BOOKS

The Northern Silence: Journeys in Nordic Music and Culture Andrew Mellor

320PP ISBN 9780300254402

YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS £18.99

Organised in five broad-themed sections, framed by a Prelude and a Postlude, Andrew Mellor’s book documents some of his Nordic assignments as a music journalist, taking in also scary aircraft landings, sauna parties, forbidding landscapes and trails through dense forests. Mellor converses with performers, composers and music administrators and contemplates the folk traditions, mindsets, wider cultures, national identities and musical aspirations of the region’s peoples, explaining how the five Nordic countries, once considered culturally backward, have developed into strongholds of musical creativity across a variety of genres.

A recurring thread is the pivotal figure of Sibelius and his swansong Tapiola, along with other figureheads in Nordic music history such as Grieg and Nielsen and the theme of silence. The section entitled ‘Performance’ focuses on the numerous full-time Nordic orchestras, ensembles, opera companies and festivals and their striking modern, state-of-the-art performance venues. Fostered by the region’s distinctive approaches to cultural policy and infrastructure, involving universal access to music instruction and generous levels of state funding, and supportive broadcasting and media strategies, emerging talent has increasingly become recognised internationally. Surveying unusual approaches to composition and performance, ‘Off Piste’ whisks us to the ‘inhabited wilderness’ of Kaukonen’s Silence Festival, to the Faroe Islands to experience chain dancing, ballad and skjaldur singing and their spin-offs into other genres, including a fertile metal music scene, and the outputs of ‘exports’ such as singer Eivør Pálsdóttir. We are introduced to Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s unusual method of drawing her compositions before notating them and how Veronique Vaka’s studies of idiosyncratic singing styles influence her compositions.

‘Nordic Noir and Snow White’ draws parallels between the perceived introspective melancholy of the Nordic psyche and the region’s ‘dark side’, whether in music, film, TV or literature. Drinking habits, alcoholism, xenophobia, racism and the theme of loneliness are examined, with Sibelius again appearing prominently in the mix. The final section explores common elements between Scandinavian music and Nordic design and architecture, examining in music the Danish aesthetic of ‘new simplicity’ (Hans Abrahamsen, Henning Christiansen and Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen) and focusing on structure in the works of Per Nørgård and the Aarhus School (including Poul Ruders), as well as the nature-inspired similarities between Sibelius’s symphonies and Alvar Aalto’s architecture. The work of the Finnish ‘Ears Open’ movement (Esa-Pekka Salonen, Magnus Lindberg and Kaija Saariaho) also features, along with the improvisatory style of Leif Segerstam and the luminous techniques of Saariaho and Anders Hillborg. Nordic composers’ persistent use of bass pedal notes is related to the region’s topography, wide vistas and stillness.

Jean Sibelius in the 1950s

The Postlude brings us full circle to Tapiola and the meditations on nature and climate change that it inspired in, for example, Outi Tarkiainen’s Midnight Sun Variations. The region’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic is aired together with thoughts and fears about its future cultural prosperity. Generally well presented with informative endnotes, pertinent illustrations, a helpful index and only a handful of errors, this book’s inevitably selective musical content is skilfully interwoven with historical, cultural, societal, architectural, topographical and political connections. Above all, it is an informative and entertaining read by an ‘insider’, a Copenhagen resident. One cannot help but be amused by Mellor’s description of Ole Bull as the 19th-century André Rieu and the nyckelharpa as ‘an accordion on the verge of tears’, or his likening an interview with Segerstam to ‘attempting to keep a severely damaged aircraft in the air’.

ROBIN STOWELL

DAWN R. STEPHENS/DNA PHOTOGRAPHY

Jazz Violin Etudes: Jazz Scales Every Violinist Should Know Harry Hunt Jr

223PP ISBN 9781954127210

HARRY HUNT JR $16.95

I am someone who gets overly excited when I discover a new volume of scales or studies. I am also someone keen to explore different genres outside my comfort zone, especially the worlds of jazz and improvisation. If this also applies to you, then this volume of jazz scales by Harry Hunt Jr could be just the ticket.

Hunt is a violinist and the son of noted jazz trumpeter Harry Hunt Sr. He began his training in classical violin before exploring other genres including jazz. It is clear that he is well aware of the great scale volumes of Flesch and Galamian, and his book feels very similar. It sets out all the scales as the great masters have done, taking the players through each note name starting from G. Hunt indicates 13 essential scales to be mastered. In addition to the major and minors, there are also scales in modes, as well as dominant and diminished scales. Each scale is presented in four versions: one octave; first position; E string only; three octaves. Interestingly, Hunt advocates restriction of shifting to the E string as it he claims it helps to ‘give a predictable anchor of when and where to shift at a given moment’.

There are bonuses to the volume. After each note (key centre) is explored, Hunt includes suggestions for patterns that can be explored including slurring and more arpeggiated work. There are also small sections exploring be-bop, pentatonic, blues, whole tone, diminished and chromatic scales. The best bonus, though, is the selection of downloadable backing tracks, which include chords for each scale allowing the violinist to explore the sound world of each at leisure.

Harry Hunt Jr performing at the DuSable Black History Museum in Chicago

There are elements of this volume that feel rather light in exploration: the sections on jazz styles at the end give the impression that they are an afterthought. Perhaps they are included to whet the appetite for further material to come. Indeed, more material already exists. Hunt’s website indicates several other volumes that may complement this one, so, if you enjoy this as I do, there is lots more to get your teeth into.

ALEX LAING

How to Practice Music Andrew Eales

80PP ISBN 9781705159613

HAL LEONARD $10.99

How to Practise Music is a pocketsized mini book, packed full of tips, suggestions and strategies about practice. It is aimed at and suitable for players of any instrument, as well as parents of children who are learning to play. The book is full of golden advice and it constantly encourages the reader to think more deeply about the process of practising music, including practical considerations about scheduling, location, equipment and the use of practice apps and journals, as well as the more obviously musical side of things. There is a useful section on warm-ups as well as vital information about injury prevention and the importance of taking breaks. In addition there are a few short sections specifically for beginners and for parents of young learners, as well as thoughts on interpretation and analysis that may be of greater relevance to more experienced players. The book is small enough to be read fairly quickly in one go, but is really designed more as a reference to dip into and refer back to. There is no padding or waffle in this tiny volume – every piece of advice given is sensible and useful.

My only grumble is that in order to fit the content into such a pocketsized format, the publisher has chosen a very small font, which made my eyes boggle somewhat. The small page size and font size, and the pace at which such a wide variety of strategies and ideas are presented, make for quite a dense reading experience and I occasionally found myself becoming overwhelmed and skipping through some very useful passages without reading or focusing on them properly. It made me wonder if the author might consider creating a spin-off version of the book in the form of a desktop calendar with a handy hint for every day or week of the year. Chunking the information in this way (in the same way as the book suggests ‘chunking’ as a practice strategy) would make it even easier to digest and learn from. That said, in its current format, this book is a great source of wisdom and advice, and should probably be on every student’s Christmas list this year.

CELIA COBB