Icelandic Men and Me

Sagas of Singing, Self and Everyday Life

By: Robert Faulkner

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Hardcover | 15 January 2013

At a Glance

Hardcover
252 Pages

Edition Type
New edition

Dimensions(cm)
23.5 x 15.88 x 1.91

Hardcover

$385.50

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A sparsely populated island in the North Atlantic recently made world-wide headlines in the Global Financial Crisis and for volcanic eruptions that caused unprecedented chaos to international air travel. Large contemporary audiences have formed very different images of Iceland through the vocal music and music videos of Bjork and Sigur Ros. Just below the Arctic Circle, Icelandic men engage in more everyday vocal practices, where singing, literally for one's Self, is an everyday life skill set against a backdrop of unique natural, historical, economic and social phenomena. Their sagas of song and singing are the subject of this book.The original Icelandic Sagas - among the most important collections of medieval European literature - are valued for richly detailed portrayals of individual lives. This book's principle protagonists and collaborators share a heritage where Sagas remain central to national and local identity, while the oral traditions associated with them were largely overwhelmed by European romanticism just over a hundred years ago. Ironically, this new vocal music became a key technology for national renewal. Written by an 'immigrant' musician who lived in a remote Icelandic community for over twenty years, this volume focuses upon individual and collective stories about singing as personal and social work. Drawing upon everyday ethnographic and sociological studies of music and emerging discourse about musical identity, the study uses anthropological, historical and musicological evidence in thinking about songs, singing and Self and the genderedness of this particular singing practice - the vocal and local performance of masculinities.

Industry Reviews

'Faulker's Icelandic Men and Me: Sagas of Singing, Self and Everyday Life has documented the lived experience behind, above, below, and beyond the social organization of men's singing habits, whether they are comforting their child for an evening, keeping themselves company in the barn, or getting out to their choir practices despite weather, pressing chores, and limited transportation. Song glues together the sense of self, the awareness of community, and the tangibility of nation, rendering life itself as a 'musical event''. American Book Review 'Faulkner's methods for researching, analysing, and theorizing these topics are impressively interdisciplinary ... The insights garnered from his personal experiences as first conductor and teacher and later researcher in the local musical community give the volume a strong ethnographic feel, which is complemented by brief but engaging sections of auto-ethnography. The integration of these multidisciplinary approaches is highly effective and will probably serve as a model for others'. Music and Letters

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