To Örebro University

In times of mass extinctions and climate crisis, the question of human-animal-environment co-dependencies is an urgent matter. Eco- and ecocritical ethnomusicological research, which questions human uniqueness and self-proclaimed mastery by approaching music as a more-than-human affair, has proven to offer insights on this matter. By opening music to the more-than-human, music research could generate inclusive and ethical approaches to that which authoritative Western narratives have othered. This chapter partakes in that project by exploring how vocal herding music is constituted by the virtue of interspecies relations. It analyzes the processes of voice production, that is, how music-as-process is organized by the more-than-human, and how vital matter actively partakes in the creation of voice and song on a continuum when singing while herding cows and sheep. Using autoethnographic and affective methods, the chapter shows that the movements, rhythms, and voices of animals deeply affect how singing comes to be and how it transforms to become different than itself. Furthermore, it also demonstrates that vocal herding music is a rooted and situated activity where the relations between singer and landscape, such as inclination walking, obstruct voice and create differences regarding timbres, dynamics, and phrases of the song.

By employing an approach inspired by affect and theories on natural acoustics, this article explores how and what affects sound propagation outdoors and what role echoes and reverberation has in affective experiences of performing Nordic herding music outdoors. To study this, we traveled to eight summer farms (fäbodar) in Sweden together with seven herding musicians. We measured and described essential data of landscape, soundscape and airscape and instructed the musicians to try their vocal and instrumental sounds in different frequencies and timbres. We also asked them to evaluate their sounds and describe how they experienced the natural acoustics and how these experiences affected how they felt when they sang and played their horns. Putting together their answers with the data drawn from our measurements, the study shows that responses in nature is crucial for a positive experience of calling and playing horns. The results also tells us that when the aim of producing a sound is to reach far, and the musicians experience that they do just that, they experience emotions of joy, empowerment, satisfaction and being “one with nature” in a duet between the musician and the echoes of the forested mountains.

The spellbinding refrains of the kulning call reflect a tradition that offered women freedom and independence.