2013.10.10
 

IMPRA's chairwoman Gunilla Törnfeldt was interviewed the other week regarding Kulturnytt's review of the number of applicants for music education programs with a jazz focus at the country's universities. The feature can be found here.

 

It was a roughly ten minute long interview that was cut down to a few quotes and Berit Nygren then commented on this. Gunilla responds here to Berit Nygren's comment and clarifies her own position as the picture given in the feature is a bit unvarnished.

After working with the association IMPRA for seven years, being a pupil, student and finally now a teacher in jazz courses at both high school, folk high school and university and writing a C thesis on Gender in jazz teaching (KMH, 2008), I consider myself to have a great overview and insight into the mechanisms that may lie behind the low number of female instrumentalists on the courses. The journalist Berit Nygren partly makes incorrect assumptions about what she thinks I mean by my statements, partly she lacks experience and knowledge from the educational system and lacks a musician's perspective, and therefore her comment is unfortunately superficial, only from a media point of view and is sometimes downright incorrect.

 

Choosing to become a musician is a complex chain of influences and stimulation of an individual's interests. Role models are part of this and was one of all the reasons I highlighted in the ten-minute long interview with Kulturnytt's reporter, but became the main reason highlighted in the feature, which is why this is also what I will dwell on the most.

 

Berit Nygren wanted to emphasize that it is the personal expression in jazz that is important, not one or the other gender - as if there would be a contradiction in that and talking about justice in the number of active men and women. Among other things, I said in the interview, which was not included in the feature, that there are those who believe that there is a female and male tone of voice and there are those who believe that it does not, but I did not say what I thought and I believe that it is not relevant either. The point is that regardless of whether it is so or not, or whether you think so or not, it is an aspect of justice if women's thoughts or feelings are not expressed in music to the same extent. Not because they are specifically women, but because there can be interesting individuals among the large part of the population who happen to be female and who can actually be overlooked during upbringing and above all during the course of education.

 

Berit Nygren is also not sure about the lack of female role models. She believes that there have long been female jazz instrumentalists with an increase in recent years and especially that many more have now been exposed much more than before.

 

She is right that we have seen and are seeing increased exposure of female musicians, especially in the last five years and no one but us at IMPRA is happier about that! Just look at the Stockholm Jazz Festival's program this year! We see it as a receipt for our work and are extremely proud of it, it is a big and important step in the right direction. But even if it is so and those musicians in recent years have succeeded, and are now succeeding, in reaching curious young girls in their teens, let's say between 13-18 years and there to arouse an interest, it will still take at least 5- Another 10 years before we can possibly notice any difference in the number of female instrumentalists on the courses and, by extension, above all in music life. Changes take time, which Berit was also aware of.

 

But then, how does Berit Nygren know that these women who are now coming forward and being exposed really reach the young girls who need to see them? The jazz world in Sweden is a small duck pond and even if it is written about female musicians in OJ or Lira or in daily newspapers or if there are more female musicians playing at clubs and festivals around Sweden (which is of course fun and good!) it is still further another step towards really reaching the young aspiring musicians. This of course applies to both girls and boys and if we draw a parallel to the regrowth of jazz musicians and jazz audiences in general.

 

In order for a young aspiring musician to be exposed to a potential role model at all, you need to have someone close to you who encourages and shows them, most people do not discover them on their own and then we come to the music teachers, family and relatives, gender roles and the word identification. Identification in a deeper sense. The music teachers are the ones who can really show the existence of role models, either by presenting them or why not being one yourself. It is, for example, only at the Academy of Music in Malmö that they have employed half women and half men as ensemble teachers, and there we can also see a much more even gender distribution among the students.

 

In addition, if it is now the instrumentalists who are primarily being commented on, then Kulturnytt should report separate figures for that, in the figures on the page with the feature, the vocalists are included in the number of women and they are in a crushing majority, which unfortunately makes the figures completely misleading in the context. They also do not comment on the lack of male vocalists, where the problem picture is the same but with a reversed distribution.

 

Finally, it goes without saying that you get attached to a musician because he has an interesting tone of voice or an expression that appeals to you. I said nothing about the opposite, which Berit Nygren wrongly seems to take for granted. However, what I have been able to see when I have worked with children and young people and when I discuss these issues with teaching colleagues and other female musicians is that it is something special when that role model – with tone and expression you are addressed by – is the same gender as yourself. You can see yourself doing what your role model does on a deeper and more obvious level - "I could do that too".

 

Other factors that are of great importance and which I touched on most quickly above are the teachers' methodology and pedagogy as well as encouragement from family and relatives. However, developing the interaction between these areas may become another debate in another forum.

 

- Gunilla Törnfeldt, 11 October 2013

 

If you want to see and hear good music being played and, among other things, be exposed to a bunch of great role models (both men and women) and fantastic musicians, you are therefore warmly welcome to go to the Stockholm Jazz Festival, especially IMPRA's own club Lupino Live on October 16 at the Kägelbanan when can hear The Tiny and the Norwegian band Sommerfuglfisk! For more info see http://www.impra.se/klubbar/lupino-live/

 

Hope to see you there!

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