This is a presentation of the ideas behind and the findings in the ongoing project Folk Song Lab.  This project aims to explore new artistic expressions for folk song, thus revitalizing and renewing folk singing of today through collective improvisation, developed and explored by the artists in the project. 

   The research questions take their starting point in the ethnological performance perspective, meaning that a folk song takes form only in the performance, viewing the song as a cognitive frame. ‘What was it she had carried in her memory? Not a text, but a ballad: an entity soluble in the mind, to be concretely realized at will in words and music.’ (Bronson, 1969). 

Thus, how can collective improvisation in sessions examine the cognitive framework of folk songs? How can central dimensions in folk singing style, such as musical and lyric formulation in the moment, evolve and be promoted through different improvisation models? Singing, performing, composing are facets of the same act. […] the moment of composition is the performance.’ (Albert Lord, Singer of Tales 1960)

The project also aims to observe how the design of models for improvisation affects the participant experience of psychological flow, both on individual and group levels. How can flow be stimulated by designed improvisation models based on flow features such as mimicry, play, risk, reorientation, feedback & real-life performance using improvisation? The models such as  ‘shadow-singing’ ‘meandering’, ‘storyboard ball, ad’ are tested and evaluated by their creative usefulness. 

The project is unique from the perspective of the genre, gender, and instrument and is inter-disciplinary. The participants are beside project leader folk singer Susanne Rosenberg, three other professional folk singers and two neurological researchers. The project is supported by The Swedish Research Council in a three-year project.