Negotiating Musicianship Live Weider Ellefsen
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Ellefsen Weider Live Live Weider Ellefsen In this ethnographic case-study of a Norwegian upper secondary music musicianship Negotiating programme – “Musikklinja” – Live Weider Ellefsen addresses questions of Negotiating musicianship subjectivity, musical learning and discursive power in music educational practices. Applying a conceptual framework based on Foucault’s discourse The constitution of student subjectivities theory and Butler’s theory of (gender) performativity, she examines how the young people of Musikklinja achieve legitimate positions of music student- in and through discursive practices of hood in and through Musikklinja practices of musicianship, across a range of sites and activities. In the analyses, Ellefsen shows how musical learn- musicianship in “Musikklinja” ers are constituted as they learn, subjecting themselves to and perform- ing themselves along relations of power and knowledge that also work as means of self-understanding and discursive mastery. The study’s findings suggest that dedication, entrepreneurship, compe- tence, specialization and connoisseurship are prominent discourses at play in Musikklinja. It is by these discourses that the students are socially and institutionally identified and addressed as music students, and it is by understanding themselves in relation to these discourses that they come to be music student subjects. The findings also propose that a main charac- teristic in the constitution of music student subjectivity in Musikklinja is the appropriation of discourse, even where resistance can be noted. However, within the overall strategy of accepting and appropriating discourses of mu- sicianship, students subtly negotiate – adapt, shift, subvert – the available discourses in ways that enable and empower their discursive legitimacy. Musikklinja constitutes an important educational stepping stone to higher music education and to professional musicianship in Norway. In applying discourse theory and poststructuralist notions of subjectivity, this study makes possible understandings of how Musikklinja, as an institution of discourse, enables and manages thoughts, actions, objects and subjects of musicianship. Furthermore, in examining how relations of power and knowledge play out in actual situations and events where students are subjectivized in and through discourses of musicianship, the study also contributes to an empirically anchored theorization of the relations between subject and discourse, musical learning, knowledge and power. Norges musikkhøgskole Slemdalsveien 11 PB 5190, Majorstua NO-0302 OSLO ISSN 0333-3760 NMH-publikasjoner nmh.no ISBN 978-82-7853-097-9 2014:10 Tidligere utgivelser i NMH-publikasjoner: 2014:7 Karette Stensæth (Ed.): Music, Health, Technology and Design 2014:6 Bjørg Bjøntegaard: Gruppeundervisning i instrumental- opplæringen på høyskolenivå 2014:5 Jan Sverre Knudsen, Marie Skånland og Gro Trondalen (red.): Musikk etter 22. juli 2014:4 Tanja Orning: The polyphonic performer 2014:3 Aslaug Slette: Aural awareness in ensemble rehearsals 2014:2 Lisa Bonnár: Life and Lullabies 2014:1 John Vinge: Vurdering i musikkfag 2013:11 Monika Overå: Hekta på musikk 2013:10 Inger Elise Reitan, Anne Katrine Bergby, Victoria Cecilie Jakhelln, Gro Shetelig og Ingunn Fanavoll Øye (red.): Aural Perspectives 2013:9 Vegar R. Storsve og Brit Ågot Brøske Danielsen (red.): Løft blikket - gjør en forskjell 2013:8 Guro Gravem Johansen: Å øve på improvisasjon 2013:7 Tone Sæther Kvamme: Glimt av glede 2013:6 Magnus Dahlberg: Learning Across Contexts 2013:5 Lars Ole Bonde, Even Ruud, Marie Strand Skånland og Gro Trondalen (red.): Musical Life Stories 2013:4 Dag Jansson: Musical Leadership: The Choral Conductor as Sensemaker and Liberator 2013:3 Solveig Christensen: Kirkemusiker - kall og profesjon 2013:2 Astrid Kvalbein: Musikalsk modernisering 2013:1 Sven-Erik Holgersen, Eva Georgii-Hemming, Siw Graabræk Nielsen og Lauri Väkevä (red.): Nordisk musikkpedagogisk forskning. Årbok 14 Live Weider Ellefsen Negotiating musicianship The constitution of student subjectivities in and through discursive practices of musicianship in “Musikklinja” Dissertation for the Ph.D.-degree Norwegian Academy of Music, Oslo 2014 NMH-publikasjoner 2014:10 © Norges musikkhøgskole og Live Weider Ellefsen NMH-publikasjoner 2014:10 ISSN 0333-3760 NorgesISBN 978-82-7853-097-9 musikkhøgskole Postboks 5190 Majorstua 0302 OSLO Tel.: +47 23 36 70 00 nmh.no E-post: [email protected] Trykk: 07 Media, Oslo, 2014 Acknowledgements At a time that does not now seem so far distant, when I was still working full time as a pianist, a piano teacher and a choral conductor, I got in touch with Hedmark University College about their Master’s programme in music education. Would it represent anything new and interesting, compared to what I, an academy trained concert pianist, already knew about music and musicianship? Would it be – difficult enough? At the other end of the line was Professor Petter Dyndahl, later to be my supervisor. Yes, he assured me, amusement in his voice. I would probably find the courses “difficult enough”. Now, having struggled myself through both a master’s degree and a doctoral thesis, I can say that it has been unbelievably challenging. I have been confronted with ways of thinking about music and musicianship, knowledge and learning, identity and personhood that were all new to me. I am not world. exaggerating if I say that some of them have changed the way I experience the I am grateful to all the people who have made the struggle worthwhile, and in different ways helped me to complete the thesis. I would like to express my possibilities and daring me to trust my own navigational skills. His knowledge sincere gratitude to Petter Dyndahl for taking me on board, showing me my and critically questioning attitude is always of help and inspiration. I would also like to thank my second supervisor Professor Monika Nerland for her serious engagement and interest in helping me focus and tighten the study. Her insightful and to-the-point comments have been invaluable. Tiri Bergesen Schei and Thomas Egan have both read and commented upon earlier drafts, contributing with important perspectives and helping me find a form and a LIVE WEIDER ELLEFSEN: NEGOTIATING MUSICIANSHIP language in which to communicate my research. Thanks to Knut Øystein Høvik for translating my letters of information, and to Ellen Nierenberg and Karianne Hagen at the College Library for all their service and assistance. I thank Hedmark University College for financial support, and for the opportunity to teach and learn in a wonderful working community of colleagues and students. I also deeply appreciate the learning community at the Norwegian Academy of Music: Guro, Hilde, John, Magnus and all the other doctoral students, as well as the professors and senior researchers challenging us and leading our discussions. Three close friends, two of them colleagues, have been of particular importance to me throughout the PhD work: Ingeborg Lunde Vestad, Sidsel Karlsen and Heidi Midtlien. Without the three of you, I would never have pulled through. Thank you! Ingeborg: for everything. Sidsel: for being my third supervisor. Heidi: for always cheering me on, listening to me thinking out loud, caring for my family and bringing me half a bottle of wine at crucial times. My dearest family, my children Mari Louise, Signe and Olaf and my husband Øystein: I love you, and I am forever grateful for your patience and encouragement. I cannot count the times I have watched your special version of the Jackson Five’s “I want you back”. My mother, Ragna Louise, deserves all my heartfelt gratitude. Wise, kind and hard-working, she is, and always has been, a role model to me. She has been of invaluable help throughout the project, as a discussion partner and by caring for my family and me. Finally, I want to express my sincere appreciation to the students and teachers of Musikklinja, who let me participate in their daily doings week after week, I sharing their stories, feelings and opinions with me and even giving me some very memorable musical experiences. I trust the story am about to tell conveys the deep respect and admiration I have for you. Hamar,Live Weider April Ellefsen 1, 2014 ii Abstract Negotiating musicianship. The constitution of student subjectivities in and through discursive practices of musicianship in “Musikklinja” The study has been conducted as an in-depth investigation of a Norwegian “Musikklinje”; a three-year upper secondary educational programme in music. Combining an ethnographic design of participant observation and interviews with an analytical framework based on Foucauldian discourse theory and understanding how student subjectivities are constituted in and through discursive performativity theory as elaborated by Judith Butler, the study has aimed at practices of musicianship in Musikklinja. To facilitate such an understanding, the study has examined how discourses of musicianship are practiced within and across a range of Musikklinja sites, and how students engage in performative work to achieve legitimate positions of music studenthood within these discourses. In this examination, analyses and discussions of how relations of power/knowledge are enacted – at micro and macro levels of discourse – have been important. Musikklinja, the thesis argues, works by relations of power/ knowledge that include the relations students enact and establish to understand themselves, and make themselves understandable, within discourse. Fieldwork was undertaken