Recension av Annika Danielssons doktorsavhandling Musik oss emellan: Identitetsdimensioner i ungdomars musikaliska deltagande (Örebro universitet).978-91-7668-880-9

The purpose of this article was to present the project Vi r Music, with a focus on electric guitar teaching (Case 1) and master classes (Case 2). What were the benefits and shortcomings in the two cases and how did online teaching differ from face-to-face teaching? A guitar teacher with a specialisation in jazz music introduced distance teaching to three of his students. Under supervision the students taught upper-secondary students living 290 km from the university. The guitar lessons were held with the use of Skype. In the project, 11 distance master classes were also studied. The devices used were a video-conference system, external microphones and speakers, and 50–52′′ TV screens. The methods for data collection in both cases were above all qualitative interviews with teachers and students and to some degree observation of the teaching sessions. The overall impression from the study was that teachers and students seemed to consider the online teaching in the project a positive experience. The informants looked upon the distance-learning situation as a fruitful complement to face-to-face teaching. Because of the time delay, the most difficult part of the online teaching was playing together or marking the rhythm. The results suggested that video-conference teaching is more intensive than face-to-face teaching and requires both thorough planning and readiness to improvise during the lesson.

Folk music teaching on violin and guitar in relation to the early Swedish fiddler movement and other folk music traditionsHow folk musicians of today learn to play their instruments is an over-all question in this article. One violin lesson and one guitar lesson have been observed at Framnäs folk high school. Three research questions were formulated. What do the two lessons have in common? What are the differences? How could the folk music education of today be related to the Swedish fiddler movement in the 1920s and other folk music traditions? Theoretically, the interpretation of the results was based on the mimesis theory of Ricoeur. Two teachers and three students participated in the study. The results showed that the lessons were structured in a similar way and dominated by master apprenticeship teaching. The violin teacher showed a more respectful attitude towards the tradition compared to the guitar teacher. Great parts of the manifest ideology of the fiddler movement seems to have become concealed into a latent or frozen ideology in the formal folk music education of today. There seems to be no big differences between learning the music by way of visiting an older fiddler hundred years ago compared to the study of music today at a formal institution.

The purpose of this article is to analyse three examples of musical folkbildning in Sweden. The first case is from the establishment of the state funded Framnäs Folk High Music School in the middle of the last century. The second case, Hagström’s music education, is from the same time but describes a music school run by a private company. The third case study concerns a contemporary expression of folkbildning, namely hip-hop. The theoretical framework that inspired this article stems from Pierre Bourdieu and his education sociology. The double feature of folkbildning appears in terms of: elitist and democratic tendencies, high and low taste agendas, control and freedom.

The purpose of this article is to increase understanding of what music studies at a folk high school could mean to individual students, and to discuss what Framnäs Folk High School meant to music education opportunities in northern Sweden. The 1950s and 1960s are primarily addressed, in other words, the period from the foundation of Framnäs up until the major changes that took place in the 1970s. How were students recruited, and what did the new study opportunities mean to prospective students? What was the study situation like at the school and what was the social environment like? What role did music play in the study environment and what view towards music found expression at Framnäs Folk High School? Terms used in the analysis include “total institution” (Goffman 1961) and “reach” (Kåks & Westholm 1998). The argument in the article uses analysis of archived material from Framnäs Folk High School, published literature and interviews with former students. In the study, it is shown that Framnäs Folk High School’s music education was within mental reach for many who would hardly have seen the Royal School of Music in Stockholm, at the time Sweden’s northernmost institution for advanced music, as an alternative. The social environment at Framnäs included elements of control and discipline, as well as community and consideration. Something that distinguishes the folk high school environment from total institutions in Goffman’s sense of the term is the camaraderie between teachers and students and the fundamental freedom. The view towards music and culture that characterised the music education at Framnäs may be described as admiring appropriation of the bourgeois or classical music heritage.

The purpose of this article was to illuminate aspects of learning in the Swedish fiddler movement (Spelmansrörelsen) 1923-1927. This was a period characterized by the organization and to some extent institutionalization of Swedish folk music. The empirical data is taken from the journal Hembygden, which was a magazine for scholars, enthusiasts and practitioners of folk music. Theoretically, the study is based on a concept of ideology developed by Sven-Eric Liedman: in every time there are two basic forms of identifiable ideology, manifest and latent. From the empirical material as a whole (around 900 articles), a selection was made to find articles dealing with aspects of learning among the fiddlers (33 articles). The following themes were generated: Fiddlers’ repertoire, Fiddlers’ masters, Rooms for learning, Learning formation. The writers in Hembygden often emphasized autodidactic aspect of learning and especially the importance of learning by ear. This manifest ideology came into an interesting tension in relation to the fiddlers themselves, who in many cases were more positive to notes and formal training.

The name of the project we are going to present is Vi r Music (www.vi-r-music.blogspot.com/). The aim of the project is to create a network that will start researching the possibilities for virtual music education at different levels. The Swedish part of the project consists of masterclasses, electric guitar tuition and vocal tuition. Some preliminary results: In distance education there are several technical equipments added to the traditional music education context. We have found that 30 minutes lessons are optimal concerning distance tuition. Try to use rooms with calm visual backgrounds and without too much echo.