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Outro / Conclusions
When looking back, ‘worlds connected’ is a phenomenon that I have always been drawn to but, until now, I had not formulated this idea for myself. This work helped me in so many ways to verbalize and explain to myself my own musical language and interests, and in addition, opened up a new area of investigation, which I am planning to continue in the near future. At this point, I would see myself researching the topic more thoroughly through continuing to find other artistic research in this area and wider theories connected to the approaches. Furthermore, I would like to find other communities and environments in which to bring and test this method of creation and communication. Through this work, I see a great opportunity to develop a clear and impactful approach for connecting people and different social groups.
For example, take early music education and perhaps even general education. This method of working could be used to connect children in an interactive level that is different from what they are required to do most of the time. This change could be integrated into the current system, where children and youth are often pushed to learn music in a way that it is not connected with practical life and therefore feels very distant to them. Bringing stories and thoughts from our everyday life into music making could help youth develop their natural expressive skills in music and in turn, bring these skills to their future lives. In addition, connecting to others through the diverse experiences we all have had can definitely be practiced in that environment as well. It could be a way to generate tolerance and understanding among children. Speaking of and practicing different experiences through relatable stories is something that increases our interest in and comprehension of each other. Adding to that the common ground and safe space for interaction that music provides, creates a great chance to visualize the different approaches we have.
In addition to education, the method of practicing sonic connections could help with integrating people into societies new to them, more or less for the same reasons and outcomes as I have explained above. But even further, including stories and experiences from our lives and using them for interacting through artistic expression could help greatly with taking down the barriers that are quite often imposed by the nature of society.
But as said, I am talking about assumptions, hopes and dreams, and for a definite example, I must bring the method into real practice.
***
I began this project with the main research question: ‘How can inspiration from my Estonian roots and own personal stories and experiences of the world provide a platform for musicians from diverse backgrounds to collaborate and co-create new forms of expression?’.
Reflecting once more on this question, I can identify some of the key ingredients that helped me to shape my findings in this project. I found that the two main ingredients of ‘global music’, the term under consideration, are artistic identity and the collaboration between interacting identities. I believe that these ingredients were crucial in this project and, for example, allowed us to co-create new forms of artistic expression.
The concept of having individual artistic and sonic identities helps us to create a commonly understandable ‘network’ that by its nature, is a platform where those different identities can interact. From that platform, I am able to inspire the group by giving impulses from my own experiences and roots. When everybody uses the same platform for relating to my experiences from their own perspective, it forms the effect of different voices starting to create a common expression that is based upon diversity and mutual enrichment of it.
Finally, I want to emphasize that having a group of musicians who inspire you and who you can trust creates a safe space and diverse expression in itself. So, all in all, I see it as the most valuable foundation for any kind of artistic creation, and it was especially important for the core of Worlds Connected.
4. List of References
Literature
Cheng, A. (2019). Data From Non-musical Material as Spectral Compositional Resources, as Utilized in the Orchestral Work, Hello Universe.
Ellsworth, E. (2019). CONCERT PROGRAMS AS STORYTELLING. The Choral journal, 59(11), 8-17.
Davidson, J. W., Faulkner, R. & McPherson, G. E. (2012). Music In Our Lives: Rethinking Musical Ability, Development, and Identity. New York: Oxford Scholarship Online.
Green, L. (2012). Learning, Teaching, and Musical Identity: Voices across Cultures. Popular Music, 31(1), 179-180.
Kors, N., Saraber, L., Schippers, H. (2003). Sound Links - Cultural diversity, mobility and employability in music education. Rotterdam: Academy of Music and Dance.
Noormets, S. (2014). Diploma concert: Tuleb muinasjutt. University of Tartu Viljandi Culture Academy: DSpace.
Ribeiro, H., Bäckström, M. & Ahlbom, P. (2019). An autobiographical history of Ethno Sweden: A testimonial about its origins, underlying ideology and initial goals. ORFEU, 4(2), 7-29.
Rothenberg, D. (2016). Interspecies improvisation. In G. E. Lewis and B. Piekut (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of critical improvisation studies (Vol. 1; pp. 500-522). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Sawyer, R. K. (2008). Learning music from collaboration.International Journal of Educational Research, 47(1), 50-59.
Schippers, H. (2010). Facing the music: Shaping music education from a global perspective. Oxford University Press.
Taylor, A. (2021). The Imagination of Experiences: Musical Invention, Collaboration, and the Making of Meanings.
Thomson, N. R. & Lähdeoja, O. (2019). Forming a sonic identity through the integration of transculturality and technology. Body, Space & Technology, 18(1), 33–60.
Thomson, N. R. (2014). Shaped by the sea: Artistic identity and the process of collaboration in a transcultural context. [Unpublished master’s thesis. Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki].
Interviews
Adewale, A. (2021). Interview for podcast “Musical bow that took the sounds from the essence of life to the stage – the berimbau” (Tambet, K., 2021).
Visual footage
Eesti Metsa Abiks (2020). Lageraie – Vikipalu põlenguala. EMA TV.
Märska, K. (1936). Nooruspäevad Paralepas, filmi lisamaterjal. National Archives Film Arcives.
Saani life&crafts (2021). Different worlds inside and around us. Personal collection.
Audio recordings
Sutt, A. (1968). Aitima, aitima, aitima (sauna sõnad). Eesti Rahvaluule Arhiiv (ERA).
Tamberg, H.-L (2018). Personal conversation recorded with permission (Autumn 2018).
Vabarna, A. & Choir (1936). Mõrsja ikmine. Eesti Rahvaluule Arhiiv (ERA).
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Introduction
1.1 Overview of the project
The aim of this project is to investigate the ways in which musicians from different cultural and musical backgrounds are able to relate musically and connect their own worlds to my personal roots and experiences.
Through the platform of my stories and experiences, which are mostly related to my roots and homeland of Estonia, I invited four different musicians from four different countries to share and communicate through their own sonic pallets. The outcome of this project is a conceptional concert including live music and audio-visual materials. Although the music is built on a lot of pre-composed and traditional material, the important part of this project lies in the improvisation within and the co-creation by the whole group. The musicians chosen for this project have inspired me with their musical languages, sonic expression and beautiful personalities. The group is formed by Oscar Beerten from Belgium, Joni Vierre from Finland, Adriano Adewale from Brazil, and myself.
The research question I am focusing on in this work is:
How can inspiration from my Estonian roots and own personal stories and experiences of the world provide a platform for musicians from diverse backgrounds to collaborate and co-create new forms of expression?
As part of this research, I will also investigate the term 'global music' and explain how I have come to understand its meaning, as well as what it means within the context of this project. During the years that I have studied in the Global Music department at the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki, I have seen how the meaning and concept of global music opens up differently for everyone, and how my own understanding has evolved as the different qualities of this phenomenon unfold. Through this project, I aim to define my approach to the concept of ‘global music’ and the guiding principles I am working with. This then provides a framework to create my own language and forms of expression.
To look at this phenomenon closer, I have chosen to investigate the process of leading a culturally diverse musical collaboration based on a framework that is made up of individual roots and personal artistic and sonic identities as essential components. In addition to analysing the importance of owning an identity, I will explore the details and characteristics of the collaborative process itself, and look into different ways of approaching it. Another important aspect lies in the significance of co-creative working methods and the respective outcomes.
Another aim of this process is to find out how our roots and personal experiences can be introduced to others without any expectations or preconceived ideas about how they will be interpreted. Furthermore, how can I create an environment that has a balance between sharing my own personal stories while leaving room for finding one’s own stories and relations with the topic? What are the things that can get lost in translation and how much are we, humans, actually capable of connecting our own world of personal experiences and stories to others’ worlds?
This work is a development of my second-year bachelor concert and investigation that concentrated on intercultural dialogues using the same general principles as this current work. In my previous project, I also wanted to emphasize the importance of my own roots and identity but to simultaneously show how the input from others and influences from the outside are not harmful, but rather bring a unique new quality that can be embraced in the context of one's own roots and identity. This aspect could be understood not only within the framework of music but also on a wider basis, mirroring the whole of society.
All in all, I see the phenomenon of connecting our experiences and stories with sonic expression, and through that finding a common language with people surrounding us as a central pillar of life. For this reason, I will also give a little attention to the other environments and communities that could connect through this way of thinking and doing.
2.2 The purpose of my experiences included in the project
For the framework of this project, I have chosen some important factors from my cultural tradition and personal experiences that have affected the creation and development of my own artistic identity (Green, L., 2012). It has mostly happened through bringing up some specific sounds and soundscapes that I have been searching from everything that I do, as well as looking for messages that I want to deliver through my music making.
The artistic outcome of this project is a concert, and as part of this I also present audio-visual materials consisting of archive and field recordings and some video footage that go hand-in-hand with my stories and explanations. These materials play an important part in being the support and inspiration for the musicians to come together on common ground and find their own personal connections and relations with the concept. Besides that, through the wider meaning of my experiences and additional audio-visual materials, I want to give a chance to the audience to relate and connect to the topics in their own personal way. Other artists and researchers have been interested in this process of drawing inspiration from non-musical sources (see for example, Noormets, 2014; Rothenberg, 2016; Cheng, 2019)
Furthermore, I believe that art should aim for a bigger picture that includes more elements and aspects than only the main form, which is music in my case, because this way we have a chance to include and invite the listener into a journey where they need to use their whole system of senses. As Emily Ellsworth so aptly wrote in The Choral Journal, ‘By creating thematic flow in our programs and creatively making use of concert spaces and visual elements, we can more fully engage our audiences' senses, brains, and hearts.’ (Ellsworth, 2019, p. 9).
In addition to being an inspiration and connection point, I see the audio-visual elements as separate members of the band. Since they become essential integrated elements of the music, they carry their ‘own sound’ and through that they represent and share their sonic aesthetics and identities like all the ‘human’ band members. Brazilian percussionist and composer, Adriano Adewale said to me once in an interview with him that when we speak about music, we have to be aware that it comes from sounds and that it is not including only certain instruments and notes, it is much bigger (Adewale, 2021).
And finally, if someone or something has a meaning and purpose to carry out, I see it as an accountable and even irreplaceable factor of the “whole”. These themes and topics that I want to bring out from my life have a big purpose, these musicians that I have included to my project have a great meaning, and so the final result will be a co-work that represents the importance of connection and relation with things we experience and people we meet.
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Discussion
2.1 Understanding the meaning of global music
Importance of artistic identity and how to build it
As mentioned, my first close interactions with musicians from diverse backgrounds and first exposure to new cultures and musical traditions happened in 2015 during my first Ethno gathering. At the time I was 15 and had only lived in Estonia, a tiny and very rooted country with a small and rather monocultural population. You can imagine the obsession and overwhelming admiration I got from that experience. Learning the music of all those new and far-away cultures was beyond exciting and made me feel that I want to become part of those myself.
Now, when studying in a diverse community like the Global Music department and living in a quite multicultural city like Helsinki, I have a much more profound understanding of the ‘global’ context. I have been immersed in and exposed to so much diversity, that I have also found the beauty and mystery of the tradition where I am coming from. I believe that there is something we cannot explain when speaking about our roots, closeness to our relatives, the power of connection with the land and traditions we were brought up with. I am guessing that this is why we could never become completely part of any other tradition than our own, because we do not have the natural and subconscious attachment to it, no matter how many hours we spend learning it. In his master's thesis Shaped by the Sea (2014), Nathan Riki Thomson describes similar kinds of phases when he describes becoming ‘seduced’ by other musical cultures and attempting to become part of them as an 'insider', then gradually realizing that it is never fully possible or ethical without actually being born into or growing up in the culture itself.
Through (re)discovering my own musical roots and origins, I have reached the next phase of understanding that the fundamental requirement for being a global musician is to have one’s own artistic and sonic identity (Thomson & Lähdeoja, 2019). It is not necessarily defined as the tradition we are coming from but rather something we build up ourselves based on the inspiration we gain from experiences we have had, people we have met and places we have been to. Other researchers have developed further thoughts on this subject (see for example, Davidson, J. W.; Faulkner, R.; McPherson, G. E., 2012).
So, all in all, I see life itself as a constant identity creator that we continuously need to feed, because otherwise we walk a dead circle in which we lose the motivation and eagerness for new experiences. As an example, the past years of the COVID-19 crisis have shown us quite clearly what kind of harm a lack of excitement, possibilities, and social contact can do. Based on the experiences of myself and those surrounding me, I see and feel how the inner spark for new discoveries and even for music has severely decreased. People are much more withdrawn into their cosy shells and many of us have changed the priority relations between comfort and challenges. I also see my friends who have managed to keep going to new places and through that keep meeting new people and somehow, they are still passionate about everything that is surrounding them and hungry for more. I see it as a strong sign of identity enriching or in the other case, identity fading processes, and since it is obviously affecting our musical and sonic creativity, we could think of it as part of our artistic pathway.
Importance of collaboration and ways to approach it
In addition to our own personal experiences, we shape our identities through collaboration and interaction with other humans and even other species of life. This is a process where other senses of our system start to work. Usually, when we have experienced and discovered new things and new places, we are aware of what happened and quite often we might even be able to analyse how it affected our inner world. In a collaborative process, it is not so much about the apparent experience that we gain, but rather the interaction itself, so the main character is actually our subconscious that shapes, analyses and directs us forward. Other researchers have also investigated the phenomenon of activating our subconsciousness and learning ability through collaborative music making (see for example, Sawyer, 2008; Taylor, 2021).
Global music is the result of collaboration because that is where traditions and sonic identities are engaged and brought together to shape and develop each other. This is an essential part to be aware of because quite often traditional music is labelled as global music, and I find it to be incorrect for exactly that reason. Tradition and traditional music are quite strongly representing some region or culture and by their nature, they are not the result of collaboration itself but as said, they can be strong ingredients of global music.
Personally, I have found that there are at least three different ways to approach and lead culturally diverse musical collaboration. The first one is ‘imitation’. This means that the music is usually written from top to end, and there are quite strict expectations and strong frames that musicians have to follow. Musicians play what is asked and not what they feel or hear resonating with them. That may include playing music from another tradition that the musicians might not even have any deeper understanding of. In that approach, there is not much room for the different qualities and sounds of the co-musicians to emerge and therefore, it is in conflict with the idea of global music engaging identities and through that shaping and developing them. But of course, this approach may be needed when one is leading with a very strong vision for what to achieve with the music.
The second way to approach diverse collaboration could be called, in my opinion, the ‘underestimated contributions’. This means that the musicians are free to interpret and express themselves how they feel through the platform of the given material by the leader of the group, but the leader is taking them and their sound for granted and does not consider it as an accountable factor of the final result and co-creation. I think that especially in the global music field, it is happening more often than we think. Musicians with their different sonic palettes come together and make their contributions to the music that somebody has presented, but in that case, the result we achieve in the end is not the same as it was in the beginning, and that should be always brought out. I think that the working process of this approach is very open-minded and valuable but, in the end, if we do not notice the people and their work next to us, it becomes worthless. We must never take the effort and creation of another musician for granted.
So, in my work, I aim for the third option on how to approach this topic. It is almost like a gentle mixture of the good qualities of the previous two. That includes having in mind the idea and method of co-creation from the very beginning of the whole working process. In that case, we aim to benefit from and develop through each other's ideas, sounds and observations. Artistic identities and sonic characters become extremely important here. Huib Schippers has explained this phenomenon with the term ‘transcultural’, which in his definition is ‘in-depth exchange of approaches and ideas’ (Schippers, 2010, p. 31). But in addition to the complete freedom of sharing, there is also the leadership side of the first approach. That comes along when there is a project that includes a clear vision or concept. In this approach, it would surely not be as framed but rather just there to give the first impulse and inspiration for the forward flow. I think that this way of approaching collaboration in the field of global music allows musicians to show their best qualities and empowers them to use their ‘own voice’, but at the same time there are still frames that hold the group and music together, working towards a common destination.
***
My bachelor project thesis is a reflection on the experiences I have had over the years of studying and doing music. A reflection that shows the process of making my way out of ‘western standards’, finding interest in and desire for breaking the intolerance and prejudice in music, looking for the most honest and pure form of collaboration and creation, and discovering my own path to the world of sonic connections.
I am not trying to write down the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answers to the selected themes, it is rather just an experiment for my own personal growth and artistic development, and I hope it will also make a contribution to the wider discussion on intercultural collaboration, co-creation, and global music.
2.3 Thematic content of the concert: the experiences and thoughts that have shaped me
As said, I have chosen some of my personal experiences and ideas as the background and framework for this project. In the following, I am going to briefly explain the meaning and importance of these experiences from my own perspective. I acknowledge that how they are seen and interpreted by my band members may be completely different and I offer these reflections only from my own perspective here.
Connection to land and roots
I have been lucky enough to have a strong connection to the land I grew up on and the family I come from. The fields around my home are my safe space and my ancestors are my biggest teachers. This is something I cannot take for granted, it is a huge treasure and gift to have it all. This feeling is what the first chapter of my concert visualizes and emphasizes.
Destroying all the holy for the sake of money
For hundreds and hundreds of years, Estonia has been a land of forests and Estonians the people whose religion was nature. We have now reached a point where this historical title and the respective knowledge do not have value anymore, and the race for money has become more important. That includes large-scale deforestation and exploitation of resulting products. One of the resulting musical pieces is about this exploitation and the pain we get from losing our holy values.
What past can tell us about future through old stories
Old stories and myths have always seemed magical and valuable to me. I find it mysterious that we can learn such important messages relevant to our current topical matters from many of these old treasures. For my concert, I chose one of the first traditional stories I remember hearing at the time from an artist named Maarja Nuut. Somehow it stayed with me for all those years.
Preserved tradition: hearing the past as it was
Estonia has one of the biggest folklore archive collections in the world. I remember the time I heard an archive recording of a Seto (an ethnic group in south-eastern Estonia) polyphonic choir and thinking how special it is to experience something so authentic and pure straight from the past, a sound that could not be found anywhere else today. I have been repeatedly amazed by all the historical treasures around us, and how much they can inspire us to create a new layer of heritage to be preserved.
Rituals that bring people together
Rituals have had immense power to achieve things we wish for and bring people together for the sake of common beliefs and prayers. In Estonia, one such ritual has been the tradition of swinging. The traditional swing wasn’t meant for one person but rather a big village swing that required people on it to be in balance and move with a common pulse, which I believe is a phenomenon very relevant to our modern society. People need rituals to give them common breathing and understanding so we can overcome different views we have and work towards common goals.
Personal sacred places
I believe we all have our own places we call sacred, and so we have our own definitions for this word and reasons for using it. My sacred place is my home sauna. It has always been the place where I go to get clean from inside and outside, where I do not dare to use a bad word, where I can say my fears and my dreams out loud. The last chapter of my concert is about the feeling we associate with a place like that, and the gratitude we have towards it.
2.4 Working Process
The development of this project happened in two parts – the group process and the personal process. In the following section, I will look into both of those aspects separately.
Personal process
My personal process started with asking myself about the most important and ground-breaking discoveries during my studies in the Global Music department. Furthermore, I needed to process where I started from and where I had reached now. Subconsciously, I knew where I wanted to head with my work, but the most difficult part was to verbalize and position my ideas.
Since the personal experiences and stories form an essential part of my work, I needed to make a sketch of what to add, and then find the audio-visual material to illustrate my thoughts and ideas. Simultaneously, I was writing the music and sonic ideas based on the inspiration gained through analysing the chosen experiences and stories. The difficult part was finding a balance between having the material ready before meeting with my group but also leaving enough space for the intended co-creation and free expression.
Since I knew that we will only have a couple of rehearsals, I had to make sure that I have a clear method of working with the group and I am ready to be the facilitator throughout the period by introducing and guiding the process. This turned out to be the part where I learnt the most myself. Especially about how to trust myself as a leader but at the same time remember not to ‘lead’ too much, but rather leave some space and the possibility for things to take shape themselves.
Group process
I believe that as a collective we managed to develop our ability to hear out each other’s ideas and sense them in the music. This way of working requires more intensive thinking about what is behind the music and how the person next to you hears and relates to the message you deliver. Of course, the best of this kind of co-dependent working method would come out through time and many hours playing together, but due to everybody’s busy lives and geographical distances, it was not possible to plan the rehearsals throughout a longer period. We therefore agreed to have only a couple rehearsals that were more intensive instead.
Our first meeting was dedicated to sharing experiences, thoughts and sonic ideas. The group responded to the concept of the project and form of the collaboration very well. For the members of the band the hardest part was to give up the expectations that they had for what they thought I wanted to hear or do. Mostly because they all have worked with me before and know at least a little about Estonian traditional music and the sound of it. Therefore, it is very human to make subconscious assumptions about the sonic outcomes.
For everyone, playing in ‘someone’s band’ and yet having as much freedom and an expectation to communicate through one’s own perspective was rather a new form of making music. Over time, throughout this short working process, everybody started to open up more and more, showing their own thoughts and incorporating them into the work creation process. On the other hand, in the very end of the project when very little time was left, I noticed that the focus slightly shifted away from the outlined approach of putting one’s practical experiences and emotional connections behind the music. As a takeaway for the next time, I will be aware of that phenomenon and ready to prioritize quality over quantity.
1.2 Personal background
I started my music studies when I was eight years old. Like many others, I also began with the direction of Western classical music. During the first six years of music education, I never thought of music as something I would do longer than required. I did it strictly as a school task because my older siblings had done it before me. The only moments I actually enjoyed were youth symphony orchestra gatherings because of the interactions with other players and equally because the repertoire was much more innovative than anything else I got to engage in.
Fortunately, I was lucky to grow up in a city named Viljandi, which is known as the cultural capital of Estonia. Every summer, a big international folk music festival takes place there called Viljandi Folk, and as my mother used to work as an organizer, I got to grow up in and get some of the best childhood memories exactly from that environment. This experience shaped me through the years, to the point where I understood what I was looking for from music: joy, interaction, originality and diversity. This means that I finally started to think of music as something more profound than just notes on the paper in front of me. Thanks to that experience, later in life I felt that I wanted to continue doing music and that led me to proceed with my focus on Estonian traditional music.
During that period, I also found the organisation called Ethno. Ethno is a multicultural gathering designed for young musicians who are interested in folk and traditional music to get together, share each other's music and play in a very open-minded environment (Ribeiro, H., Bäckström, M. & Ahlbom, P., 2019). Ethno is happening all over the world but my journey with it started from summer camps organized in my home country, Estonia. Since Ethno is very international, it gave me a chance to meet people from extremely diverse backgrounds already at a very young age. I remember how hearing and, even more importantly, learning the music and its importance from those people gave me a whole new perspective on understanding the tradition. After all these years, Ethno still plays a huge part in my life as it did not turn out to be a one-time gathering for me. Rather, it became a way of thinking about music, arts, and interaction in general. For the past few years, I have been one of the artistic leaders and organizers of Ethno Kids and through that trying to make a change in the field of music education in Estonia. Finally, Ethno gave a strong, maybe even decisive push for me to continue my studies in the Global Music department at the Sibelius Academy.