Paper short abstract:

My study will discuss about relationship between humans and birds in a special musical genre: Karelian joik-singing. I am looking at the imitative sound expression as a possibility for challenging, changing, and dissolving the borders between human beings and other species. The human-animal relationship is here under scrutiny.

Paper long abstract:

My study will concentrate on the relationship between humans and birds in Karelian joik-singing. Onomatopoetic phrases included in joik-music have been described as imitations of animal sounds (Nikolajeva 2011). Especially the sound of swan has related to the onomatopoetic expression typical for joiks. In general the image of bird is important in Karelian mythology and oral tradition. Bird has seen as a mediators between live and the death. Bird-imitations are part of singer´s repertoire in a special musical genre. The human-animal relationship is here under scrutiny. The main research question is: How does the singer morph into animal while changing the style of using voice, or does she/he? The focus of this study is in a concept of resonance: through the resonance of the voice, human can imitate the animal body and feel the resonance between species through her/his own body. Though one can be like a shapeshifter: change the position in her/ his expression from human to animal. Methods used in this research are bodily approach sound analysis, cultural analysis and participant observation in terms of bi-musicality.