This presentation discusses features of the singing style in Swedish folk singing. This also leads to an attempt to describe some aspects of teaching folk singing style. In addition, it proposes a model for describing a singing style by combining particular features into a whole – a “singing style map” – as a compound concept. Individual features may be shared with other styles, allowing them to be combined into yet other singing styles. The presentation focuses on describing the features of the singing style from the singer's perspective and their usefulness for singing. It argues that, in folk singing, the singer’s voice quality and personality will always shine through even if stylistic features are shared within the style, which implies no contradiction. The features and the model describe both musical and technical aspects of singing, e.g. language as a tool for musical expression, voice mode, articulation, ornamentation, meter and phrasing, etc.

Within artistic research, we try out and formulate new methods for artistic practice. But how do we, in the best way, disseminate those? How do we present artistic methods for musical creation? Visually? Through objects? Through narrative? With word as a text? Through the” act of singing”? These are intriguing questions; even if the research thrives in the artistic practice, we still want to disseminate our findings broadly so that other artists and interested parties can use and build knowledge on that. 

This presentation will give examples of how to answer those questions by presenting findings from the project Folk Song Lab (supported by The Swedish Research Council 2019-2022), where, through collective improvisation, different artistic methods have been carved out and tested. Through art practice, the project has developed methods of singing from the perspective of flow parameters (Csikszentmihalyi) and ‘System 1’ (Kahneman). With a foundation from traditional singing and its stylistic and musical structure, a framework for creating anew has been formulated: a place, a time, and collective improvisation has been performed in a real-life performance. These findings and the different ways of disseminating them could be interesting not only within the field of folk singing or music but also be useful and give perspective in other genres and art forms. 

What happens when contemporary folk singers improvise end rhymes in the style of the Swedish medieval ballads? In an ongoing project – Folk Song Lab – folk singers collectively improvised ballads with end rhymes using different methods. How do different improvising methods affect the result? Is it possible to acquire additional skills in rhyming via improvisation? Furthermore – how do the singer’s expertise, the number of participants in a session, and the setting in which improvisation occurs affect the result? Can improvisation sessions promote a higher degree of variation in not only the melody but also the storytelling? These questions are discussed through a presentation of results from two different collective improvising sessions. 

In the artistic research project “Folk Song Lab” (Rosenberg, 2019-2021) methods for oral composition and improvisation is tested from the concept of the song as being a cognitive framework both when it comes to tonality, melody and lyrics referring to Bronson’s quote: “What was it she had carried in her memory? Not a text, but a ballad: a fluid entity soluble in the mind, to be concretely realized at will in words and music.”(Bronson, 1969:71)

By collective improvising sessions new songs are created in the project, both when it comes to melody and lyrics using rhyme as a vital ingrediency. The cognitive framework being useful both regarding to tonality and when it comes to text-formulas such as rhyme-pattern. The narrative starting point comes from structures that can be found in the Swedish medieval ballads and paring with different returning formulas (Jansson, 1999) such as “the grey horse”, “the green woods”, “the lily-white hand” by rhyming. In the Folk Song Lab project new ballads are improvised where the end-rhyme is a vital part. Also song-games that are promoting end-rhyme is tested in an improvisatory setting to enhance the participants internal knowledge in how to use rhyme as an tool for creating new songs.

How does todays folk singer deal with rhyming as a tool? How can you learn the skills of rhyming? What are the benefits of using rhyme in an improvisatory setting?

This paper presents findings from this ongoing research projects and compares these findings with traditional material. It will also present the viewpoint that improvisatory skills and creativity benefit from using formulas such as rhymes, and that internal knowledge could give room for strategies that promotes being freer in the moment (deManzano & Ullén 2012; Pinho et al 2016). This also reflects on the cognitive framework as useful when creating, and points back to quotation such as Albert Lord’s: “Our oral poet is composer. Our singer of tales is a composer of tales. Singer, performer, composer, and poet are one under different aspects but at the same time. Singing, performing, composing are facets of the same act.”(Lord, 2003).

En video där Susanne Rosenberg presenterar några inspel när det gäller konstnärlig process och verktyg som kan vara användbara att kunna/ utveckla. Teman som behandlas är Flow som konstnärliga parametrar, och hur dessa kan användas kreativt för att komma vidare med sitt projekt.  

Folkmusikens gehörsmetod

Folkmusikens gehörsmetod – FOG är ett konstnärligt och pedagogiskt utvecklings- och forskningsprojekt på Institutionen för folkmusik, KMH (2018-2021) som undersöker gehörsmetoden som vi använder dagligen i undervisningen.

Vad är målet?

Medvetandegöra gehörsprocessen för att beskriva, utveckla och tillgängliggöra för fler.

Resultat

Resultaten av forskningsprojektet kommer presenteras i form av:

konstnärliga gestaltningar, reflektioner, forskningsartiklar, pedagogiskt material, seminarium, konserter, konferenspublikation.

In my artistic research, “Kurbits-ReBoot, Swedish traditional singing in new artistic contexts” (Rosenberg, 2013), I experimented with developing artistic methods and concepts relating to variation and improvisation from the perspective of the folk singer as a creative performer (performer-composer) and the song as an imaginary entity that only exists in the interpretation of a singer.  This implies that a song is viewed as a container for ideas, a framework, a starting point for creating something - the song - every time you sing – a musical work being created by the singer, rather than a musical work in the sense of a composition that is interpreted by a singer.

My inspiration to this idea came from my own experiences as being part of an oral tradition in folk singing and learning by ear from singers “in the moment”, but also from testimony from collectors and performers about the art of folk singing, such as about the English ballad singer Mrs Brown: “What was it she had carried in her memory? Not a text, but a ballad: a entity soluble in the mind, to be concretely realized at will in words and music.”(Bronson, 1969). This concept, that the song only takes a concrete form through the act of singing, is realized in its interpreted form only, could be just as relevant for today’s traditional singers as it was for Mrs Brown, since it points to the possibility of empowering the performative momentum and performative power of the folk singer as an interpreter of ‘here and now’, creating presence. But this concept also gives rise to the interesting question on how to use this idea of “the song” as a ‘framework’ for a musical performance in a our present time where everything can be recorded, logged, saved and listened to again and again, where increasingly less and less things really happens “now”.  

In my work I have experimented with using parameter from the concept of “Flow” (Csikszentmihaly, 1990) and the ideas of using the dynamic between orality and literacy (Ong, 1982) in order to address this complex issue. In Folk Song Lab I’ve experimented with using the language of Folk Song by deconstructing and with an artistic investigation with the perspective of Folk Song as a framework for musical expression in the moment.

This is a presentation of an on-going project called Folk Song Lab which addresses different approaches or methods for this deconstruction, and moreover reflection of my findings. The idea is to present the findings, the methods, and result with recordings and images from the experimental sessions as well as with sessions in it self. I myself is both part of the setting and participating in this experiment as well as the reflecting part.

[1] In the Project ”Contemporary Folk Songs” 2014

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. 

This is a presentation of an on-going project funded by the Swedish Research Council called "Folk Song Lab - deconstruction, improvisation and flow”,

The purpose of the project is to develop and explore new models for collective improvisation in traditional folk singing. The starting point is the ethnological performance-perspective, meaning that a folk song takes form only in the performance, viewing the song as a cognitive frame. In this explorative study, this perspective is researched using features of traditional folk song in new contexts. The project also aims at observing how the design of models for improvisation affects the participant experience of psychological flow, both on individual and on group level. The goal of the project is to establish new artistic expressions for folk song, thus revitalizing and renewing folk singing of today by means of collective improvisation and to shed light on how flow and artistic expression in a collective context are interrelated.

This is a presentation of an on-going project called Folk Song Lab which addresses different approaches or methods for this deconstruction, and moreover reflection of my findings. The idea is to present the findings, the methods, and result with recordings and images from the experimental sessions as well as with sessions in itself.

A presentation of the findings in a research project called Folk Song Lab. Folk Song Lab is a platform for improvising folk songs in a collective setting in sessions from the cognitive framework of ballads, lullabies, folk chorales, and herding songs. It is an interactive project for singing and creating and developing skills together. The group size can vary from 5-6 persons up to 30-40 participants, and in a session, everybody contributes by singing and listening, taking turns, or improvising simultaneously. Folk Song Lab explores artistic methods such as play, risk, mimicry, reorientation, feedback, and real-life situations to nudge the participant to end up in the flow channel to be in the moment. To be in flow. 

Susanne Rosenberg is a folk singer and Professor of folk singing at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, Sweden. The Folk Song Lab research project is supported by the Swedish Research Council. Vetenskapsrådet 2018-01958  Read more: https://folksonglab.com/ 

Folksång100 är ett pedagogiskt material i form av en självstudiekurs för den som vill utvecklas som folksångare. Materialet innehåller ett 25- minuters webbaserat övningsprogram för rösten och folksången och bygger på idén att även ett kort övningsprogram som upprepas varje dag utvecklar rösten och sången. Efter genomfört program kan ett kryss sättas i medföljande protokoll och och efter ett visst antal kryss utgår en bonus. 

This article presents and discusses features of singing style in Swedish folk singing. This also leads to an attempt to describe some aspects of teaching folk-singing style. Also, it proposes a model for describing a singing style by combining particular features into a whole – a “singing style map” – as a compound concept. Individual features may be shared with other styles, allowing them to be combined into yet other singing styles. The paper focuses on describing the features of the singing style from the perspective of the singer, and on their usefulness for singing. It argues that, in folk singing, the singer’s personal voice quality and personality will always shine through even if stylistic features are shared within the style, which in itself implies no contradiction. The features and the model describe both musical and technical aspects of singing, e.g. language as a tool for musical expression, voice mode, articulation, ornamentation, meter and phrasing etc.

The Department of Folk Music, KMH, in Stockholm has used this model, with its methods and feature set, as an aid for teaching Swedish folk singing from a holistic perspective for more than 30 years. Central to the model is the constant interplay between studying, describing and doing, in a fundamentally creative approach.

‘Kulning’ – herding call - is a vocal expression, that originally was developed for communication between women and animal in the outdoor summer pastures of Sweden. It is a music that uses the landscape as a resonator, and in good conditions, it can be heard at a distance of 5 km or more. ‘Kulning ‘combines high pitch melody lines with various callings were the differences between voice modes are used for contrast. Due to its function for communication, it is improvised and adjusted to the situation in pitch, length and sounds, calling for long or short distances. In the mid 20^th century, the art of kulning practice was declining, basically because the function of summer pasture, where it had its roots, not being in use any longer.

However, the practice of ‘kulning’ has found other contexts for further use. Since the very start of folk music programs at The Royal College of Music in Stockholm, (KMH), ‘kulning’ has been taught as a standard part of voice knowledge for modern folk singers. In this new environment; pedagogic literature has been developed to aid the teaching and learning; new artistic work and collaborations have been based on the art of ‘kulning’, and composers have used ‘kulning’ in their music. ‘Kulning’ has also been researched and described in collaboration between scientific scholars and ‘kulning’ experts. Furthermore, elective courses have been developed within KMH open to both amateurs and professionals from other genres allowing them to learn this vocal expression.

The platform of Folk music studies at KMH has been influential and a vital part for today’s development of ‘kulning’ practice, and today ‘kulning’ is hugely popular both as an art and as an amateur movement and is performed all over the world in a variety of contexts.

This presentation will lay out some examples of this influence and development from the viewpoint of the folk music department at Royal College of Music in Stockholm (KMH) and discuss the importance of Higher Music Education being in the forefront to both keep and develop local traditions such as ‘kulning’.

‘Kulning’, or herding call, was originally used by women as a powerful vocal working tool for communication with the cattle at the summer pastures in rural Scandinavia. 

Today, ‘Kulning’ has transformed into an artistic expression in its own right that can be heard in experimental music, modern composition and arrangements, and even used as a tool for self-defence. ‘Kulning’- has become a popular movement amongst women as a powerful use of the woman's voice. At the Folk Music Department at KMH in Stockholm, we have created a platform for ‘Kulning’as an artistic expression using improvisation and vocal techniques in many different contexts and offer free courses that teach this vocal technique and music style, attracting hundreds of participants from various backgrounds over the years. 

What role has this platform played, based on our artistic, pedagogic, and scientific research, in this transformation? How do we, as artistic practitioners, researchers, and teachers, act as agents of change and innovation within and outside of arts education, giving room to using your voice both as a musical expression and an expression of female power? How has this traditional use of the voice reoriented itself into new contexts, contributing to today's society? 

 References How do we formulate and teach this unique voice use? How do we use it in artistic practice? How is it used and thriving today both inside and outside performed on stage Women herds would use the power of their voices in a high pitch and improvise melodies and calls.

Folk Song Lab uses interactive group sessions to explore different ways by which improvisation stimulates an attitude towards the song by which it is understood as a cognitive framework that is recreated by the singer in the performance moment. It takes its point of origin in certain conceptual qualities found in traditional folk song and improvisation, stimulated using flow-inducing concepts (Csikszentmihalyi 1990. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper Collins.) such as risk, mimicry, play and reorientation, and interpreted in musical terms and without written instructions. This empirical study uses particular developed improvisational methods reflecting traditional songs’ cognitive frames. The project raises questions regarding the influence of time in relation to how creativity and flow appear during improvising sessions. Some of the methods explored in the project, such as mirror singing, might be related to neuroscientific findings regarding the function of mirror-neurons, hence reflecting the possibilities for conceiving of human creativity in a collective way. 

This paper discusses and presents some preliminary results from an ongoing artistic research project by the author called “Folk Song Lab” based on artistic performance concepts found in Swedish traditional folk singing. The project is collective and interactive. The two interlinked explorative research questions concern the potential of traditional folk song as a source for creativity today as well as the potential of creating folk song based on new concepts with improvisation as a foundation, hence stimulating using the folk song musical “language” freely.

The project explores different ways to by improvisation stimulate the attitude towards the song as a cognitive framework which is recreated by the singer in the performance moment, by interactive group sessions. This takes its point of origin from certain conceptual qualities found in traditional folk song, connected to the ethnological concept “performance” (e.g. Kvideland 1981). A creative, non-analytic and open attitude is stimulated using flow-inducing concepts (Csikszentmihalyi 1992), such as risk, mimicry, play and reorientation, interpreted in musical terms and without written instructions.

The project raise question regarding the influence of time for the creativity and flow to appear during improvising sessions. Some of the methods explored in the project, such as "mirror-singing" might be related to neuro-scientific findings regarding the function of mirror-neurons, hence reflecting the possibilities in human creativity in a collective way.

A presentation of the findings in a research project called Folk Song Lab. Folk Song Lab acts as a platform for improvising folk songs in a collective setting in sessions starting from the cognitive framework (Rosenberg, 2019) of ballads, lullabies, folk chorales, and herding songs. It also takes its starting point from B. H. Bronson and A. Lord, indicating that the song only exists in the act of singing. One question asked in the project is what new skills can be acquired with this approach. Another question is how to use different memory systems, system one or system two (Kahneman, 2013) when improvising lyrics and melodies. It explores the possibility of creating artistic methods for flow, using play, risk, mimicry, reorientation, feedback, and real-life situations based on the findings of psychologist Csikszentmihalyi (1990), to nudge the participant to end up in the flow channel, being able to create more freely. A Folk song lab session is about improvising folk songs in a collective setting. Group size can vary from 5 to 40 participants, and a session lasts at least 40 minutes. In the session, everybody contributes by improvising and listening, taking turns, or improvising simultaneously. https://folksonglab.com 

This Keynote-presentation is concentrated on the question of folk music in higher education. The Keynote is divided into five different parts; The student, The teacher, The context, The qualities, The tradition, and describes what they mean and the relations between them. The presentation argues that learning folk music takes place where there is possible to meet and communicate and that this might as well be within a higher music education.

How can artistic research inspire development in higher music education, and how can the practice within higher music education loop back into further artistic research? Can a continuous interchange between artistic research and higher music education provide vitality to artistic research and higher music education? 

This Keynote highlights these questions through the example of the project Folk Song Lab. 

The Folk Song Lab project aims to develop and explore new models for collective improvisation in traditional folk singing. The aim is to find new models to revitalize and renew today’s folk singing within higher music education and beyond. 

Konstnärlig process – En inspirationshandbok ur musikerperspektiv är fylld av metoder, tips och tankar kring vad som kan få det att hända när man fastnat. Hur kommer man vidare genom Flowparametrar och metoder som Stjärnan, Tårtan, Hundra dagar och hur hjälper Neuronerna till? Hur Reflektion genom att skriva, ströva eller göra ingenting kan vara en nog så användbar metod.

Boken tar sin utgångspunkt i ett musikerperspektiv, men trots detta kan metoder, tankar och koncept vara matnyttiga och överförbara till andra konst-former och verksamheter.

Författaren Susanne Rosenberg är sångerska och professor i folksång vid Kungl. Musikhögskolan i Stockholm. Under lång tid har hon intresserat sig för konstnärliga processer och vad som får det att hända – och inte. Genom konstnärlig forskning i sin egen avhandling Kurbits-ReBoot – svensk folksång i ny scenisk gestaltning (2013) undersökte hon metoder och koncept för konstnärlig process genom att an- vända flowparametrar som Play – Risk – Mimicry – Reorientation – Feedback med flera som viktiga katalysatorer i det konstnärliga arbetet.

It is hard to describe in words both how kulning sounds and how you do it. The starting point for the vocal technique is that you want to be heard and to communicate outdoors with the help of the voice. As it has mainly been women who have traditionally worked on the fäbod (summer grazing pasture with small buildings for people, pets, dairy products, and animal feed), the use of the voice has also evolved according to the strengths and limitations of the female voice.

Artikeln belyser kulnings plats i en nutida kontext, där den numera kan höras i många fler sammanhang än på den ursprungliga fäboden. Artikeln beskriver kulning idag som en folkrörelse, där både amatörer och professionella utövare möts, och där kulning som uttryck har en stark dragningskraft på alla som får höra eller prova och där nutida kursdeltagares ord som urkraft, frihet, natur mm.  speglar detta. Kulning finns idag inte bara på fäboden eller konsertscenen utan också i TV, radio, teater, kyrkor, klubbar etc. Kulning tillhör alla. 

Vilka stilmedel och röstbruk hör samman med kulning och hur kan vi undervisa i denna röstkonst? Susanne Rosenberg, professor i folksång vid Kungl. Musikhögskolan i Stockholm med lång erfarenhet av att både forska och undervisa i kulning ger konkreta exempel från sin egen verksamhet och beskriver vad som kännetecknar kulning mer generellt och hur det används idag. Susanne Rosenberg är författare till boken "Kulning - Musiken och tekniken", en lärobok om kulning. 

Landskapsspelet är ett pedagogiskt material för folksångare och andra som vill lära sig folksånger från samtliga svenskspråkiga landskap. Det pedagogiska materialet är upplagt som ett spel där varje inlärd sång genererar ett kryss i protokollet. Efter ett visst uppnått antal kryss kan utgår en bonus.  I spelet ingår webbaserade resurser och spellistor. 

 Syftet med uppsatsen har varit att försöka beskriva Lisa Boudrés (1866-1952) utförande av tre inspelade visor, både vad gäller sånglig och melodisk gestaltning. Ett annat syfte har varit att försöka beskriva det karaktäristiska för svensk vokal folkmusik av den äldre typ som dessa tre visor representerar. Jag har velat göra en djupanalys av en vissångerska, utan att göra anspråk på att säga något generellt om folklig sång i Sverige. Jag hoppas dock vid ett senare tillfälle kunna göra en jämförande studie av flera vissångare.

Min avsikt med uppsatsen har inte varit att närmare beskriva de etnologiska, historiska, funktionella eller sociologiska aspekterna på folklig vissång eller i förhållande till Lisa Boudrés sång, utan dessa aspekter beskriver jag bara kort och i den mån jag har ansett att de har betydelse för förståelsen av det ämne uppsatsen behandlar.

Artikeln beskriver utvecklingen av folksångsmetodik och undervisning i folksång vid Kungl. Musikhögskolan i Stockholm. 

Susanne Rosenberg är professor i folksång vid Kungl. Musikhögskolan där hon både undervisar och forskar. Här berättar Susanne Rosenberg om sitt aktuella forskningsprojekt inom konstnärlig forskning med stöd av Vetenskapsrådet – Folk Song Lab. I projektet utvecklas metoder för kollektiv improvisation med utgångspunkt från “performans”-begreppet i svensk folksång; dess kognitiva ramar såsom form, tonalitet, text, sångstil. Projektet är explorativt, alltså utforskande och sker genom kollektiv improvisation i sessions där konstnärliga metoder testas och utvärderas. Förutom folksång som plattform används också flow-parametrar som utgångspunkt för metoderna, något Rosenberg utvecklat i tidigare forskning. Medforskare i projektet är Maria Misgeld, Sofia Sandén, Eva Rune från KMH och Fredrik Ullén och Örjan de Manzano från KI. Susanne Rosenberg är ledamot av Kungl. Musikaliska Akademin sedan 2015.

Recordings and transcriptions of polyphonic singing is rare to find in the Swedish-speaking areas of the Nordic countries. The dominating tradition is a solo tradition. This paper present and discuss strategies in polyphonic singing in some rare recordings from the Swedish-speaking areas and sets them in relation to descriptions of older communal collective singing from the 19^th century and back.

The phonograph recordings were made in 1908 in the Swedish speaking parts of southern Finland. These are the oldest recordings of singing in Swedish language and present polyphonic singing with two singers, at the time well-known (Ahlbäck, 2003; Häggman, 1992).

The singing style shows features much alike traditional solo singing from the Nordic countries: relatively high register for male voice, singing on nasal consonants etc. (Gjertsen, 1985; Ramsten & Jersild, 1988; Rosenberg, 1986, 1993, 2009). The tonality is modal in “herding-call mode” (Ahlbäck, 1986), with strong focus on tonal center, fifth and fourth. The singers change roles during their singing and present independent melodic lines including ornamentation and microtonality in the polyphonic setting, with phrases often ending on same pitch.

What are the strategies of the two singers? This paper presents a view that both singers hold in their memory a kind of framework of the melodic idea of “the song” rather than a melodic line with an accompaniment. Suggesting that the singers have a perception of the mode, lyrics and melodic framework, but that the interpretation, the exact version of the song never comes out the same. This concept has been pointed out and described by e.g. Bronson (Bronson, 1969)

Susanne Rosenberg is a professor in folk singing and Doctor of Music (DocMus) at the Royal College of Music, Sweden. She is also a well-known singer and has been a pioneer in rediscovering old singing styles and polyphonic singing in an innovative way, using traits from old tradition both Swedish and elsewhere to form music of today as presented both on CD and articles. Read more https://heartbeatbreathe.com/

This case study reflects on the experience of the performance program ‘Folk and Art Music from Other Cultures’ that was started in 2000 at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, giving musicians from non-Swedish music culture backgrounds the opportunity to access higher education within their own genre. 

“The degree to which all of this was conveyed systematically varied greatly by culture; but on the whole, the music, with all of the mentioned components, was transmitted as one entity.” (Nettl, 1985). Nettl beskriver här inlärningsprocessen eller metodiken om vi så vill i en gehörstradition inkluderande repertoar och sångstil som en helhet. Men hur lär vi ut sångstil och repertoar inom folksång idag, när folksången endast är en del av en diversifierad musikvärld?

      Inom den västerländska konstmusiken har sångstil lärts ut genom metodik som utvecklat av sångare och pedagoger sedan 1500-talet t.ex. Maffei (1562) och Caccini (1602) och inom pop, jazz och rockgenren har pedagogiskt material utvecklats av sångare som t.ex. Jo Estill (1994) och Cathrine Sadolini (2000) m.fl. redan sedan mitten av 1900-talet. Metodik och pedagogik hos dessa pedagoger kan sägas avspeglar estetiska ideal, hur sången ska låta, vilken sångstil det handlar om, vad man behöver kunna inom just den genren (även om genre-begreppet inte används utan är implicit).

     Inom folksången har situationen varit delvis en annan. Fokus har primärt legat på att beskriva sångstil utifrån musikvetenskapligt och musiketnologiskt perspektiv inte ett metodiskt, både internationellt och i en skandinavisk kontext genom t.ex. Alan Lomax Cantometrics (1976). Först under de senaste 30 åren har metodik för folksångstil börjat utvecklas i en nordisk kontext.

På vilket sätt avspeglar en metodik en genre och dess sångstil?

På vilket sätt påverkar metodiska val en genre och dess sångstil?

På vilket sätt kan Nettls beskrivning av en metodik inom gehörstradition vara giltig idag?

Vad definierar en sångstil?Detta paper diskuterar en modell för hur sångstil kan beskrivas med stilistiska drag och sångsätt även om olika sångstilar ständigt överlappar varandra. En specifik sångstil beskrivs här som förekomsten av ett antal stilmedel som var för sig inte definierar stilen men som tillsammans i sin unika kombination gör det och som därigenom delar ett sammanhängande estetiskt förhållningssätt.

      In some other genres, such as within Western classical music, education on higher level has a long history and there is a strong pedagogic and methodological tradition of formal music education since several hundred years.

  Within folk & traditional music, we don’t have that long a history within a higher education system, but what we do have is a long history of informal music education outside of the higher education context with oral teaching methods, learning by ear, primarily based on tacit knowledge and mimicry.

  At the folk music department at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm we have since the start of folk music educations in 1979 developed teaching methods and subjects into a curriculum which take its starting point from the central qualities of orally transmitted music. We call this concept “Folk Trad Orality Method” which amongst other things implies when it comes to teaching: interactivity, a close linkage between performance and theory, imitation/mimicry, holistic, improvisation, interdisciplinary, orality as important aspects of the method. A fundamental starting point for folk music can be expressed as: There is no original - only variants. Tradition implies change and continuity and tradition requires competence. There are no strong boundaries between function and art.  And most of all: The individual interpretation is what is aimed for, the musician is in focus, not the music as an object. Meaning that we educate “creative interpreters” that are both musicians, interpreters, arrangers, composer – all at the same time.

  As teachers we facilitate the learning of the tradition based on our competence which in most cases starts from our own tacit knowledge on how to play, sing, dance and our experience in meeting with the tradition coupled with an analytical perspective on the practice. Thus, the conceptual ground for the music we play and teach is still the same even if the platform or the context is different in the higher education.

  But this Folk Trad Orality Method concept is sometimes questioned by e.g. teachers from other genres, and by ethnomusicologist, and also by students! – Giving the argument that if you learn by ear and by imitation as a central method, is it really possible to develop an individual expression, become a profiled musician?

  How can this conflict be addressed? What are the challenges in using these methods? Research shows that it might be the opposite around, that the oral transmission methods actually created a strong nudging in the right direction when it comes to creating individual “creative interpreter” from a holistic perspective. One could argue that the Folk Trad Orality Method in fact holds a lot of opportunities also outside of the folk & trad music context? What are the possibilities inherent in this method? How can this be developed also outside of the folk music context? This presentation addresses and problematize the usefulness of the Folk Trad Orality Method both inside and outside of the higher music education.

I doktorandprojekt ”Kurbits ReBoot, svensk folksång i ny scenisk kontext” (Rosenberg, 2013) undersöktes om koncept flow (Csikszentmihaly, 1990) kunde användas ”omvänt” i en konstnärlig process. Kan de begrepp som kännetecknar en person som upplever flow, också användas som konstnärliga verktyg, gestaltande metoder, för att uppnå detsamma. Begreppen reorientering, mimicry, play och risk kompletterades med verktygen skarpt läge, feedback, längtan och långtråkigt, för att testa denna möjlighet. Ur det konstnärliga experimentet trädde en processmässig tidslinje fram där verktygen hade olika användbarhet i olika delar av den konstnärliga process som sker både kontinuerligt och språngvis. Detta ger en kompletterande modell till t.ex. koncept som Kolbs learningcircle (1984).  I denna presentation presenteras också en ny undersökning kring modellens användbarhet i att förstå och beskriva en konstnärlig process med utgångspunkt från andra konstnärers beskrivning av hur deras konstnärliga process fungerar och startar. 

Csikszentmihaly, M. (1990). Flow, Den optimala upplevelsens psykologi. Stockholm: Natur och kultur.

Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential Learning, Experience as The Source of Learning and Development. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

Rosenberg, S. (2013). Kurbits-ReBoot, svensk folksång i ny scenisk gestaltning. (Doctor of Music), KMH and Sibeliusacademy, Stockholm.

Rosenberg är sångerska och professor i folksång vid Kungl Musikhögskolan och disputerade 2013 med den konstnärliga avhandlingen ”Kurbits ReBoot, svensk folksång i ny scenisk kontext”. Fokus i forskning ligger just nu på improvisation i folksång.

This article addresses questions about stability and variation in folk singing in relation to different learning methods such as oral transmission from recordings, learning in live situations or from musical notation, and in folk singing studies within higher music education (HME). A case study is presented where methods for audio analysis were used in order to examine the development of interpretation in recordings of contemporary folk singers. The singers learned the songs either by oral transmission from a living person, from a recording, or from a transcription. The study shows that singers learning by oral transmission proceeded from an initial mimicking that reproduced the source closely, to the presentation of versions holding both stable features and extensive variation of other features. Stable features included relative ‘phrase-timing’, voice timbre quality, pronunciation and ‘rhythmising patterns’. Variation was found in features such as melody, micro-rhythm, micro-timing, intonation praxis, articulation, and ornamentation. The different learning methods are discussed in relation to teaching and learning in HME. By way of describing how musical material is both transferred as a certain singer’s version and further developed by the learner, the term ‘the singer’s imprint’ is introduced.

This article addresses questions about stability and variation in folk singing in relation to different learning methods such as oral transmission from recordings, learning in live situations or from musical notation, and in folk singing studies within higher music education (HME). A case study is presented where methods for audio analysis were used in order to examine the development of interpretation in recordings of contemporary folk singers. The singers learned the songs either by oral transmission from a living person, from a recording, or from a transcription. The study shows that singers learning by oral transmission proceeded from an initial mimicking that reproduced the source closely, to the presentation of versions holding both stable features and extensive variation of other features. Stable features included relative ‘phrase timing’, ‘voice timbre quality’, pronunciation and ‘rhythmising patterns’. Variation was found in features such as melody, micro-rhythm, micro-timing, intonation praxis, articulation, and ornamentation. The different learning methods are discussed in relation to teaching and learning in HME. By way of describing how musical material is both transferred as a certain singer’s version and further developed by the learner, the term ‘the singer’s imprint’ is introduced.

Many scholars (Kvideland, Ond, Lönnroth, Parry and others) have observed that variation is a given constituent of oral tradition – a way of thinking. Applied to traditional vocal music, this conception entails that there is no such thing as an original or correct version of a song. The essence of the notion is that the “work of art” comes into being the moment it is sung, which means that the existence of the song depends on our singing it. But if we create a song anew every time we sing it, and this is its only existence, where then does this thing we call the song begin and end – what is constant and what is variable?

In an attempt to shed some light on the phenomenon of variability, the present author has chosen to examine a set of songs as performed by seven different singers (born between 1860 and 1970). The study of variation is carried out by means of different methods of analysis, some of which are well proven and some are new in relation to the twin objective of both looking at variation in itself and assessing the applicability of the different methods. The article examines how the method of analysis influences the result. Methods such as western notation system, note-site analysis, melodic graph analysis, melodic skeleton analysis, syllable analysis, music-metric syllable raster, and sound analysis/acoustic analysis produce a degree of discrepant results or emphasise different parameters: tonal variation can be detected by using the western system of note writing, variation of form or variation of the melody-lines between different stanzas is best detected using melodic graphs, music metric syllable raster reveals variation in the number and placing of syllables in the phrases, sound analysis based on layered sound files yields information about tempo, phrasing and dynamics.

This Article describes the development of teaching folk singing within higher education. It describes the ideas of the voice pedagogy, how to use singing style parameters, and also gives an overview of the introduction of folk singing into KMH (Royal College of Music), in Stockholm on a more general level. The article was originally written in Swedish.

Dagens folkmusiker har mycket gemensamt med äldre tiders ”Stads-musikant” och byspelman, de som tillskrivs ”Spelmansböckerna” (Gustafsson, 2016). Precis som dessa har dagens folkmusiker (och folksångare) ofta en central, mångfacetterad roll i sitt lokalsamhälle, de är ”skapande interpreter” (Rosenberg, 2013), vilket betyder att de som musiker rör sig sömlöst mellan rollerna som musiker, arrangör, kompositör, pedagog, artist, dansspelman – allt i en och samma person. De är ofta viktiga inspiratörer och drivkrafter i sitt lokalsamhälle och fungerar som centralgestalter för musikaliska aktiviteter. För den historiska stadsmusikanten och byspelmannen, likväl som folkmusikern/ sångaren idag, verkar den nedskrivna notationen främst fungera som inspiration för praktiskt bruk, för att spela och improvisera musik utifrån, snarare än att betrakta som komponerande verk eller original utifrån 1800–1900 talets västerländska konstmusikideal.

Vid institutionen för folkmusik vid Kungl. Musikhögskolan arbetar vi pedagogiskt och konstnärligt i utbildningarna med olika aspekter på rollen som folkmusiker idag; hur kan man undervisa, utveckla och använda denna breda roll som skapande interpret i dagens moderna musikliv? Hur kan man använda de metoder för analys som vi utvecklat på KMH t.ex. stil-analys, folkmusikteori, stavelseskelettanalys, folkmusikimprovisation, interaktion mellan musik och dans etc. som verktyg i dagens folkmusik för att skapa musik idag?

Vilka kunskaper och verktyg behöver man för att bli en skicklig folkmusiker/ folksångare idag, i en roll där man befinna sig både i en muntlig och skriftlig tradition och behöver kunna använda sig av skriftligt noterat material som en källa för musikskapande och samtidigt bibehålla sin gehörsmässiga ingång till en repertoar; länka samman den gehörsmässiga traditionen med noterat material. Hur kan man närma sig enkelt noterade melodier som de i ”spelmansböckerna” för att använda dem som utgångspunkt för improvisation, arrangemang och komposition, helt enkelt låta ”spelmansböckerna” fungera som en ”hub” för musikaliskt skapande idag?

This session offers insight to higher education in folk music performance in Finland, Sweden and Scotland, reflecting on educational models where historical styles meet creativity. While the old environments and modes of transmission for folk music have been rapidly vanishing in the West, a new platform for traditional music has been born: academia. A new generation of educated folk musicians has emerged.

Education has had a profound effect on the folk music scene. The emphasis on creativity has enabled the resulting music to be diverse, from traditional to experimental and everything in between. Research into traditional music has gained a new perspective as well – that of the highly skilled musician-composer. What works? How is it done? What are the challenges? A reflective session on higher education in folk music today and in the future.

Möt musikern, pedagogen, forskaren och akademiledamoten Susanne Rosenberg i ett samtal om konstnärlig forskning med spelmannen och forskaren Olof Misgeld. Skiljer sig relationen till musiken beroende på vilken hatt man har på sig? Uppstår krockar när man växlar mellan att utöva musiken och att forska på sitt sig själv och sitt utövande? Välkommen till ett samtal mellan två folkmusiker som båda befinner sig mitt i det de forskar på.

Kulning var länge en okänd röstteknik utanför fäbodmiljön och när Alan Lomax 1976 skapade sin världsomspännande matris över världens alla sångtekniker, Cantometrics, fanns inte kulning med bland de specifika vokaltekniker som beskrevs där.

Kulning, som kan innehålla allt ifrån varierade rop till svindlande melodiska slingor, lever idag som improvisatoriskt musikaliskt uttryck och vokalteknik utanför fäbodens ursprungliga kontext. Och vid en enkel slagning på Google får man över 200.000 träffar.

Hur kommer det sig att denna specifika vokalteknik och musikaliska uttryck lever och frodas idag? Har kulning rent av blivit en folkrörelse? Hur ser framtiden ut för detta fascinerade vokala uttryck?

Tre generationer möts för att spana kring kulningens potential i framtiden. Kulningens olika uttryck kommer att ljuda mellan det att Susanne Rosenberg, sångerska och professor i folksång med forskning kring kulning i bagaget spanar tillsammans med Ulrika Bodén, folksångerska från bland annat Ranarim och som nyligen releasat en CD med kulning: ”Te bergena blå” och Sara Parkman, spelman och artist som häromåret turnerade med föreställningen Fäbodland där fäbodmiljön och kulning sattes i nya perspektiv.

I VR-projektet Folk Song Lab på KMH träffas vi, sitter tätt tillsammans i en cirkel och improviserar kollektivt med rösten. Ja, så var det innan pandemin. Men nu?

På KMH har Folkmusikinstitutionen sedan hösten 2020 ett pågående VINNOVA-finansierat forskningsprojekt tillsammans med företaget Elk Audio. Här beta testar Folk Song Lab och lärare & studenter företagets Aloha, som gör latency-fritt musicerande över internet möjligt! Vi berättar om Aloha och våra erfarenheter av tekniken och att musicera över nätet.  

Medverkar gör Folk Song Lab och Elk Audio.

https://folksonglab.com/

https://alohabyelk.com/

Hur mycket måste man ta i för att det skall bli det en stark kulningston? Behöver man en speciell röstteknik för kulning? Hur starkt är kulning? Finns det ett kulningens optimala dragläge? Här några frågor som denna artikel försöker belysa.