Slåtter på kontrabass (Norwegian folk tunes on the double bass) is a project where I contextualize the link between folk music and my own music making. The most striking similarities lies in the use of overtones: harmonics on the double bass, and what folk musicians call the nature-tone-scale. Within the project I focus on three main approaches, which often overlap:

1. Transcriptions and arrangements of folk tunes for solo bass, bass ensembles and bass with pre-recorded sound

2. My own compositions based on various material from folk tunes

3. Exploring microtonal tunings of the strings

Skorda is a web-based software that visualizes and simulates overtones and overtone relationships on a string. It is a tool for designing and hearing chords for string instruments in pure tunings. It is not a synth and not a notation software, but an intermediary: a place where a composer or performer can ask the question "what happens if I tune this string like this?" and get the answer both as numbers, as notation and as sound, at the same moment.

Skorda is intended as a tool for composers and instrumentalists, as a kind of reference and interactive tool for composition and interpretation. Skorda will be free to use, with a strong focus on dissemination that can create a basis for innovative work on string instruments.

Microtonal tunings on the double bass is the result of an approach to adapt and play Norwegian folk melodies, with their strange intonations, on overtones on the double bass. The microtonal tunings are created based on intervallic relationships between overtones on different strings: e.g. the 4.partial on the G-strings is tuned in unison with the 7.partial on the A-string or vice versa. By tuning one string at a time, one can build a whole scordatura as a chain of pure intervals.

To demonstrate these tunings I am composing and arranging a series of pieces called Microtonal Tuning Pieces, which are (for the most part) based on melodic, rhythmic or tonal material from Norwegian folk music. The first piece in this series is Bukkehornspolsen, composed in 2016. 

An investigation of the development and practice of multiphonics on the double bass in contemporary music. The research was conducted in collaboration with Knut Guettler, and resulted also in the article Bowed-string multiphonics analyzed by use of impulse response and the Poisson summation formula.

The webpage of "A New World of Sounds - recent advancements in contemporary double bass techniques" contains the reflection and documentation of my work as a fellow at the Norwegian Academy of Music in the period 2007-2011.

The project is structured around four main subjects: