Till Örebro universitet

In ecomusicology, important steps have been taken towards an understanding of music to be an activity produced by more-than-human relations. These are not just scholarly ideas. Rather, they have been present in fäbod culture for centuries. Swedish fäbod culture is a transhumance system where the farmers transfer their cows, goats, and sheep to a summer farm during the summer seasons. Historically, these farmers were women. The herders communicate with the animals, and with each other, through both vocal signals and the use of instruments. Previous studies and historical records show that fäbod farmers consider these signals as interspecies communication and acts of kinship. Starting from the view of the fäbod farmers, this thesis explores how vocal herding music is co-composed by more than humans in specific situations, and how vocal herding music in turn affect the very milieu that produced it. This thesis also suggests methods and theoretical approaches that allow for more-than-human participation in eco- and ethnomusicological studies. Drawing from 4 years of seasonal ethnographic fieldwork and participant observation, the results show that the rhythms, voices, and movements of animals and forests, partake in the organisation of singing and calling. A sung melody, a phrase, or a rhythm bare witness of the movements and vocalisations of the animals. By using, and elaborating on, the concepts mimesis and affective attunement, the thesis uncover show affect, as body sympathy or intensity, not only enables interspecies communication, but also affords humans and animals to attune to each other and through that process reach shared experiences where voices and rhythms synchronise (mimesis). The study also shows that by connecting to nature, kulning singers free themselves from normative ideas about what kulning is and should sound like; the forest becomes part of both resistance and creativity.