Mauno Järvelä is a Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 fiddler

Fiddler

A fiddler is a person who plays a fiddle or violin.Fiddler may also refer to:*Fabrangen Fiddlers, an American musical group founded in 1971*Tupolev Tu-28 "Fiddler", a fighter aircraft*Fiddler , a DC Comics villain...

, violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

ist and music pedagogue. He is the uncle of Arto Järvelä

Arto Järvelä

Arto Järvelä is a Finnish fiddler and composer. Because of the many groups and projects he is involved in, he has been called "the busiest man in Finnish folk music". He is primarily a violinist, but among other instruments of his are nyckelharpa, mandolin and kantele...

, and both of them are members in the successful folk music

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

 group JPP

JPP

JPP is a group of Finnish folk musicians, mainly fiddlers, hailing from Kaustinen. The name originally meant Järvelän Pikkupelimannit, the small fiddlers of Järvelä, but today the group only uses the abbreviation JPP...

, whose roots are the pelimanni tradition from Kaustinen

Kaustinen

Kaustinen is a municipality of Finland.It is part of the Central Ostrobothnia region. The municipality has a population of and covers an area of of which is water...

. Mauno Järvelä also plays in Timo Alakotila

Timo Alakotila

Timo Alakotila is a Finnish composer, arranger, and musician born July 15, 1959.Timo Alakotila's range of music styles stretches from Finnish folk music of the pelimanni style over some jazz influences to more or less Finnish style tangos, and with some extensions to classical music...

s tango

Tango music

Tango is a style of ballroom dance music in 2/4 or 4/4 time that originated among European immigrant populations of Argentina and Uruguay . It is traditionally played by a sextet, known as the orquesta típica, which includes two violins, piano, double bass, and two bandoneons...

 project Unto Tango Orchestra (Tango-orkesteri Unto) together with, among others, Maria Kalaniemi

Maria Kalaniemi

Maria Kalaniemi is a Finnish accordionist. She was originally classically trained, but has become mostly as folk musician having played this music from childhood, besides her classical music studies, and also at the folk music department of the Sibelius Academy.Groups she is or has been involved...

.

Mauno Järvelä learned fiddling from his father, Johannes Järvelä, who was the son of the well known wedding fiddler Antti Järvelä. He was also trained as a classical violinist at the Sibelius Academy

Sibelius Academy

The Sibelius Academy is a university-level music school which operates in Helsinki and Kuopio, Finland. It also has an adult education centre in Järvenpää and a training centre in Seinäjoki. The Academy is the only music university in Finland. It is among the biggest European music universities...

 before they had a department for folk music, and he has worked as a violinist in symphony orchestra. In the 2000s, he has so far (2005) been active mainly as music teacher, teaching adults and children in Kaustinen to play the violin using both folk music and classical training, and partly learning by ear. The children's project in Kaustinen is called Näppärit (roughly "the pluckers"). His teaching method is partly related to the Suzuki method

Suzuki method

The Suzuki method is a method of teaching music that emerged in the mid-20th century.-Background:The Suzuki Method was conceived in the mid-20th century by Shin'ichi Suzuki, a Japanese violinist who desired to bring beauty to the lives of children in his country after the devastation of World War II...

 and is widely nicknamed the sisuki method (after the Finnish concept sisu

Sisu

Sisu is a Finnish term loosely translated into English as strength of will, determination, perseverance, and acting rationally in the face of adversity. However, the word is widely considered to lack a proper translation into any language. Sisu has been described as being integral to understanding...

).

He also plays an important part in arranging folk music projects including young people from all the Nordic countries

Nordic countries

The Nordic countries make up a region in Northern Europe and the North Atlantic which consists of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden and their associated territories, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland...

, based on the notion that traditional Nordic dance music

Traditional Nordic dance music

Traditional Nordic dance music is a type of traditional music or folk music that once was common in the mainland part of the Nordic countries — Scandinavia plus Finland. The person who plays this kind of music might be called speleman , spelman , spelemann , pelimanni or spillemand...

from the different Nordic countries have much in common.