Teacher 1

I have been thinking that the most important thing is that they become so inspired that they keep playing for the rest of their lives. That is what is most important.

Teacher 1 is a well-known musician in her region and a celebrity within her area of expertise, which is a particular Finland-Swedish folk music tradition with roots going back to the 18th century. She started to play a miniature accordion at the age of four and the piano at the age of six. Very early, she became involved in the folk music of her village, including a rich and complex aural tradition of fiddle playing. Until her generation, playing the fiddle was essentially a male occupation. In the Finland-Swedish folk music tradition, although there were some rare exceptions until then, women had been expected to sing rather than to play instruments. “My mother was hardly ever allowed even to try the fiddles,” Teacher 1 says. The instruments were “sacred”, and supposed to be played on only by older males.117

In addition to her folk music practice, Teacher 1 also studied classical music both privately and at a local music school and then went on to complete a master’s degree in music education at the Sibelius Academy. Her parents were happy about her playing, but more ambivalent at first about her choice of becoming a professional musician:

I talked to my parents about getting a grand piano, and they did not really react. For Christmas, they got me a Singer sewing machine. What the heck was I going to do with a Singer sewing machine? And the next Christmas, they gave me a mangle. My father once said: We could have supported you more.

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Still, her father travelled with her to Helsinki for the entrance exams and helped her carry the heavy accordion. During the audition, she did not limit her programme to the customary classical repertoire, but performed music from her own folk tradition, which in those days was “a sensation; I think they had never heard that before”. The jury was appreciative and “thought it was great fun and, in that way, entrancing. Later, I got to play the accordion at the Rector’s retirement... [or] some celebration that same autumn”. Her accordion studies at the Sibelius Academy were predominantly classical: “So I learnt how to play scales in the left hand, and that was good, because I had no idea [laugh]. [The accordion teacher] appreciated what I did”. Her piano teachers, however, “thought I had a lot of problems with technique. There were many things I hadn’t been taught and had to start addressing. It was like starting all over again”.

Some years after graduating, Teacher 1 returned to her home region and took up a post at the local music school, teaching classical violin and piano while successfully keeping up her folk music practice, initiating some groups of students into the local tradition. At an unusually young age, she was given the rare honorary title of mestaripelimanni (in Swedish: mästarspelman), awarded at a major Finnish folk music festival each year since 1970. As the title indicates, it has usually been reserved for men, the proportion of female recipients remaining below 5%.118

In several respects, then, Teacher 1 has been unusual. As one of the female pioneers in her generation, she challenged the customs and influenced the emergence of a new place for women in her folk tradition; and as a young folk musician firmly committed to learning the tunes of her village, she has spent many hours of playing together with older fiddlers. Crossing the boundary to what was at the time an institution completely dominated by classical music, she entered the stage as a representative of the music which was closest to her own heart. And as a thoroughly ‘bimusical’119 practitioner, she has taught several generations of young students to perform both classical music and folk music, including dances associated with local traditions.

Teacher 1 says that her reason for participating in the research project is that after some years of administrative work, she needs something new.

I am a curious person. I have a thousand ideas, but as we all know, one can’t engage in many ideas at once but one at a time, or two at the most. But I have plenty of ideas all the time and I question quite a lot, why this, why do we do things this way. And I go my own way, because I am a lone wolf.

118 _{The official title in English is Master Folk Musician, but Mestaripelimanni and}

Mästarspelman translate literally as “master playing man”.

119 _{Building on the term ‘bilingual’, the adjective refers to a person who is proficient in}

two musical traditions, owning competencies which are solid enough to be recognised in their respective musical communities (see Schippers, 2010, pp. 114–115).

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During conversation in the first session, Teacher 1 explains that teaching and learning in groups is a matter close to her own heart. For her, the most important part of the process is to keep group members and herself “inspired” so that they “have the energy to keep going”.120

This is no easy matter and several groups have “died out”, but the aspiration seems to have been achieved particularly well in one of her student groups which keeps performing traditional fiddle music even though the students graduated from the music school several years ago. She decides to aim for a better understanding of what has contributed to the sustained interest, quality of playing, and unmistakable joy in the group: “They inspire each other. And they inspire me. We inspire each other every time we meet.” Since she has experience and material from nearly 20 years of work with the same students, the inquiry seems rich and meaningful to her and to the other participants.

In the second session, Teacher 1 presents and comments on questions that she wants to use for interviews with her students. The questions seem to fall into three main categories. First, there are reflections of the teacher’s own speculations about what might have influenced her students’ long-term interest in music: their own desire to play, parental wishes, choice of instrument, musical roots in the family, first strong musical experiences, the degree to which the students were allowed to influence repertoire at the music school, their experiences of being a music school student, and their experiences of playing in a group versus playing alone. Second, there are questions about folk music, its status at the music school, its relation to classical music, and playing together with several generations of musicians. Finally, there are questions about the history of the group, the meaning of playing, and the teacher’s hope for her students.

What factors made our group into what it became? Do you think we might have be- come a professional group?

How has our folk music group influenced you generally? Your life? What you are doing today? What you have done socially?

Is music a pastime for you? Does music have a deeper meaning for you? Can you live without music, without making music?

What musical dreams would you like to realise?

Do you think you will still be playing when you reach retirement age?

Do you introduce your child to music? Would you like your child to play an instru- ment? Would you like it to be the violin?

During sessions 3, 4 and 5, the story about teaching and learning in a successful folk music group born in a music school is woven together from collaborative conversations between participants and researcher. The students’ voices are present through taped excerpts from two interviews made between sessions and one radio interview made 10 years earlier, when the group had its first

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breakthrough. These interviews are listened to and commented on during sessions. In addition, the participants and the researcher listen to several musical recordings made by the folk music group.

What emerges is the story of a teacher who has struggled to “stay alive” and “find energy” for herself and for her students at the periphery of an institution where the music she is committed to has not always been recognised or supported, although “things have changed quite a lot since the 1990s”. She is aware of the value of the musical tradition that she represents and of her own capacity to inspire students. However, the music school cannot provide the best conditions for the “joy, spontaneity, and enthusiasm” towards which she aspires. One solution has been to challenge the physical frames for teaching and learning. While part of her lessons are held at the school, she teaches some groups at home: in the house she and her husband have built for the family in her home village, and in the large music room where she does her own practising, arranging and composing. From the windows, there is a view down to the small house where she first heard fiddlers in her childhood.

What we are playing is a style, and it is transmitted from the old blokes I played to- gether with. So I almost see that old bloke in front of me as I play, and sometimes one of them joins us for rehearsals. It is direct transmission. I can’t just sit and watch as the students play, that drives me mad. I need to participate.

The group whose trajectory is analysed consists of five female violin students and the teacher herself. They all know each other well and speak their local Finland-Swedish dialect together. From the beginning, the reason for working in a group was to provide the students with an opportunity to practise their classical repertoire together, while alternating with some folk repertoire. “But after a while, for some strange reason, the girls liked [the folk music] better.” Since the music school did not at the time accept folk music rehearsals as ‘chamber music classes’, the teacher decided to find other contexts for the playing: “You have got to get response somewhere in order to keep going. [To feel] that you are good enough”. One solution has been to play a lot of gigs and to find opportunities to travel. Invitations have taken the group to many parts of the world including Russia, Australia, the United States and Canada. During the study, the group is planning to combine a tour in Canada with boat trip from Vancouver to Alaska: “to see those glaciers while they still exist”.

The projects carry you. Having a mad vision is how you keep going in life. You can’t force a human being. But with a tour coming up, with some crazy project, they all have to get their act together and practice. That’s how you get faster and more skilled.

Travelling has been very significant in the life of the group, adding motivation but also opening new perspectives on life and music, allowing both teacher and students to “see the world”. Sometimes, the initiative or “insane idea” has come from the teacher:

Like when we went to Australia. We were sitting in that classroom looking at [a pic- ture of] a kangaroo, so I said, what if we went to Australia to see those kangaroos in

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real life? So we did. But of course, it took several years. But that is what is so fun, when you finally take off.

Other times, there were invitations, sometimes “from places you didn’t even know where they were on the map. Of course that is inspiring!” The students say that they were young and “rather naive” on their first tours and “didn’t know much about the world”. Gradually, they have learned how to handle official receptions, “meeting a lot of people”, “how to talk with dignitaries”. Stage performance “ends up becoming a habit”. The teacher notes that many things are learnt at the same time: “focusing, making sure you have the time to tune the violin, eat, do your makeup, get to wherever you have to be”. She has seen her students develop and become more bold in general as well: “The whole person grows”. Performing for appreciative audiences seems to have changed how the students think and feel about their own playing. The tours have an impact both before and after the travelling itself:

You have got to have something [to look forward to], even if it’s a bit tough in the middle of the winter and not everyone has the energy to practise. After the trip, it’s easier, it has given those kids something extraordinary. And if they were thinking of quitting, now they don’t know what to think. All that excitement, the feeling of to- getherness, and all those people listening to them playing...

The students also have come to understand music-making in another context than the necessary grind with technical exercises and the regular, long-term practising which, according to the teacher, is “the most difficult thing they need to learn”. What she wants her students to experience is “that spontaneity, the response from the audience, when everyone starts to talk with each other and makes little jokes...that’s when it gets real fun”. The word ‘fun’ comes back regularly in all interviews and conversations. Having fun while playing is described by the teacher as “euphoria”, “purification”, “like when you have been ice swimming and in the sauna”.121 The teacher uses the expression “shared joy is double joy”122 as she refers to moments of nonverbal joyful contact, “you

share something, you look at each other and laugh”. Her students describe similar experiences: after rehearsals, although there may physical fatigue, “you just sing and hum and laugh in the car driving home, feeling energised”. Music is “like a need”. Teacher 1 adds: “Even if I have been angry or in a bad mood during the day, I get [to the rehearsal] and suddenly...it’s such fun to play again, I feel...I am like a new person”.

Teacher 1 believes that folk musicians have struggled to gain recognition for reasons related to musical quality and associations to an old-fashioned style:

121 _{Swimming in the sea or in a lake during winter when the water is frozen over is a}

popular tradition in Finland, practised for the reported boost of energy and for health reasons. The ice is broken to form a hole and the swimmer takes a dip in the cold water. Having a sauna in connection with the ice swimming is often part of the tradition.

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People used to think that a folk musician did not really count. At least when I was young. A folk musician doesn’t play in tune, holds the violin incorrectly, arrives wearing traditional socks, and needs a note stand [laughs in the group], and the sound is so-so. I don’t want that feeling. I want [my students] to play in tune and with preci- sion, by ear or from the score, and to have a steady ground for their playing. It’s about status. I want them to have the training that everyone gets at the music school. The teacher and her students have challenged the stereotypical conceptions of folk musicians in several ways. First, they have aspired towards a synthesis between the perceived goods of classical violin playing as described above (excellent technique, precision, playing in tune) with the perceived goods of folk music, allowing one tradition to criticise the other. One of the students refers to classical music and folk music as “different worlds which work in different situations”. Among the goods of folk music, the students mention features of the music itself which is described as more “free” and “full of feeling”; “much deeper” [than classical music], “joyful”, “lively”, “easy-going”, “melodic”. Folk music, according to the students, has “schwung”; a term which has entered Swedish via the German language and is hard to translate but refers to a combination of speed, swing and energy: “Lots of sound and lots of parts, that’s when it gets fun”. In addition, goods related to performing style are mentioned; in particular, the students point out that there is no obligation to stand still. “Classical music is more strict and stern, like you have to square your shoulders and stand with your back straight”. During performances of folk music, on the contrary, musicians are free to “show the joy of playing”; “move your body as you play”, even “beat time with your foot”, which one student says that she was criticised for by jury members when passing a classical violin exam: “They said they could tell I had been playing folk music and that I needed to do something about that foot”. Another student says that she needs to move in order to internalise rhythm: “I can’t feel it unless I have it in my body, expressing it through my body”. In the teacher’s opinion, movement, music and feeling are connected: “nowadays, people actually play Baroque music in quite the same way as folk music”.

Second, the teacher has challenged the custom of wearing traditional costumes during performances, limiting their use to particular occasions such as formal representation abroad. “I stopped doing that. It felt like wearing working clothes. I was sweating in them and was tormented. You nearly had a sunstroke sitting there during festivals waiting for your turn. I remember how I loathed that hat.” For the students, it has been important to “break the pattern” of something old- fashioned and show that “you can be stylish and play folk music”, wearing clothes that are “cool, beautiful, varied; evening dresses, everything”.

Even though making music is experienced as the central activity of the group and enjoyable in itself, both teacher and students mention that all the things they do together have mattered to the longevity of the interest of making music in a group. The way in which parents engage can also be decisive, according to the teacher: “driving their children, coming to their concerts, making plans, going

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out to have pizza, taking pictures, organising trips. It needs to be that way”. For the students, encouragement from the teacher has been crucial:

Student 1: I don’t think I would have had the energy unless you had been my teacher. You encouraged me a lot. Sometimes I was actually pretty close to quitting, there was such a lot of work at school and I have always been active in everything at the same time. But you always helped me find the energy to keep going, and that was great, because now I feel really good about it.

Two other students say that although travelling has been great fun, simply doing something together has value: “just talking, that is therapy too”. At the music school, they did not know the other students. “Getting to know each other and becoming a group makes it more fun to practise.” The light-hearted spirit and humour in the group counteracts stage fright: “You don’t have to sit backstage