Lyssna och Lira! - En narrativ studie om ensemblespelets utveckling inom Svensk Folkmusik

Sammanfattning: This thesis examines the emerging scene of ensemble playing in Swedish traditional music from the beginning of the 1980s until present day. It is focused around eight interviews with some of the most influential musicians on the scene. All of them are still active today both as performers and teachers. The theoretical framework is mainly based around two different standpoints; Narrative analysis and the concept of Legitimate peripheral participation as formulated by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger. The narrative perspective gives the researcher a tool to understand the progression of the individual story while the theories of Lave & Wenger lend themselves well to analyse the communities of practise that appears in the interviews. Communities of practises appear on many different levels and scales. The different bands are perhaps the most obvious community. This is a place for learning and evolving as a musician. There is also a very strong connection between the members of different bands. This makes it productive to view the members of the scene of ensemble playing as part of a shared community, a community that manifests itself through various musical collaborations The study gives an insight of how the concept of the contemporary traditional musician has evolved through the establishing of work process within the ensembles. The interviewed musicians share a collective idea about the musician as a flexible professional who is quick to grasp new musical situations and is prepared and competent to contribute in the process of creating musical arrangements. The results open the door to many different speculations about topics such as the institutions of learning traditional music, storytelling as a mean to pass on knowledge and how the communities might keep evolving in the future. These topics could be the base of new studies.