Flying with two instruments, though, that’s a dire prospect: there are almost no situations in which you can get away with carrying on both a nyckelharpa and a violin at the same time. Unless you want to hire a travel companion or buy an extra seat, you’re looking at checking one of your instruments as baggage. We’ve all heard plenty of horror stories about how that can turn out.

For my most recent CD recording project, though, there was no way around it: I needed both of my own instruments with me, and we were recording in Finland. With this new motivation I revived the “it’s time to invest in a flight case” project. Before that I’d spent several years periodically researching the options, each time giving up because the best answer I found sounded too expensive, or too heavy, or not quite the right size.

Desiderata

I’d determined that the optimal solution would have the following features:

• Big enough to fit the nyckelharpa in its soft case (so you can use just the normal case on arrival)
• Small enough to fit into normal-size checked-baggage guidelines
• Wheels
• Strong yet lightweight
• Cost maybe $200, not $500+

(Some options I had previously looked into: David Eriksson provided a helpful diagram of the custom-built plywood case he uses for flying with a second nyckelharpa, but even with wheels that sounded too heavy for me to manage. Industry leader Pelican’s nearest fit, the Pelican Storm iM3220, measures a little over the airlines’ regular-size maximum; Pelican’s minimum order for custom sizes is 1000 units. Earl Holzman had commissioned a custom case from CaseXtreme, but it was not roomy enough to hold also the regular soft case, didn’t look sturdy enough, and they quoted me $700.)

Success

Happily, this time I had finally waited long enough for someone else to experiment for me: Vicki Swan, the preeminent nyckelharpa teacher in the UK, had posted a YouTube video detailing her experiences with the Pelican Storm iM3220 case. Yup, that’s the one I’d earlier worried was a few inches too big. She didn’t wind up having an issue with the size, and her video offers some instructions/advice about packing and padding securely. When I emailed her with a couple of followup questions, she was super-friendly and helpful. Sold!

I’ve now completed several successful trips with the Pelican case (to Finland, to Sweden, to California), and it has served me flawlessly. Nobody has yet challenged me about its borderline size, which is a relief since oversize baggage charges would run to about $150. It rolls well (or even drags pretty well, if you’re in such a hurry you forget to notice you started off with it upside down), feels super-solid, has handles at top and side that snap satisfyingly down flat, sports six secure latches. It shows some scrape marks from being baggage-handled but nary a sign of wear to the inside.

Want to replicate my results, or improve on them? Here are some guidelines. They draw from several sources: advice from Olov Johansson during the ESI course year in Tobo, Leif Alpsjö’s expert packing of my instrument for shipping, Vicki’s experiences with this specific case, and my own findings from several successful trips.

My nyckelharpa flight case solution

Pelican Storm iM3220
size	47.20″ x 16.50″ x 9.20″	120cm x 42cm x 24cm
weight empty	20.4 lbs	9.07 kg

airlines calculate linear size as L + W + H
our total = 72.9″ (186cm)
a common max = 62″ (158cm)

1. Buy a Pelican Storm iM3220 case. (Google Shopping results.) Choose the configuration that’s empty, without their signature customizable padding: their foam is too thick, so you’ll need to get your own anyway. In 11/2017 I paid $235 at B&H.
2. Line it with dense foam. My local fabric store sold me their standard sheet of 1″ foam for about $30, and it was pretty much the perfect amount. I used a layer on the top and bottom of the case, a double layer at the head and foot, and the rest became smaller pieces for further padding/stabilizing.
3. Prepare the nyckelharpa: The tallest part is the fine tuners, so you’ll need to unscrew them all the way and take them out altogether. Detune all your strings as well, to help it cope with all the pressure changes. I leave them a bit slack but not so loose that I’d have to worry about the bridge coming down. (I also pad around the bridge; see below.)
4. Set the nyckelharpa in its soft case into the flight case. Remember that you’ll want the tailpiece at the bottom and the head at the top, same as in your regular case. The standard gig-bag soft case fits, but barely: you’ll need to remove the backpack straps to set in alongside the instrument, else it will be too tall for the lid to close comfortably. If you usually carry your bow in the outer bow-pocket, move that down lower next to the instrument as well.
5. Basic padding: At the foot of the instrument my case’s own shaped padding was worn out, so I’ve now replaced it with a double layer of this same 1″ foam, or there’s room for a triple layer in there. While I’m there, I also add a strip of foam across the tailpiece, right at the bottom of the instrument body. At the head I’ve cut a single slitted rectangle to create a snug little folded surround for the pegbox, so a security inspector can easily see what’s in there without needing to do anything more complicated afterward than just pull the flap back down. Now the head and tail of the instrument are the highest-padded parts of the case, which should help protect the bridge.
6. Finer padding: With the remaining smaller bits of foam, add a strip under the keys, a thinner strip between the keys to keep them from rattling, a block of foam on each side of the bridge. Maybe pop other little snippets in under the tailpiece, the bridge end of the keybox, the slackened strings if there’s room.
7. Clothes or other lightweight items: Now that the instrument itself is pretty much stabilized, you want to fill in the areas around it so it’s well cushioned. Not too tight, so can absorb a little shock if needed.
8. Leave the case zipper open. The security folks, at least in the US, will feel compelled to peek.
9. Stickers and labels: I’ve got a Fragile sticker on each face of the case and, following Vicki’s lead, a sign “Fragile! Musical instrument, nyckelharpa” with a photo of what the instrument looks like. Pretty sure this case size was designed for guns, but at least we can keep some people from reaching that instant conclusion.

The weakest point of this arrangement is probably the spot right over the bridge of the instrument. The case is only barely tall enough, so it’s not possible to pad it quite as well as we’d like. If someone in the baggage department were to jump up and down on the case right over the bridge, the instrument would probably sustain damage. Otherwise, though, the case is exceptionally sturdy and seems like it would weather just about anything.

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Although I landed midafternoon, and there is now a brand new commuter rail line connecting Juha’s station with the airport, by the time I’d navigated all the bits (train ticket, phone usage, cash, station names with different endings in Finnish meaning the same place) I was pushing it on getting to Emmi’s 5:30p concert. Fortunately that all turned out all right, and it was a treat to hear her Balkan-Finnish trio live in the lively little art gallery space.

After each day’s rehearsal session, Juha needed to resume Daddy-duty and retrieve his daughter from daycare, so I opted to make a couple of forays into town to see what kinds of tourist trouble I could get into. I got to meet up with my ESI classmate Anni for dinner, hear a free outdoor concert of a folk duo she’d told me about, pick up a couple of tiny things at the Moomin store, launch an expotition to the suburban-ish mall in pursuit of the Finnish equivalent of a Target store, walk quite a bit, and ride on several buses.

I also learned that apparently highway buses don’t stop for you if you just sit at the bus stop. Or stand in front of it at the edge of the pulloff lane. Or stand there and look purposeful and wave. But if you wander farther up toward the start of the pulloff lane too (and possibly just if you’ve tried enough times), eventually one will condescend to pick you up. On the bright side, there are a skillion buses, so it didn’t take That long to be ignored by the first dozen (only 3–4 of which were actually scheduled to stop for me). Saana later confirmed that Helsinki bus drivers appear to be selected for exceptional surliness, so we celebrated together the kindness of drivers in Stockholm.

On this trip we lucked into a chance to play a little concert. His friend Marja has recently acquired the old station building at our nearest train station, and is building it up as an art gallery space. It developed that I was visiting during the week of her first-ever solo show of her own work, in celebration of her birthday, so she was inviting musician friends to play each evening. It’s always informative to try things out on a receptive audience, and the gallery space has pleasing acoustics, so we enjoyed the experience very much. Marja sat and drew each of us multiple times as we played; she gave us the sketches as mementos, and they are fun to have.

Stefhan dropped me off at the library in Rättvik. I can always amuse myself in a library. Especially one that has a cute little natural history museum. Kerstin picked me up at the appointed time, and we had a pleasant drive back toward Stockholm. I was staying with P-O in Upplands Väsby (I’d left my suitcase with him on the way through toward Gotland), so we three and P-O’s fiddle buddy Eva all joined up at P-O’s house for dinner and some tunes — a fine companionable evening.

There’s a charming little hostel, just four bedrooms plus common space, above the museum that’s down the road from the bruk. The owner offered special musicians’ rates for the occasion, and there were so few takers that he still had room for me when I discovered at the last second that I didn’t have a reservation after all. Again Ursula and I had an entire four-bed room to ourselves — in a nice dark room with no outside windows, so we had a very restful morning.

Saturday began in glorious-sunny-day mode, perfect for a bit of wandering about. The schedule offered a blacksmithing demo, though it was a good several notches less formal than that sounds. In the afternoon Jonny Soling offered a two-hour free workshop, the first half an engaging lecture about his own musical career and his teachers, the second half a fiddle workshop centered around practice techniques. Then most of us fiddlers trooped outside for allspel practice (the skies let loose midway through; fortunately we were under a tent).

It felt like the event really kicked off in the evening — that’s when the bulk of the attendees turned up. The opening act for the evening concert was Fällmans ukelele orchestra (Fällman is also the blacksmith), then the main show was Pers Hans & Pers Alexander. For the rest of the night the main hall had a full lineup of groups playing for dancing, and although the dance floor seemed a little sparse, it was quite nice dancing. Best half-hour-straight of Bodapolska ever! Reportedly there was another smaller venue just down the hill, but I never made it down there, since I was nice and dry where I was.

Just when I was switching over into “it must be time to play for a while” mode, Stefhan was doing the same thing. He invited me outside to play with him and a couple of his old friends, and I felt honored to be included. Then suddenly it was quite late, and ‘most everyone had the sense to start packing up. I joined the late-night session for a bit, mostly listened to a lot of complicated Dala tunes I’d never heard before, though some were starting to sound familiar from the previous night. Plenty of new recordings to work with!

I have fond memories of the hostel in Rättvik from my very first trip to Sweden in ’05, but it turns out that’s not an economical solution for a solo traveler: you have to pay for all four beds. So I checked in with Tommy, whom I met in DC last fall, and he said they’d be happy to help me out. In fact, they’d even pick me up at the train station and take me to the concert and give me a lift back to town in the morning. Once again I am adopted by kind friends, made welcome and well cared for.

Fabulous concert, totally worth the trek. Enjoyed getting to visit with Tommy & Jill, and did not eat all their raspberries. Had a quiet morning of napping and catching up on logistics, headed into town to wander around some favorite places for the afternoon. Acquired a knitting project, a lace shawl using gorgeous hand-dyed wool from Åland. Visited Tommy’s office at the Folkmusikens Hus and bought some CDs, stocked up on groceries for the weekend. Kerstin picked me up around dinnertime, on her way north from Stockholm, and gave me a ride up to Furudal.

Matilda had made an excellent plan for me: I’d stay in her room at the hostel a little ways out of town, since she was moving right into the thick of things for the busy week. I’d borrow her (dad’s) 1975 Corolla and commute in within walking range. This plan was excellent right until the day before I arrived, which is when the car decided it was on strike. It managed my first evening, which got us settled in our abodes and me fixed up with some groceries, but in the morning it was too tired to move. So after that my commute was instead a half-hour walk to the bus stop for a bus that runs every two hours. The first day I succeeded in hitching a lift (there’s pretty much nowhere else you can go from that road besides straight into Visby), but the other days I just timed it for the bus instead. That meant my evenings had to end by 10:30p-ish, although the larger events tended up pick up steam around 11p.

For the most part, I was on my own. I felt a little weird about being a tourist in modern clothes, more outside things than I am used to feeling when I travel. I did enjoy wandering around, especially in the old town and in the medieval marketplace, and I took a skazillion photos. One of the nice leather workers made me a belt in the same style as “everyone” was wearing, just an iron ring and a leather band, which had the double benefit of letting me feel like I owned one proper article of clothing and keeping me from having to haul my jeans up all the time, which was making me look silly.

One of my main goals for the trip to Gotland was getting to visit the church where the world’s oldest nyckelharpa player stands, a small stone carving over a doorway arch, dating from 1350. The excursion was looking infeasible in light of the car failure, since there is no public transit out that way, but then I lucked into a connection with a friend of a friend (I’d met her in Ransäter in 2013) who had just gotten back to town the previous day from a long trip abroad, and who hadn’t even known about the statue and was game for an expotition. We drove out there, admired the church inside and out, took lots of pictures, and played a few tunes inside (loud!) before she drove us back to town. Success!

Despite being crazy-busy, my ESI classmates did manage to meet up with me for lunch at a favorite veggie place. It was great to see them and catch up a bit. We planned to meet again in Stockholm later for a little longer and to play together.

As always, I enjoyed getting to work with Mia & Micke. They had prepared arrangements for a whole slew of tunes: we ended up learning 6 of them, plus an additional 2 or 3 or 4 voices for each, and then playing our arrangements for dancing in the evening. Our class of 20-something was mostly fiddles, though we also had a couple of guitars, a couple of clarinets, a bass clarinet, a cello, a bouzouki, an English concertina, one nyckelharpa,… and in arrangements Micke mostly played his blue electric viola(?) so we’d have a strong bassline. I enjoyed playing basslines on stage [sic] next to him.

Each evening there was an hour-long session with all the classes together: one night we had a dance class with Anna Öberg, one night we had a singing class with Maria Röjås. Then following the class session was a dance evening, where students could sign up to play for a usually half-hour slot. Students seemed initially reluctant to sign up except as part of their class performances, which might be why the teachers seeded the earlier slots. I did play solo sets for dancing on the last couple of nights; it was great to get the practice and the dancers seemed pleased. Nice to have the chance to work on a couple of new tunes I’d picked up at Korrö.

I was surprised that there wasn’t more of a culture of informal jamming. Though very pleased to be welcomed into a trio of folks who play together in Örebro — my friend Jörgen and a couple of his friends were playing a great dance set on the first(?) night, and when I asked whether I could play with them sometime I thought I meant jamming, though joining them for their dance sets on the following nights was great fun too.