Norwegian folk musicians often collaborate with musicians from other genres such as jazz and rock, or other traditional musics. A common critique particularly against folk and jazz collaborations is that the musical expression is established on jazz musicians' terms, where the rhythmic and tonal nuances in folk music have had to “give in” for metric grooves and a tempered tonality in jazz. It is expected that the folk musician contributes to the musical outcome with their artistic identity, while the musical framework simultaneously demands that they have to compromise with their genre related distinctiveness. This can be felt as a paradox and a challenge the folk musician should be able to handle, according to Unni Løvlid, a participating folk song teacher.

In Norwegian folk music, microtonality is used as an expressive tool, associated with a large individual creative scope. To a folk singer, to sustain their microtonal choices as a creative parameter within a tempered surrounding is challenging. Løvlid presented exercises that aimed at developing folk song students’ ability to maintain an aesthetic “resistance” when encountering ' different musical aesthetics. She said:

«It is not a problem to have parallel tonal aesthetics, and you can train yourself to hold on to your own one when encountering another person's aesthetics. You don't have to “agree” to make music.»
(Unni Løvlid, participating teacher in the project)