From Ancient to Avant-Garde to Global:
Creative Processes and Institutionalization
in Finnish Contemporary Folk Music

by

Juniper Lynn Hill

Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnomusicology
University of California, Los Angeles, 2005
Professor Timothy Rice, Co-Chair
Professor Anthony Seeger, Co-Chair

This dissertation provides an ethnographic account of the history, ideology, teaching methods, and current performance practices and creative processes of Finnish contemporary folk music, an urban, professional music using traditional Finnish folk music as a point of departure for contemporary, individualistic creations. It focuses primarily on the Folk Music Department of the Sibelius Academy music conservatory in Helsinki, where the genre was created and where its most important practitioners have studied or currently teach and work. Finnish contemporary folk music serves as a case study and jumping-off point for theoretical discussions of five larger socio-musical issues: 1) the institutionalization of musicians’ training in traditional musics; 2) the construction of legitimacy, authenticity, and historical continuity in revived and recontextualized musics; 3) the ideology, pedagogy, and methods for teaching creativity; 4) how the authority to be musical and specifically to be creative in music is created and allocated; and 5) the expression and reification of transnational relationships through musical fusions and appropriations. The Folk Music Department, influenced by its conservatory environment, has adopted a Western art music ethos of individual artistry while rebelling against its pedagogy and performance practices, which folk musicians perceive as inhibiting creativity. Contemporary folk musicians legitimize their practices by claiming to enter into the same creative process as folk musicians of the past, allowing them to innovate and experiment while maintaining historical continuity and authenticity. Department pedagogues have developed unique teaching methods drawing from historical practices, manipulating aural memory to imitate oral culture, simulating oral composition, and using avant-garde improvisation to develop individuality and personal expression. Their ideology authorizes all (Finnish) musicians to become tradition bearers and innovators, compose, improvise, and arrange, regardless of musical background or skill. Contemporary folk musicians incorporate musical elements from other cultures, reifying their desired relationships with those cultures. The Department wields tremendous power in the dissemination of ideology, causing an increase in creative activities by folk musicians of all ages and skill levels and general knowledge about and respect for folk music.