By Mads Brendes
At the Rhythmic Folk High School, music is cultivated as a way of life. Here, students can live out their dreams of a life in music. They are motivated to learn the musician’s craft, and they can immerse themselves in playing and composing music with each other.
I was myself a student at the Rhythmic Folk High School. I went on to refine the skills learned there and ended up making a living as a musician. Now I have found my way back to the folk high school as a teacher. Once again, I encounter dreams of mastering an instrument, but this time in the eyes of my students. They want to be musicians. They want to pass through the eye of the needle.
This is a realignment that requires pedagogical disruption and seduction in equal measure.
Mads Brendes
As a teacher, I support and advise the students in their musical development. But at the same time folk high school is about shifting their gaze away from the realisation of their own projects and directing their curiosity towards the school’s circles of togetherness and out towards the world at large. This is a realignment that requires pedagogical disruption and seduction in equal measure.
Preparations
So we were sitting there, a group of us teachers, late one evening at the folk high school, planning a course. The idea was that it would culminate in all 90 students playing a concert at the school as part of “Play Danish”, which is an annual event that puts the spotlight on Danish music by arranging concerts of all sizes across the whole country. But what were we to focus on, if we were going to teach the students to play Danish music? How could we create a space where their finished product would transcend their own musical performance?
In the end we drew inspiration from a pair of Danish song-writers, Anders Greus and Nana Schwartzlose. Their project, “Unending Stories”, is about going out into the country and meeting people to uncover where the stories are, and then to write songs about them. So we put together a course that centred around the students writing songs inspired by the life stories of complete strangers. We planned how to send the students out of their classrooms to interview some people living in the area around the school.
We teachers selected some locals, who we felt had a good story to tell. We went to see them and got them to agree to it all. The locals had to be persuaded that it was a good idea to be visited by a bunch of folk high school students. They had to be reassured that their story was interesting enough for these young people to want to write a song about it.
In asking the local people to take part, it must be said that our feelings vacillated between faith in the idea and uncertainty as to the result. On the face of it, the task was a simple one. A visit, an interview, a cup of coffee and a tour of the property. But would it be awkward? Would these local people feel at ease in their encounter with the students? Would the students be able to see the value in modest stories of a stranger’s humdrum life? What was more, the meeting came with a commitment. Once the students had finished writing their song, they had to revisit the person they had interviewed and play the song for them.
On the face of it, the task was a simple one. A visit, an interview, a cup of coffee and a tour of the property.
Mads Brendes
The course started with the students listening to a mini-concert given by the duo “Unending Stories”. After this, the students were introduced to basic interview technique, whereupon they were sent off with instructions to listen, to write down and to discover where the good story was to be found.
The interviews
The day for the interviews arrived. The students departed in groups out into the world at the same time but in different directions. They carried with them a piece of paper with an address and a keyword, which revealed a little about the person they were to meet: garage mechanic, headteacher, wine merchant, sewerman, priest, children in after-school club, petrol station owner, author, hairdresser, married couple, class teacher. We were very aware that there was much at stake, but we were not really sure what it was.
I went down with one group to the petrol station in town. We entered the shop, its classic streamlined interior looking like any other service station shop in any other provincial town. A man was standing behind the counter serving a customer with an amiability that had become routine. We clustered together in front of the counter. One of the students explained that we had come from the folk high school and had arranged to talk to the owner of the service station. The man smiled that routine smile but with a hint of embarrassment, as the group of us stood there staring at him.
“That’s me,” he said. “Are you the young people who want to hear about my petrol station?”
That was right.
“Come with me,” he said, pushing open a swing door in the counter.
We edged sideways behind the counter and from there into a backroom office. There was just enough room for us to stand or sit around the desk. Everyone said yes to the offer of a cup of coffee. Michael – for that was the man’s name – closed the door to the shop and settled into his familiar place in the large office chair. We sipped a little coffee. The room felt warm and close and full of a muted expectation. By taking a few steps we had walked through a completely ordinary petrol station and in behind the scenes. We were in the boss’ office, and here Michael told us the entire story of his life and his service station – the ups and the downs. We were shown around. The students listened and scribbled reams of notes.
We were in the boss’ office, and here Michael told us the entire story of his life and his service station – the ups and the downs.
Mads Brendes
Back at the school, the song-writing groups returned one by one from their fieldwork. Like children returning from a trip to the circus, they started to talk about all sorts of angles relating to their visits, and the groups got to work writing songs that same afternoon. All the students felt they had heard or seen something that they were sure should be included in their song.
The song-writing
At the beginning, the students worked very independently. But later, when we walked round the practice rooms to hear how they were getting on with their song-writing, there was uncertainty in most of the groups. The students had discovered that there were sentences that were hard to sing, and moods that were hard to play. For the song’s expression had to be faithful to the story and the person whom the song was about. Working with the songs created new facets of the stories, and the students’ dilemma was whether the expression still fitted the picture they wanted to create of the people they had met. The students were very keen to express what they saw as being particularly good and true. It was not just a question of getting the rhymes to fit. They were in the process of retelling people’s life stories, and the details had to be polished until the songs were ready.
Now the students had to set off again. This time, they carried acoustic instruments on their backs. Last time they had brought a life story home with them. They had heard something about the life of a complete stranger. Now they had to go out and give that person their story back, in the form of a song. They were to play just one song at home in the living room of the person they had interviewed. The students were anxious about whether they had hit the right note. But they had high hopes as they left the school.
When they came back, they were high as kites again. The people they had played for had been deeply moved that a group of young people had stepped through their door and had written a song for them – about them and their life.
The concert
The next thing was the concert at the folk high school. The local newspaper had published an advanced notice, for it was good local news. “The Rhythmic Folk High School plays Danish – musical life stories”. We had no idea how many people would come, so we had just laid out a few bottles of beer and wine. We had really only expected that the students would be playing for each other. It had, however, been agreed that the main characters in the songs would come a little before the concert. The students met them at the door. This time, there were hugs all round.
But the word had got around, at the hairdresser’s, among parents at the school, down at the garage, and all the other places the students had visited. Suddenly, a couple arrived with their whist group, the wine merchant with his neighbours, the class teacher with her colleagues and many others. There was not enough beer and wine to go around – nor were there sufficient chairs or toilet facilities. Just before the start of the concert, an estate car drew up at the school’s main entrance. Four boys from the after-school club leapt out. They wanted to come to the concert, too. Message chains had been set up at home, and one mother had had to drive off and pick up her son’s mates.
The principal characters sat in the hall and suddenly were in the spotlight normally reserved for Grammy award winners. The students loved having something extra that they could give.
Mads Brendes
It was a wonderful concert. The music played, and the stories took on new life. The encounter between different people suddenly took on huge dimensions. In the concert hall, the attention was focused both on the stage and on the audience. The principal characters sat in the hall and suddenly were in the spotlight normally reserved for Grammy award winners. The students loved having something extra that they could give.
Recognition
After the concert, people hung about in the cafeteria. The talk was all about the concert and the process leading up to it. The guests were interested in finding out what other events they could come to at the folk high school. Most had never been to the school before despite the fact that they had lived in the area so many years. We were forced to ask ourselves why all these people had never come before. In our own eyes, we were convinced that we put on lots of great events with exciting music and interesting content, and we always made sure that we sent invitations and advertised far and wide. We had to accept the fact that local people came not because we asked them to be interested in us but because we showed an interest in them.
We had to accept the fact that local people came not because we asked them to be interested in us but because we showed an interest in them.
Mads Brendes
The students stayed around playing hosts, and we teachers had the sense that they could feel that something very special had happened. They had gone out into the world and come home. They had brought people back with them, and the musical stories had become the scene for a meeting between different people, between the school and the world, between the foreign and the familiar. Opening the doors between these spaces is one of the most valuable tasks the folk high school can achieve. But this was what had happened. That was something we only realised later, once the concert was over, and people had all gone home.