Approaching Vulnerability Through Contemporary Music: The Gelland Approach

Abstract

Drawing on philosopher Richard Sennett’s view of craftsmanship, this chapter argues that music education should address human incompleteness and ambiguity—as especially evident in contexts involving vulnerability. Music has often been seen as an indicator, but also as a means of overcoming unwanted psychological or social vulnerabilities. From another point of view, vulnerability may also be understood as a desired quality of openness needed for creativity and education—a quality that nevertheless requires appropriate safety mechanisms. These facets of vulnerability are illustrated through the schoolwork of the Swedish-German Duo Gelland, one of world’s foremost classical violin duos. Using brief contemporary compositions, the Gellands elicit children’s associative imagery, incorporating it in subsequent interpretations of the music in which the children may take part as conductors or musicians. Through interviews and observations from school workshops in Germany, it is shown how the Gellands create musical contexts in which children’s vulnerabilities can be safely exposed and transformed. At the same time, the musicians see children’s engagement as proving the social value of the music. In providing a neutralising arena for children’s sometimes frightening and violent realities, the Gellands demonstrate a model for “health musicianship”, challenging sharp distinctions between artistic, pedagogical and therapeutic realms.