, ancient character.
My big love is a chromatic 3-rowed nyckelharpa made by Dan Eriksson, Åland, Finland. I also play the older style of nyckelharpas, the kontrabasnyckelharpa, common in the 18th century (made by Hans Gille, 1998) and the moraharpa that dates back to the 16th century (mine is made by Stefan Ekerdahl, 2019) I am also a happy owner of a oktavnyckelharpa made by Olle Plahn, 2022) I mainly use three different bows, made by Jean Claude Condi, Mirecourt in France, Peder Källman, Gothenburg Sweden and a ”Feather” by Tino, Vienna, Austria. Just got myself a new best friend, a brilliant bow, built by Ulf Johansson, Harlösa, Sweden.
Teaching
Welcome to the nyckelharpa family! We are many passionated players, all over the world.
I love to teach and share my perspective in how to use this instrument in a fun and effective way. My philosophy in teaching the nyckelharpa and the Swedish repertoire of tunes is drawn from how its been taught, in oral tradition, between generations of fiddlers/nyckelharpa players in Sweden for hundreds of years. I teach ”by ear” and (nearly) only use sheet music when looking at original archive material with no sounding/recorded source.
I love to share my passion for this instrument, to dive deep into the many dimensions in how to master the skills and special techniques that make a nyckelharpa sound like a nyckelharpa.
I have my root and deep knowledge in the music of Uppland and Västmanland and with this as my home base I love exploring other traditions and genreas.
I teach regularly at workshops all around Europe and currently also as one of the main teachers at the one year course at the center of nyckelharpa Eric Sahlström Institutet in Uppland.
I am also part of the online teaching team at "The Folkmusic Academy". Join and become a member by clicking this link and get a 10% discount! Fabulous teachers from all of the nordic countries with a lot of traditional music to learn (and much more!) 
I have experience and training in yoga and mental training which I use to keep a holistic perspective, thinking of the body and the instrument as one unit, giving a more ergonomically way of playing this rather heavy instrument. You can read more about this at nyckelharpa.eu
I am also the proud musical leader of the "World Music Orchestra" of Västmanland. Our reharsals are open for anyone to join in. We combine old traditional music from the county of Västmanland with tunes from musicians that newly moved to Sweden, bringing flavoures from all over the world. Visit Västmanlands Världsmusikorkester here.