several selective processes have been combined into a many-layered structure. Using the terminology created by Lundberg et al. (2003), I will speak of the roles played by “knowers”, that is, scholars, collectors, archivists, etc.; “makers”, for example, radio producers and other promoters of traditional music; and “doers”—singers, musicians and tutors. As the creators of this model themselves point out, several actors belong to more than one of these categories. A number of persons in the sometimes overlapping categories of knowers and makers were the first to place a number of selected individual musicians from the collections in the limelight; this was done via lectures, radio programmes, scholarly and popular articles, and via LP issues. The process started while most of these older singers were still alive. One crucial actor was the pioneer sound collector (“knower”) and radio producer (“maker”) Matts Arnberg. With a few colleagues, he initiated and carried out the main part of the Swedish broadcasting company’s field recordings of traditional singers and instrumentalists (spelmän), starting in the late 1940s, and some years later broadcasted a series of programmes where many of these collections were presented.4
His younger colleague, Märta Ramsten, continued this work at the radio and later established sound collecting as an important part of the activity of the Centre for Swedish Folk Music Research. She is primarily a
“knower” and has in a number of books and articles analysed and commented on the repertoire, style and social context of several individual singers and musicians (Ramsten 1987, 1990, 1992, Jersild & Ramsten 1988). Arnberg and Ramsten were both (as “makers”) involved in the production of a series of LP issues of selected singers and instrumentalists from the collections of both institutions during the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. Most of the LPs were later re-issued as CDs. In this way, these recordings have represented a kind of “folk music canon” for quite a long time, and many younger musicians have listened to them and used them as source material besides learning from traditional musicians directly. In this context, we should remember that archival material in general, and in most countries, was less accessible before digitisation started in the early 21st century, a fact that gave the selected recordings an even more central position in folk music milieus.
These individual performers and tradition bearers, selected from the collections, may have been chosen for different reasons: musical skill and excellence; a strongly individual performance style, in many cases characterised by a distinct dialect of language and/or music; a style of performance that is thought to represent older layers of style and tonality; a large, old or local repertoire of songs or tunes; or an especially interesting role and position among their peers from an aesthetic, ethnographic and social point of view. In most cases, several factors coincide. One common aim of knowers and makers has been to present traditional music, performed by traditional performers, to a greater public; another to broaden, supplement and problematize the general image of classical or popular music as the norms for musical sound, intonation, ways of singing, sound production, etc. The singers selected by Matts Arnberg had large repertoires, including ballads and other old songs; were regarded as representative of a performance-related and local authenticity; and often had a strongly individual style and expression. Among other features, Märta Ramsten and her colleague Margareta Jersild focused on individual heart rate/pulse as a basis for singing style, voice register, techniques of variation and the singers’ own comments on their performance and aesthetics.
To continue with the “doers” or performers: during the revival of the 1960s and ’70s, some singers were already methodically seeking not only repertoire but also role models for singing style among recorded traditional performers. Later on, in the late 1980s, when traditional singing had become an expanding area within music education in Sweden, the need for pedagogical models became even more acute. Some important “doers” have had a great impact in this field. Two of these are Marie
Selander and Susanne Rosenberg, who have been active for a long time as folk singers and song teachers as well as composers and arrangers of music. They also both perform outside the genre of Swedish traditional music, a fact that tends to enhance the urge to focus on and analyse stylistic features in different musical traditions. Selander was already active during the 1960s revival. She worked at the Swedish Radio for a number of years, where she co-operated with Matts Arnberg and was influenced by him. Besides, she is an experimental musician and a jazz and blues singer, working in a wide musical field. Rosenberg has been responsible for the teaching of traditional songs at the Royal Conservatory of Stockholm since the 1990s; she has initiated and conducted several song ensembles and created music for the theatre. These two singers listened separately to and analysed field recordings of singers whose performance included, for example, ornamentation and grace notes as well as an older, modal tonality. They both acted from an artistic perspective, inquisitively and, especially for Rosenberg, according to a pedagogical need to exemplify and explain to students.
At the same time, several other active singers chose their “models” based on other priorities more connected to emotional and personal qualities and were not very interested in style elements (Åkesson 2007: 168 ff.). What I describe here is the process of the more professionalised part of the folk music milieu.