Muting the koto: exploring musical pathways as a DIY artist in a new country

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper examines informal learning in the context of migrant musicians, through a single case study looking at informal/self-learning and music career development by a DIY electronica artist. Data for the paper comes from an ethnographic study of how migrant musicians in Norway exercise their professional competence and entrepreneurship. Using the concept of the musical pathways I investigate how a migrant musician uses biographical resources to move between different musical fields to sustain a music career. A key aspect was that aesthetics in the music making process were crafted at the same time as identities, partly through re-hearing and re-collecting sounds from the past. The study indicates that there is a potential for DIY music production to develop migrant musicians’ music career when they do not have a lot of (initial) economic or social capital or a formal music education and that music making software can be valuable here.