Finding Your Own Path in a Musical Career

Wind Music
Dec 7, 2023
6 min read

Music Workshops by Ida Elina and Pipo Romero / ed. Heidi Luk GIEM

Dear music lover,

How have you been? The Music Lab's workshop and concert event “Flow across Fingers”, organized by the Graduate Institute of Ethnomusicology at NTNU came to a perfect conclusion. Through the workshops, we discussed different music thoughts and backgrounds of the artists. It is an honor to invite Ida Elina and Pipo Romero to be the guests for these workshops.

Finding yourself in the lost and start anew

The first workshop was hosted by Ida Elina, a Kantele singer-songwriter from Finland, who is attempting to revive the Kantele, the national instrument of Finland. She named the workshop as “finding your own path” in order to cut into the topic and started to share how she found her own path after getting lost.

💭 “Music came into my life just by accident”

Unlike most of the musicians, Ida was not born into a musical family. She started to play piano and sing in choir when she was eight while her parents didn’t play any instruments or sing. She described that “mum and dad didn't play any instruments. They didn’t sing. So, my music ability was a bit of a surprise for my parents.” There is no doubt that she has great musical talent. The story begins when she was 13 years old. In that year, she started to play Kantele.

“My sister loves playing the five-string Kantele, that is the original form of Kantele.” Ida learned about Kantele through her sister. After playing it for years, she fell in love with it and had a musical dream. “I dreamed of being a professional musician when I was fifteen after learning Kantele for a couple of years.” In order to have a further music education to reach her dream, she aimed to get into Sibelius-Academy, the only music university in Finland.

💭 “It was the first failure in my music career”

However, she didn’t get into the classical music department that she was hoping to get in, but the music education department. “It was the first failure in my music career.” In her opinion, she wanted to be an artist that performed on the stage rather than being a music teacher. As a result, she felt she was in the wrong place. She compared her situation to being on a highway, where she couldn't move forward while others around her continued to progress.

“I like playing classical music, but it is not something I was passionate about. I want to try something new.” Ida received classical music education since she was small. Under this music background, she wanted to play classical Kantele music. However, she thought it was a very boring thing to do. Therefore, she wanted to explore something new in order to change the status. She decided to have an exchange to the Hokkaido University of Education.

🔐 Unlocking new techniques

While Ida was studying in Japan, she found a slap-guitar player Youtube video that changed her. “It really opened up my musical thinking that if he is doing that with just one guitar, then why don't I do the same thing on Kantele.” In order to explore a different way to play Kantele, she imitated the guitar slapping techniques and applied them to the Kantele. In addition, her varied musical taste is founded in her extensive classical background and incorporates folk, jazz, pop, and gospel music that is inspired by her religious convictions. This provides her with a diverse approach to performing folk instruments. Finally, she became a famous Kantele singer-songwriter around the world.

🙋🏼‍♀️ Trust youself!

“There are not many people around you that agree with your dream…it takes a long time to let people know what you are doing.” When she was in Sibelius-Academy, she was criticized by her classmates. She recalled that “when I was practicing singing, one of my classmates came in and said ‘Is that you practicing there? It sounds pretty awful.’ It is known that there are always many doubts when we are chasing dreams. So, it is important to trust yourselves and have a clear target.

In her performance, a powerful yet warm singing voice could be heard. There was not just about singing, but more about her musical journey and observation of life. Performing with Kantele and singing with body language, she showed her passion for her music.

Finding your answer among numerous options

The second workshop was hosted by Pipo Romero, a steel-string acoustic guitar player from Spain, who performed with exceptional skill and innovative performances across a range of musical styles and his works showcase the diverse nuances of musical rhythm to the audience. He raised the question “why do I choose this acoustic guitar instead of the Spanish guitar?” to start with the topic.

🕊 Finding the most beautiful timbre

In Pipo’s opinion, sound quality is the important thing in his music. He demonstrated different ways to play the guitar in order to find the most beautiful sound of the guitar.

He mentioned “different angles, strength of the right hand, resonance, etc” are considered when playing guitar. It is known that he discovered many possibilities to find his own quality. Other than that, different music genres also affect the tone. He demonstrated many sound qualities from country, rock and roll, blues, etc to show that different applications result in distinct tonal qualities.

💃 “Bulerias”

In the realm of flamenco music, there is a crucial concept that revolves around a binary approach to sound, which is contemplating beats in units of two. Pipo mentioned the term ‘bulerias’. The musical phrasing of bulerias in flamenco music refers to the first six beats count as two triplets, and the last two beats count as three duplets(123-123-12-12-12). Compared with three beats counted as quadruplets(1234-1234-1234), it is believed that this musical phrasing makes the pieces more vibrant.

👏🏼 Body percussion

In addition, he mentioned that “people play with claps and tongues.” In Spanish folk music, different parts of the body are used as musical instruments when playing rhythm. In the workshop, he demonstrated how fists, fingers, feet and tongue could be used to create a beat. It is seen that the sense of rhythm is important in Spanish music.

🎣 Fish my melodies

Pipo, as a music composer, shared an experience of how he found inspiration. “I love fishing, so I go fishing everyday…I only avoid fishing when it rains.” In his opinion, fishing provides him lots of inspiration. Other than thinking about melodies, it is necessary to sing out music. He mentioned that many composers spent a lot of time contemplating, but the process of thinking didn't necessarily contribute to deepening their music. Therefore, singing is important. “Creating good works of music doesn't happen just by sitting at home thinking about it.” He often found inspiration on the subway or during flights, contemplating how to bring his music to life. Then he developed the melodies he came up with and incorporated them into his instruments, combining them with various musical styles. As a result, exceptional skill and innovative performances are shown in his works.

In Pipo’s concert, there are no ornaments in his music. Soft timbres were performed with romantic melodies. It was all about his musical ideas and the dialogues with guitar.

Participants’ Perspective

Finding your own way in a music career is not just practicing the instruments, but more about the passion of music. As a student who is studying music, maintaining the original intention in music is crucial. In the process of learning music, one may encounter questions. It is necessary to persist in our own musical ideas and not easily be moved. So, let’s be brave and keep moving forward.

On the other hand, it is believed that performing is not just about producing sounds, but making good sounds. We should care about the quality of sounds rather than the position of the rankings, which means that we need to have a clear understanding of the intrinsic value of the instrument itself. There is no doubt that we have a better understanding of Ida and Pipo’s musical thoughts, and are encouraged by them. Furthermore, we hope for diverse developments on their musical journey.