About the project
The project was part of a larger research project on the Romany people’s history, language, and culture, funded by The Research Council of Norway.
The main goal of the project was to increase our knowledge and understanding of the Romany people’s music and song traditions.
Sub-goals include:
- to give an account of recorded material and to build a network of sources
- to record music and interviews in order to document the travellers’ music, both past and contemporary
- to present analyses of repertoire and style as well as interviews and other texts
- to establish an international platform for comparative research on the subject.
Outcomes
The most important task was to collect, register, and organize material. In the Norwegian Collection of Folk Music and the other Norwegian folk music archives, there are few recordings with travellers’ music and songs, even though they have had a substantial influence on Norwegian folk music. Our project seeked to remedy this imbalance.
We were not just interested in folk music and the oldest musical expressions, we also wished to record music from other genres to document the wide variety of expression. For example, many travellers play a central musical role in the Pentecostal movement and other Christian congregations. We can also find travellers in dance bands, rock, and other popular music contexts. In our work, the situation and context where the music takes place will be as important as the musical structures. We were preoccupied with how the music is used, which songs are the most popular, etcetera.
In addition to collecting material, we analysed musical style and looked for style markers for the Romany people’s music. Such markers can be melodic turns, tonality, or ways of phrasing. The travellers have had much contact with resident Norwegians, and their music has many stylistic features in common with the Norwegian music. What are the “Norwegian elements” and what the Romany people have introduced themselves is hard to tell, since the two traditions have mutually influenced each other. An important question for the project to ask was what the Romany style in fact consists of.
The recorded material from the project is deposited in the Norwegian Folk Music Collection’s archive, with copies at Glomdalsmuseet (which has the national responsibility for documenting the Romany people’s culture and history). The material is accessible to the public in the same way as other archive material.
Background
The background for the project was the Norwegian Ministry of Labour and Social Inclusion’s ambition to focus on the group itself and its culture, after having sponsored research on the mistreatment of the group as a result of the Norwegian government’s policy in the 20th century and this policy’s regrettable results.