Ethnomusicology Commons^™

Crossing The Pond: The Influence Of Southern Appalachian Old-Time On Contemporary Irish Music, Amanda Morgan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Numerous studies examine Irish traditional music influencing old-time music, but few examine the influence of old-time on contemporary Irish. As our societies become more global, folk music travels faster and becomes more open to influence. Thes influences can be heard in the music of “Alfi” and “Lankum,” two ensembles steeped in Irish traditional music.

This study defines common musical elements of old-time and examines the use of those elements in two recordings: Alfi’s, “Jubilee” and Lankum’s, “The Old Man from Over the Sea.” Much of my data comes from interviews with Irish and American musicians and my own professional knowledge, …

A Qualitative Content Analysis Of Nigerian Popular Music Genres: A Culture And Heritage Approach To Nation Branding, Cecilia Ashibel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the potential of Nigerian popular music as an approach to nation branding. The study employs qualitative content analysis to analyze select Nigerian music genres to examine how Nigeria is portrayed to international audiences and the economic benefits that can be derived from this form of branding. The analysis focuses on narrative themes of “the value of hard work,” “ethnic pride,” “lavish lifestyle,” and the impact of differences which were derived from the data. Findings indicate that Nigeria is globally reckoned for its musical prowess and rich cultural heritage. In highlighting the role of music in Nigeria’s political …

An Acute Sense Of Place: The Songs Of Norman Blake, Thomas Jutz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

American flat-picking guitarist, singer and songwriter Norman Blake holds legendary status among guitar players, bluegrass, and folk musicians.

The aim of this research is to analyze the interaction of sense of place in Norman Blake’s songwriting. This research will explore the techniques Blake uses to create that acute sense of place. Elements of literary criticism, cultural geography, ethnomusicology, and sense of place studies, as well as historical background information on Northern Alabama and North Georgia will be employed to show how this particular region of Southeastern Appalachia has informed Blake’s songwriting.

The research questions that I aim to answer are …

Echoes Of Home, Hanna Traynham

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The artist discusses her Master of Fine Arts exhibition, Echoes of Home, held at the Tipton Gallery in Johnson City, Tennessee on display March 15 through April 8, 2022. The author provides insight into concepts and influences relating to the creation of the exhibition with perspective on her intimate connection with place and memory.

The exhibit features five installations addressing home, elusive memory, and the change and continuity of cultural traditions over time. The works consist of a series of large-scale wild clay vessels, gestural clay bookends, a wall installation of cups with a line drawing, suspended porcelain slabs, …

All Roads Lead To Darrington: Building A Bluegrass Community In Western Washington, James W. Edgar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Through the mid-twentieth century, a significant pattern of migration occurred between Appalachia and the Pacific Northwest, with Washington’s thriving timber industry offering compelling economic opportunities. Many workers and families from western North Carolina settled in the small mountain town of Darrington, Washington, frequently accompanied by their banjos and guitars. As a group of young bluegrass enthusiasts from Seattle established relationships with Darrington’s “Tar Heel” musicians, a collaborative music community formed, laying the foundation for the region’s contemporary bluegrass scene.

Drawn from a series of ethnographic interviews, this project illuminates the development of a bluegrass community in western Washington, while identifying …

Marine Melodies: Traditional Scottish And Irish Mermaid And Selkie Songs As Performed By Top Female Vocalists In Contemporary Celtic Music, Olivia H. Phillips

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Mermaids and human-seal hybrids, called selkies, are a vibrant part of Celtic folklore, including ballad and song traditions. Though some of these songs have been studied in-depth, there is a lack of research comparing them to each other or to their contemporary renditions. This research compares traditional melodies and texts of the songs “The Mermaid,” “The Grey Selchie of Sule Skerry,” and “Hó i Hó i” to contemporary recordings by top female vocalists in Scottish and Irish music.

The texts and melodies I have identified as “source” material are those most thoroughly examined by early ballad and folklore scholars. The …

Talk This Way: A Look At The Historical Conversation Between Hip-Hop And Christianity, Joshua Swanson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Christianity and Hip-Hop culture are often said to be at odds with one another. One is said to promote a lifestyle of righteousness and love, while the other is said to promote drugs, violence, and pride. As a result, the public has portrayed these two institutions as conflicting with no willingness to resolve their perceived differences. This paper will argue that there has always been a healthy conversation between Hip-Hop and Christianity since Hip-Hop’s inception. Using sources like Hip-Hop lyrics, theologians, historians, autobiographies, sermons, and articles that range from Ma$e to Tipper Gore, this paper will look at the conversation …

Devil In The Strawstack, Devil In The Details: A Comparative Study Of Old-Time Fiddle Tune Transcriptions, Kalia Yeagle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis asks what transcriptions of old-time fiddle tunes might tell us about their underlying purposes and the nature of transcription. How could differing approaches to transcription reflect the intentions of the author, and what are those intentions? What does this suggest about how aural information is prioritized? Through a comparative analysis of three transcriptions of the same recording—Tommy Jarrell’s “Devil in the Strawstack”—this thesis examines how musical information is prioritized and how transcribers have adapted their methods to better reflect the nuances of old-time music. The three transcriptions come from Clare Milliner and Walt Koken (The Milliner-Koken Collection …

North Of Ourselves: Identity And Place In Jim Wayne Miller’S Poetry, Micah Mccrotty

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Jim Wayne Miller’s poetry examines how human history and topography join to create place. His work often incorporates images of land and ecology; it deliberately questions the delineation between place and self. This thesis explores how Miller presents images of water to describe the relationship between inhabitants and their location, both with the positive image of the spring and the negative image of the flood. Additionally, this thesis examines how the Brier, Miller’s most prominent persona character, grieves his separation from home and ultimately finds healing and reunification of the self through his return to the hills. In his poetry, …

“I’Ve Always Identified With The Women:” How Appalachian Women Ballad Singers’ Repertoire Choices Reflect Their Gendered Concerns, Sara Lynch-Thomason

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores how contemporary Appalachian women’s gendered experiences influence their choices of ballad repertoire. This inquiry is pursued through a feminist analysis of interviews with six women ballad singers from Madison County, North Carolina. In evaluating the women’s choices of ballads and their commentary on the songs, this thesis draws upon narratological theories as well as concepts from Appalachian traditional music studies.

This study finds that women’s repertoire preferences reveal contemporary female concerns for physical safety and political agency. The singers also extract hidden transcripts from ballad texts and use ballads to educate audiences about women’s historic oppression. However, …

The Doyen Of Dixie: A Survey Of The Banjo Stylings Of Uncle Dave Macon, Corbin F. Hayslett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

David Harrison Macon (1870-1952) is often memorialized for his showmanship rather than his banjo playing. To compartmentalize such a significant American musician yields a wide gap within scholarship about Macon, country music history and the banjo. Macon’s banjo playing, documented through over two-hundred and fifty recordings made between the 1920s and 1950s, represents an array of cultures, eras, ethnicities, and styles all preserved in the repertoire of one of the most prolific country musicians of the 20^th century. This study reveals Macon’s playing by considering such factors as influences that preceded his professional tenure, identifying elements within his playing …

Review: Fiddler's Dream: Old-Time, Swing, And Bluegrass Fiddling In Twentieth Century Missouri, Lee Bidgood

ETSU Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Czech Bluegrass Media, An Overview, Lee Bidgood

ETSU Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Bill Monroe And Czech Bluegrassers: Imagination And The Production Of Place In Music, Lee Bidgood

ETSU Faculty Works

Journal Summary: Bluegrass and Old Time Country Music: Buried Roots is a collection of articles by noted country music scholars Wayne Daniel, James Akenson, Gregory Hansen and Lee Bidgood. This is a special publication of the International Country Music Journal, an extension of the International Country Music Conference held annually at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee.

Czech Bluegrass In Play, Lee Bidgood

ETSU Faculty Works

Drawing from scholarship on play, ritual, and performance, I propose that Czech bluegrass thrives – as does my fieldwork – in a state of in-betweenness, in a territory that is between work, play, here and there, self and other. Being comfortable with this kind of in-between state is important for fieldwork, and for music-making – play, I find, is both a central activity and metaphor in both. The bluegrass play I discuss in this essay can become a response to the encroachment of Americanization in economic and cultural globalization, but also a way of being “Americanist” – and entirely Czech.

Review Of The Original Carolina Chocolate Drops: Giddons, Rhiannon. 2015. Tomorrow Is My Turn; Flemons, Dom. 2015. Prospect Hill; And Robinson, Justin. 2012. Bones For Tinder, Lee Bidgood

ETSU Faculty Works

Excerpt: Dom Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens, and Justin Robinson met at the Black Banjo Gathering at Appalachian State University in 2005. Inspired by this meeting in Appalachia, the trio worked to connect the legacy of Cumberland Plateau fiddler Howard Armstrong (of the 1920s band the Tennessee Chocolate Drops) with musical material they learned from their mentor, North Carolina Piedmont fiddler Joe Thompson. As the Carolina Chocolate Drops (CCD), these musicians explored a variety of black string band traditions.

“The Great Speckled Bird”- Early Country Music And The Popularization Of Non-Secular Song, Kris R. Truelsen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Perhaps no melody in the country music canon has been as widely recognized and borrowed from as that of the song “The Great Speckled Bird.” This significant song has become resonant and representative of both country music culture and religious culture of the Protestant South.

Through this historiographical study, I have traced the influences that helped shape “The Great Speckled Bird” and in so doing have illustrated distinct movements that led to popularizing the non-secular song through commercial country music. The composer’s use of sentimentality, neo- traditionalism, and religious ideas made it appealing to a rural southern culture struggling with …

Collaboration, Fieldwork, And Film, Lee Bidgood

ETSU Faculty Works

Excerpt: I never imagined that I would help produce a documentary film based on my ethnographic fieldwork. Meeting documentary filmmaker Shara Lange during new faculty orientation at the university where we were both newly hired eventually led to our film Banjo Romantika (2013)—a full-length feature based on my research on bluegrass music in the Czech Republic, in which I play a key role as writer, producer, and on-screen character. Taking part in this film project has led me to consider how film enriches relationships with field colleagues, providing new opportunities for teaching and learning. I find that collaborations like ours …

Book Review Of 'Exploring American Folk Music, Ethnic, Grassroots, And Regional Traditions In The U.S.’ By Kip Lornell, Lee Bidgood

ETSU Faculty Works

Review of ‘Exploring American Folk Music, Ethnic, Grassroots, and Regional Traditions in the U.S.’ by Kip Lornell

“That’S The Way I’Ve Always Learned”: The Transmission Of Traditional Music In Higher Education, Alexandra Frank

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research examines the establishment of degree programs in traditional music in institutions of higher education. It defines traditional music and discusses the history of traditional and folk music programs at universities and conservatories in the United States, Finland, Scotland, and England. The institutionalization of American traditional music is compared to the institutionalization of jazz music in the United States. This thesis focuses on the Bluegrass, Old- Time, and Country Music Studies program at East Tennessee State University and features original ethnographic interviews with lecturers from the program. Two similar programs in Tennessee and Kentucky are also discussed. Some of …

Czech Bluegrass Fiddlers And Their Negotiations Of Past And Present, Lee Bidgood

ETSU Faculty Works

Excerpt: Proc ty housle? ("Why the fiddle?") - "Fiddlers are all bad here - Why not write about the banjo or something else that Czechs are good at?"These questions about my ethnographic fieldwork came from musician colleagues with whom I working in researching bluegrass music in the Czech Republic, during a jam circle around a table. While these colleagues were mainly banjo and guitar players, these critiques of Czech fiddling are common even among Czech fiddlers, who are in many cases not as accomplished (in technical skill or musicality) as are their banjo-playing and mandolin-picking compatriots.