International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance

A Non-Governmental Organization in Formal Consultative Relations with UNESCO

Appendix to Sweden country report, Bulletin of the ICTM 126 (October 2014)

Below is an appendix to the country report for Sweden found in the Bulletin of the ICTM 126, written by Ingrid Åkesson.

Recent publications in English by ICTM members

The majority of publications by Swedish scholars in ethnomusicology and neighbouring disciplines are in Swedish. One reason is the necessity of maintaining and developing an adequate terminology and discourse in the national language; another is the importance of reaching a wider circle of readers within Scandinavia, also outside of the strictly academic sphere. However, a number of peer-reviewed articles and a couple of books in English have been produced during the last years:

In late modern societies traditional arts tend to become disembedded from a functioning vernacular milieu and become partly absorbed into institutionalized structures such as education. This article focuses on traditional singing in present-day Sweden as one evident example where oral tradition as a comprehensive concept is being transformed and renegotiated into a selection of oral techniques, style markers, and aesthetic ideals. A related issue also presented here is the balance between verbal and music-related sides of orality.

  • Åkesson, Ingrid. “Participatory and Multidirectional Music-making. Small-scale Singing Events as Creators of a Counter-aesthetics?”. In Taking Part in Music: Case Studies in Ethnomusicology . Ian Russell and Catherine Ingram (eds), 305-318. (Elphinstone Institute Occasional Publications 9) Aberdeen: Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen,  2013.

The article investigates participation in musical situations where the boundaries between roles and functions become blurred, and where positions such as artist, soloist, audience, participant etc. may be at least temporarily interchangeable. This interchangeability tends to create an aesthetics connected to music-as-process rather than to music-as-product. The text is based on fieldwork at small-scale events of traditional singing in Scotland and Sweden.

  • Åkesson, Ingrid. “Local and Religious Identity in Swedish Popular Hymn-singing During the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries”. In Identities, Intertextuality and Performance in Song Culture (c.1500- c. 1800). W. van Anrooij, L.P. Grijp and D.E. van der Poel (eds). (Intersections. Interdisciplinary Studies in Early Modern Culture)Leiden, Boston: Brill. [Forthcoming 2014]

The text discusses a couple of aspects of the theme of song and identity in early modern Europe by applying musical, performative and social perspectives to this issue. The main topic is popular or traditional hymn singing in post-Reformation Sweden (mainly during the 17th and 18th centuries) as a means for the creation and negotiation of local identity, intermixed with religious identity.

  • Arvidsson, Alf. “Some Characteristics of Contemporary Art Music Composition in Sweden”. In Taking Part in Music. Case Studies in Ethnomusicology. Ian Russell and Catherine Ingram (eds), 297-304. (Elphinstone Institute Occasional Publications 9) Aberdeen: Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen, in association with the European Seminar in Ethnomusicology, 2013.
  • Arvidsson, Alf (ed) . Jazz, Gender, Authenticity. Proceedings of the 10th Nordic Jazz Research Conference Stockholm August 30-31 2012. Stockholm: Svenskt visarkiv, 2014. http://carkiv.musikverk.se/www/epublikationer/Online_publ_Jazz_Gender_Authenticity.pdf  
  • Eriksson, Karin & Mats Nilsson. ”Ethnomusichoreology? Ethnochoreomusic?” In Fiddle and Dance Studies From Around the North Atlantic 3. Ed. Ian Russell & Mary Anne Alburger, 260–264. Aberdeen: University of Aberdeen, The Elphinstone Institute, 2010.

The article discusses the relationship and possible points in common between ethnomusicology and ethnochoreology.

  • Hammarlund, Anders.  A Prayer for Modernity. Politics and Culture in the World of Abraham Baer (1834–1894). Stockholm: Svenskt visarkiv, 2013. http://musikverket.se/svensktvisarkiv/publikationer/onlinepublikationer/a-prayer-for-modernity/
  • Hyltén-Cavallius, Sverker. “Memoryscapes and Mediascapes. Musical Formations of "Pensioners" in Late 20th-Century Sweden”. In Popular Music, 31:2 (2012): 279-295.
  • Lund, Cajsa S. “Sound Tools, Symbols or Something Quite Different? On Possible Percussion Instruments from Bronze-Age Sweden – Including Methodological Aspects of Music-Archaeological Research”. In: Studien zur Musikarchäologie VIII. Eds. Ricardo Eichmann, Fang Jianjun, Lars-Christian Koch, 61-73. (Orient-Archäologie 27).  Rahden/Westf: Verlag Marie Leidorf GmbH, 2012.

This paper deals with two spectacular Bronze-Age finds in Sweden, which might have been used, primarily or secondarily, as sound tools: a bronze disc resting on a bronze frame, found at Balkåkra, and a hoard of bronze shields, found at Fröslunda. The paper is also a general introduction to the music archaeology pursued and taught by the author in Swedish higher education.

  • Lundberg, Dan. “Describing Your Music to the Arts Council. Interacting With a Grant System”. InTaking Part in Music. Case Studies in Ethnomusicology. Ian Russell and Catherine Ingram (eds), 272-281. (Elphinstone Institute Occasional Publications 9) Aberdeen: Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen.
  • Malm, Krister. ”Expanding Intellectual Property Rights - An Area of Tensions”. In Música/Musicología y Colonialismo. Montevideo: Centro Nacional de Documentación Musical Lauro Ayestarán, 2011: 309-322.

The paper explores developments and proposals during the period 1997-2010 regarding intellectual property rights, especially as applied to traditional cultural expressions.

  • Modin, Madeleine. ”Ernst Emsheimer's Extensive Network”. In Studia instrumentorum musicae popularis III (New Series). Gisa  Jähnichen (ed), 255-270. Münster: MV Wissenschaft, 2013.

The German born ethnomusicologist Ernst Emsheimer (one of the founders of the ICTM Study Group on Folk Musical Instruments) had a great impact on ethnomusicology, organology and the early music revival in Sweden as the director of the Stockholm Music Museum from 1947 until 1973. Above his profound musical knowledge, his extensive network of scholars, musicians and instrument makers from all around the world was of great importance. In this biographical article his network and activities are briefly outlined with his archived correspondence at the Stockholm Music Museum as the main source.

  • Nilsson, Mats 2014. ”Folk Dance Competitions in the 21st Century”. In Nordic Dance Spaces. Practicing and Imagining a Region.  Karen Vedel, Petri Hoppu (eds), 79-99. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2014.