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Disruptive Voices In The American Musical Discourse: Comic Song Performance In The American Parlor, 1865-1917, Kevin Steven O'Brien

Masters Theses

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the American song sheet industry vastly increased in size. This mass mediated form reached a broad number of consumers, who performed this music in their homes, identified with it, and shaped the new discourse on their identity as they did so. Simultaneously, Americans were re-shaping their cultural conceptions of music, in a process Lawrence Levine chronicled as the emergence of “highbrow” and “lowbrow” distinctions. Performing music in the culturally sacralized space of the parlor was meant to be an edifying experience and a display of genteel, “highbrow” identities. Performing comic songs (comic …

"You're Pretty Good For A Girl": Roles Of Women In Bluegrass Music, Jenna Michele Lawson

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the past and current roles that female bluegrass musicians achieve within the music industry in the United States. Using sociological concepts by Judith Butler, Simon Frith, Mavis Bayton, and, importantly, Thomas Turino’s ideas of participatory and communal versus performative and individual, I demonstrate women’s complex musical, social, and cultural positions in bluegrass culture.

While women continue to make strides in achieving recognition in the bluegrass genre, society still hinders them from finding complete acceptance alongside male musicians. As bluegrass music is based on patriarchal foundations set by its creator, Bill Monroe of the Blue Grass Boys, female …

Bluegrass Nation: A Historical And Cultural Analysis Of America's Truest Music, Leslie Blake Price

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

A Study Of White Spiritual Music And Twelve Related Concepts, Charles Douglas Barber

Masters Theses

As in other folk art, White spiritual music has not been welI-documented. In this particular case, there does not even exist a clear definition of this somewhat unknown and often misunderstood phenomenon.

The intent of this thesis is to present and justify a comprehensive definition of White spiritual music. To arrive at this goal, a two-fold approach was taken. The first chapter of the thesis does not deal precisely with White spiritual music, but rather with related and complementary concepts which are more familiar to the average person. This writer feels that what one may know or think he knows …