This chapter explores how my own artistic research has informed my practice, not only as a musician, but also as a teacher in higher music education (HME). In my ongoing PhD project, I have investigated how a personal expression, or voice, emerges from a process initiated by transcription and imitation. I have used an analytical perspective, informed by embodied cognition, and built around the concepts of voice and affordance to try to clarify these processes. I have transcribed 13 albums by the iconic country harmonica player Charlie McCoy. Based on these transcriptions, I have analyzed McCoy’s playing style, notably charting his musical idiolect. From my analysis, I found a number of licks and strategies which he often employs. The licks are, I argue, important features of McCoy’s idiolect.

With McCoy’s licks as a point of departure, I have created my own variations of these. This method of deliberately transforming my voice is my way of finding out who I am, and who I want to be, as an artist. Starting with transcriptions gave me a view of the state of the art of country harmonica playing. The next phase of my PhD project has been to implement the knowledge I gained through artistic research, on my instrumental teaching in HME. In order to investigate this further, I have sought to initiate similar processes of formation of voice in my students. I have created a single subject course for harmonica students, where the aim is to explore the process of transcription leading to a formation of an original, unique voice. In the chapter I will present examples from my own artistic study, as well as examples from my study with my harmonica students in HME.

John Henry album Lucky Luck. Recorded in Nashville with guests Charlie McCoy, Jeff Taylor & Joe Spivey. Produced by Brad Jones. 

The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the understanding of how performers can develop and/or transform their artistic voice through the process of transcribing and imitating an iconic musician. To fulfil this aim, I formulated the following research questions: How can a performer’s voice be developed and transformed through a process of transcription and imitation?What is the impact of the affordances of the diatonic harmonica in such processes?How does transcription from an instrument other than the harmonica alter these processes?In what ways can an application of the process of transcription and imitation contribute to student autonomy in the teaching and learning of music performance in Higher Music Education? I have used several methods common in traditional music scholarship when interviewing, transcribing and emulating the playing of iconic harmonica player Charlie McCoy. Based on the findings, I have developed a personal artistic method for generating original material. The design of the project is situated in the field of artistic research, aiming to examine a performers transformational journey. This method provided me with not only an understanding of what I could, and aspired to, contribute to the field of Country harmonica playing, but also with the playing techniques required to do so.    Based on the findings in this artistic project, I performed a study with harmonica students in higher music education, with the aim to help them initiate a process leading to the fostering of an individual voice, through transcription and imitation. In the final analysis, the project points to the close connection between the notion of transformative learning and the informal learning typical of the teaching and learning of popular music in general. 

Låten Ođđa áigi var veckans färsking i Sveriges Radio P4 Norrbotten vecka 14 2023 (3-9 april).