‘The human mind is a resonator’

July 14, 2025

My first exposure to the long aesthetic of small kantele improvisation was in the early 1980s. I attended Kaustinen Music High School for the final two years and volunteered several times at the Kaustinen Folk Music Festival during the decade, as well as participating in various courses at the Folk Music Institute.

There was a course on Cuban and Sámi music, folk music summer schools and seminars, and discussions about popular music as folk music of the era. There was Piirpauke, Karelia, and Ilpo Saastamoinen. There was also the Primitiivisen Musiikin Orkesteri (Primitive Music Orchestra) PRIMO, and the ‘Haltian opissa‘ LP (1984). And then there was the Fedja Happo Society, whose entrance exam I took one summer night in 1984, playing a 20-minute improvisation on a five-string kantele by candlelight in the Kaustinen Pelimannitalo, if I remember correctly.

At that stage in life, improvising on a five-string kantele felt like child’s play, with no expectations either way, whether anyone was listening or not. My attitude was, “Hmm… OK, why not, if this is what you want.”

Over the decades, the matter has gradually become more serious. Since then, I have often found myself reflecting on the contradiction I perceive in improvisation when playing alone versus playing for someone else.

Playing to oneself is free from expectations. It can be an aimless exploration, a moment of mental rest, or a conscious liberation from the demands that cling to our thoughts. It is like floating in a space of musical sounds, where time is merely a relative concept. It is a space where music happens by itself – in other words, a space of creativity that is subordinate only to itself (see Asta Raami’s dissertation).

Making music is always a form of communication. When playing alone, a musician not only communicates with the instrument and the sound space it produces, but also with her/himself. Wandering in the sound space with one’s own thoughts creates a sense of connection, rendering playing alone anything but lonely (see Katharina Schäfer’s dissertation).

For humans, music is also an experience of the communication between individual sounds. The way in which sounds connect and intertwine, and how listeners perceive the information contained within each moment through memory and expectation, is a dialogue that generates and underlines the meanings of music.

For my part, the presence of other people changes the situation completely. The free-flowing dance of tones is replaced by the weight of expectations; the realization of the agreed situation is ensured by pre-planned structures, which inevitably stiffen the thinking of the improvising musician as they guide her/him to find a route towards the planned goal.

Furthermore, each person who enters the room occupies their own space – some more, some less – and depending on the state of sensitivity, the musician senses these spaces as external noise, the energy of which in turn influences the decisions made by the musician, both consciously and subconsciously.

In his book Children of Dune (1976), science fiction writer Herbert Frank hit the nail on the head:

The human mind, as is the case with the mind of any animal, is a resonator. It responds to resonances in the environment.

I naturally notice the change in space that affects my creative thinking not only in the presence of listeners, but also when I improvise with other musicians. In this case, my own associations are reactions to the choices made by the fellow musician. However, during an afternoon of improvisation with Anna-Kaisa Liedes on 19 June 2025, something happened that I did not expect.

We have both been working with the music of the runosong culture for over four decades: Anna-Kaisa as a singer, me as a kantele player. As a result, we have both developed automated processes for creating this music. These are based on the known features of the tradition and the aesthetics of the runosong culture, combined with our own experiences as today’s improvising musicians. From our previous collaboration as a duo, we only had experience of one joint concert a year earlier.

We decided to organize a joint improvisation afternoon as part of both of our ongoing research projects (see Anna-Kaisa and Arja). We also recorded the afternoon for later review.

The afternoon was preceded by several conversations over the phone and over cups of coffee. These discussions covered our thoughts on the essence of the music of past and present runosong culture, as well as reflections on our own goals and hopes. They were fundamental to the events of the afternoon.

The discussions created an atmosphere of trust that allowed us to immerse ourselves in the situation and at the same time silence the mental noise created by the presence of another person in the shared space. We were both free, separate individuals, who also breathed the same air. There was no need for eye contact.

We started making music without agreeing on any of the details beforehand, such as the structure, rhythm, mood or lyrics.

In retrospect, at least one of our research goals was achieved: our improvised music, based on the moment, is not built on the alternation of accompanist and soloist, but on the independent train of thought of two musicians who follow their own paths while sharing a common world.

This idea relates to reflections on the absence of ensemble music as we know it today in ancient runo-song culture. It may be something similar to the approach adopted in the singing tradition of the indigenous people of north-east Siberia, as discussed by Pia Siirala in her doctoral thesis, or in the North Sámi luohti tradition, as examined by Anna Näkkäläjärvi-Länsman in her ongoing doctoral research.

I also recall Väisänen‘s 1918 description of jouhikko player Juho Vaittinen and kantele player Iivana Širgo performing the maanitus dance together: ‘The only thing the tunes had in common was the tempo, and the tuning was anything but “in unison”.’ [Pekkilä, Erkki (ed.) 1990: Hiljainen haltioituminen. A. O. Väisäsen tutkielmia kansanmusiikista, p. 190.]

As contemporary musicians, Anna-Kaisa and I naturally tie our joint improvisational music-making to our own time. Our goal is to find our own way of interpreting the music of the runosong culture in the present day. When I focus on the sound of the kantele, I don’t always internalize the singer’s words or story, but the sense of shared space is conveyed, and the melodies and sounds converse with each other.

Here are a few examples.

Läksin koista kulkemahan is a 10-minute fragment. At the beginning, I repeat the same theme with slight variations. Anna-Kaisa then improvises, taking the story of the song forward in her own way. The texture of the kantele includes typical minimalist variations, such as small rhythmic nuances like ornaments or intervals produced either slightly out of time or exactly simultaneously, as well as small variations in the melody. The counterbalance created by the singing gave me the freedom to repeat the same structure long term, while also preventing me from breaking it — or rather, guiding me not to break it — even though I considered doing so.

About halfway through the video, Anna-Kaisa starts to drive the song and story forward with a new kind of energy and I step back for a moment. I instinctively join in playing a three-beat theme against Anna-Kaisa’s four-beat melody – the rhythms play around intuitively, sometimes merging and then separating again.

The six-minute fragment Kuule neito, kun mie laulan came about when we were surprised by heavy rain and opened the windows to hear it better. Parallel but separate paths emerge once more.

Kuin minun kultani tulisi emerged as a spontaneous and benevolent response to ‘this eternal minor key’.

The human mind is a resonator, yes, and when I play music, I resonate not only with my instrument, but also with the space and the people who share it with me. But there are many kinds of resonance, and there are many ways to respond to the vibrations of the environment, and sometimes I wish I could silence the outside world like Jaakko Kulju:

[– –] When an old man from Suojärvi was playing his endless dance tune in a log cabin as darkness fell, I took a picture, exposed the frame for quite a long time, and was amazed that he neither blinked nor paid any attention to my photography whatsoever. He had fallen into his world of quiet playing. Gradually, as the same tune continued with constant variations, his body began to fall against the table, his eyelids closed, the old man playing as if in sleep. (Väisänen, A. O. 1943: “Laulu ja soitto kansanelämässä”, in the book Hiljainen haltioituminen, A. O. Väisäsen tutkielmia kansanmusiikista, Ed. by Erkki Pekkilä, SKS 1990, p. 43.)