Description
Book SynopsisA sparsely populated island in the North Atlantic recently made worldwide 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 BjÃrk and Sigur RÃs. 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 ov
Trade Review’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
Table of ContentsContents: Introduction; Telling tales and setting the scene; Baldur’s Saga; Icelandic sagas and songs; Singing social connections; Songworlds: the body and vocal places; Songs, spirituality and self therapy; Singing himself: singing and the construction of gender identity; My saga; Vocal events and singing’s agency in change; Conclusions, closure and the vocal celebration of self; Gallery; Bibliogaphy, sound and film recordings; Index.
