The Becomings of Satanist Musicianship. A study of how black metal musicians describe their learning processes

Abstract

ABSTRACT - Research in music education has in the last decades become more attentive to musical learning through informal contexts. This article adds to the body of research by investigating the musical learning in a genre that is considered unacceptable and bad by most of society: black metal. Through interviews with five young black metal musicians from Sweden and Finland an interesting image was revealed of a musical practice that aims to fight evil by being evil, that worships enlightenment and the fulfilment of the individual potential and also detests religious organisations for suppressing people. The sonic is considered only a part of a gesamtkunstwerk where all parts of a performance are supposed to work together to create a feeling of fear or horror in the audience. The material opens up for interesting paths in music education when working with musical bildung and criticism of taken for granted truths, but at the same time presents a milieu where what is considered good by society is questioned. Keywords: black metal, informal music education, the sublime, Bourdieu, subculture