Contribution short abstract:

Swiss folk music has traditionally been deeply entrenched within a particular mode of sociality. This paper explores how attending to affective qualities shifts how we think about participation, genre, and the parameters of folk practices, and raises questions about their sociopolitical complexity.

Contribution long abstract:

Swiss folk music has traditionally been deeply entrenched within a particular mode of sociality. Learned socially and collaboratively, and locally embedded in place, there is a strong affective and atmospheric dimension to the practice, in which performer and perceiver are often one and the same. Events foster a sense of comfort, familiarity, enjoyment, and “gemütlichkeit”, and beyond simply being a pleasant addition to the practice, these qualities also facilitate it, becoming an integral characteristic of the genre. One participant identified this succinctly when asked what made a good folk musician: “joy”.

This aspect, eluding easy categorization, poses a challenge for a topic that frequently finds itself at ideological crossroads. Historically, Swiss folk practices have been a site of intense nationalization and politicization, while today, contemporary musicians often distance themselves from these narratives and focus on creative practice, technical skill, and formal training. However, attempts to replicate the underlying affect of traditional settings take on great importance even in new pedagogical environments.

I explore how, despite their intangibility and indeterminacy, affective and experiential attributes are in fact critical to the existence of the tradition and its ongoing maintenance and reproduction, requiring an analytical framework that accounts for their significance outside of discursive contexts. This paper grapples with how attending to affective qualities such as joy shifts how we think about participation, genre, and the parameters of folk practices, while also acknowledging that positive affective experiences are contingent on further factors—such as belonging—which remain inextricable from their sociopolitical significance.