“Communing with the Dead Guys”:
Tectonics of Tradition, Purpose and Execution
Within Classical and Old-Time Music
Undergraduate Research in Sociology/Anthropology
Rachel Rudi
Warren Wilson College
SOC 410: Directed Research
Dr. Siti Kusujiarti
Spring 2012
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Table of Contents
2
Abstract
3
Entrance Étude: mu·sic \ myü-zik \ verb
8
Statement of Research Problem
Purpose of Research
9
Dissecting Sound, Deconstructing History: A Review of the Literature
15
Research Questions
Research & Sampling Methods
18
Research Instrument & Coding
19
Interlude: A Note on Genre
24
“Boys, Scoot the Chairs Back”: A Portrait of Old-Time Music
30
“Make Sure That it’s In Your Fingers”: A Portrait of Classical Music
38
Exit Étude: Communing with Each Other
43
Options for Further Research
44
Significance of Study
46
References
Appendix A:
Gatekeeper Letter
Appendix B:
Written Informed Consent Form for Semi-Structured Interview
Appendix C:
Research Instrument for Semi-Structured Interview
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Abstract
In 1833, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow deemed music “the universal language of
mankind,” suggesting that the art form has been and will eternally be a platform for commonality
within and across geographical and social borders. The author’s words are still spoken to this
day, but for centuries musicology was pursued by upper-class, white, male Westerners and
focused on classical music. The world's other genres were dubbed “folk” or “primitive” musics,
and to speak of the two canons analogously was to equate sophisticate to savage. As musical
genres exist because of and within the communities that create them, the imbalance in academic
attention emphasized social stratification. In an effort to bridge the gap, this study examined the
perspectives of six old-time musicians, six symphony members, and one orchestral conductor –
all residents of Western North Carolina. Semi-structured interviews explored how informants
learned their genre, what compels them to pursue it, what trends and stereotypes they have
observed, and how the music informs their lives. Theoretical substrata include Christopher
Small’s articulation of musicking, Karl Marx’s analysis of capitalism, commodity fetishism, and
mystification, and George Ritzer’s something-nothing continua. By comparing and contrasting
musicians’ commentary, social scientists can glean a more in-depth understanding of music and
its hold on the psyche.
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Entrance Étude: mu·sic \ myü-zik \ verb
The analysis of music’s relationship with society has long been left either to
anthropologists doing highly focused case studies or musicologists writing about Western
classical music. Until recently, sociologists held music at an arm’s length and regarded it as little
more than a mystifying byproduct of cultural reification. The study of Western classical music
was long called musicology–the genre itself referred to simply as “music”–and was pursued by,
and focused primarily on, upper-class, white, male Westerners. All of the world's other genres,
including remaining Western musics, were studied within the field of ethnomusicology. Genres
within the domain were described as “folk” or “primitive,” and to speak of the two canons
analogously was to equate sophisticate to savage. The variation in academic analyses
emphasized inherent differences in the processes of learning and practicing classical versus folk
musics, and, in turn, between their respective communities.
In recent decades the sociology of music has emerged, seeking to bridge the divide by
approaching all music equally and deconstructing the stereotypes imbedded in the hierarchy of
genres. While musical content is relatively simple to study through lyric analysis, understanding
how music informs individuals’ world views and means of communication is a vast undertaking.
Methods of musical production–from living room sing-alongs to Hollywood's Top 40–as well as
the relationships between new and old genres have only grown more complex with the plate
tectonics of globalization. Scholars in the burgeoning field are interested in the symbiosis of
person and music: how we create it, how we listen to it, how we think about it, and how it
changes us. By anatomizing centuries' worth of pigeonholed genres, the insights of musical
sociology countervail social stratification.
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There are two major approaches in the sociology of music. The first is textualism, the
more traditional approach, which considers music to be a cultural artifact relatively unaffected by
time and place. Textualists grant the sonics of a music an object-status, as they have been
removed from their original contexts (i.e., Western classical works composed for masses or
church services) and can be recreated in new social and temporal contexts (a wide variety of
amateur and professional ensembles around the world). Some argue that this
compartmentalization explains the commodification of music (Adorno, 2002; Bourdieu, 1984)
and places it neatly into the process of reification.
The other approach is contextualism, which asserts that music is a process or activity
steeped in an involved discourse learned over time, and such a process, frequently spanning a
lifetime and demanding certain lifestyles, is inextricable from the sonics of a music.
Contextualism is fortified by Small’s idea of “musicking,” where “music is not a thing at all but
an activity, something people do. The apparent thing ‘music’ is a figment, an abstraction of the
action, whose reality vanishes as soon as we examine it at all closely” (Small 1998:2). Small
equates music to love or hate; an intangible, all-encompassing notion reined in by a small word
that can never completely convey its own meaning.
Small adds that not only is the verb all-inclusive regarding the genre, use, or location of
the music; whenever music is present, musicking occurs – Small describes it as occurring
whenever music is granted attention in any way and by any individual, and though he does not
explicitly articulate it, I would extend this concept to include music that is purposefully ignored
and music that goes unnoticed despite its presence in a location – be it a radio unheard over the
television, faint wisps of notation from the high ceilings of a department store, or street
musicians against the edge of a bustling crowd. I provide this addendum, reminiscent of Ritzer’s
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characteristics of non-things, because a negative space is carved into society whenever any thing
or event goes unnoticed or is silenced. Another crucial element of musicking is that the process
is “descriptive, not prescriptive”; as soon as individuals apply personal judgments of worth to
any possible instance of musicking. The moment musicking is used to further an agenda or
ideology, the pollution is back in the water, and, as Musicking was written in part to eradicate
musical prejudice, we can be sure that we will all end up drinking whatever the contaminator let
loose.
The textualist and contextualist frameworks are not extremes of a spectrum, but present
two helpful perspectives. Rarely has a genre been examined through both simultaneously.
Individuals’ attachment of meaning to music is one of the most complex and intriguing
themes to explore within the sociology of music. Roy and Dowd (2010) define meaning as
“shared significance that occurs when music points to something beyond itself, representing
some aspect of social life” (187). It is meaning, this subjective personal connection, that is
arguably the essence of a music, what compels us to keep listening, and what draws a
community. Individuals and communities have complicated, subjective associations of emotion
or memory to sound. One cannot study the sociology of music without knowing what makes a
community create it time and time again, or how a music's meaning changes over time. Meaning
is not reserved for performed music, either; elevators, shopping malls, and hotel lobbies have
their own distinct musics, and people regularly recognize them out of context. The meaning we
assign to a music completes the environment and gives the music an identity, and understanding
the acquisition of meaning is the first step in discussing the art form's relevance in daily life.
Music sociologists struggle to define genre. There are endless musics across the world
and vast variety therein, and in studying the interplay between people and music it is necessary
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to somehow categorize the infinite repertoires. Some definitions of genre are fairly simple, such
as that provided by Rosenblum, where a genre is defined by “particular mannerisms or
conventions that are frequently associated together” (1975:424). But some scholars wish for their
definitions to also encompass cultural factors’ – politics, time periods, ethnicities, families, etc. –
effects on a genre and its development.
Roy and Dowd (2010) define genres as “moving targets with evolving, rather than fixed,
elements that move over time, sometimes gradually, sometimes abruptly” (191). They maintain
that these musical evolutions are “anchored” by the process of collective enactment, where the
process of making a music and creating an associated community contributes to and draws from
social stereotypes: “A distinctive feature of modern Western music is the way that genre
simultaneously categorizes cultural objects and people” (191).
This sorting is convenient both for marketing purposes as well as everyday conversation,
as every musical community surrounding a music is defined by certain demographical
characteristics. Common stereotypical pairings might include “pop music,” perhaps reminding
one of young, white listeners; “rap,” and urban African Americans; “country,” low- and middleclass white Southerners; or “folk” and middle-aged white liberals. When we intentionally or
subconsciously organize music according to the groups associated with it, a hierarchy can be
observed: marginalized people are paired with their devalued genre, and the stereotypes applied
to either the music or to its associated group are, by extension, applied to the other. In his
discussion of taste and social capital, Bourdieu notes the formation of such hierarchy across
artistic media (1984).
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Statement of Problem
Any slice of a culture – a school, place of worship, literary canon, secular ritual – can
provide insight into myriad social norms and values. It is difficult, however, to glean conclusions
when the slice analyzed is so profoundly hinged on the nuances of language and its connection to
individuals’ experiences, emotions, and memories. Sociologists’ hesitation to discuss society
through the lens of music is understandable, but one can carefully pull back the veils separating
us from the art form.
Bearing in mind the implications of textualism and contextualism, association of
meaning, definition of genre, and collective enactment, it is evident that music reflects cultural
norms and values. Understanding the fluid patterns of genres and the communities which
compose them can provide insight into, if not dispel, the stereotypes persisting within and
between communities, and such an understanding can be achieved by qualitatively studying two
musical genres created within two distinct contexts.
Purpose of Research
The research presented in this paper analyzes how and why two distinct musical groups
differ in their modes of musicking and the hierarchy two musical communities. Scholarship
focusing on the intersections of these themes is still new, and exploring the musics’ relationships
to musicians enhances the way we understand creativity and individuals’ artistic inclinations.
Comparative research of Western classical music and genres within the “folk” domain is
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especially limited. This study gathers qualitative data from musicians regarding their experiences
within their genres, and the findings will be viewed through a contextualist approach.
Dissecting Sound, Deconstructing History: A Review of the Literature
The sociology of music is a burgeoning field, with scholars focusing on various strands
of research to gain a deeper understanding of cultures’ relationship to their genres. Sociologists
have tended to explore this interplay by examining either broad themes of music or specific case
studies, but recent scholarship attempts to bridge the micro- and macro-level studies of music
into a more complex whole. Musicologist Christopher Small (1998) notes significant discrepancy
between approaches toward classical music and other genres:
“[Classical] is regarded as the model and paradigm for all musical experience [but also as]
somehow unique and not to be subjected to the same modes of inquiry as other musics, especially
in respect to its social meanings; brave spirits who have attempted to do so have brought the wrath
of the musicological establishment down on their heads. Even those who try to right the balance
by comparative study of other human musics most often avoid comparisons with Western classical
music, thus emphasizing, if only in a negative way, its uniqueness and implicitly privileging it in
reverse, although it is in fact a perfectly normal human music, an ethnic music if you like, like any
other and, like any other, susceptible to social as well as purely musical comment” (Small 1998:4).
Music, like other artistic forms, was long subject to little academic scrutiny, as its
mystical and emotive nature seemed to escape – or, perhaps, soar above – articulation or
analysis. Those scholars who ventured to discuss its construction, however, traditionally applied
the textualist method, viewing the makeup of a music ultimately as a result of sonic building
blocks – mathematical formulae translated into musical theory, where the meaning was thought
to be contained in the sonic structure which was a metaphor for a composer’s philosophies or
emotions. This reduction of sound to its barest bones, since the textualist ideology emerged as a
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way to transfer music from one place to another for, eventually, profit, is known as the
objectification of music, or music-as-object (Attali, 2011; Small, 1998; Weber, 1958). The
presence of an audience, let alone a cultural fabric underlying a piece’s conception, was
disregarded. This approach was taken by Carl Dahlhaus (1982), Deryck Cooke (1959) and Igor
Stravinsky (1948). The audible manifestation of classical music was considered a product of only
a prodigy’s sophistication, and the sounds of other cultures were denied the same gravitas (Roy
and Dowd 2010).
Scholars avoided the problems perpetuated by the music-as-object perspective by
ignoring that larger, more nuanced beast of a conversation, and instead focusing on classical
works of music harkening from Western traditions. It is far easier to discuss this genre, as it has a
physical existence – written on paper – though the how’s and why’s are up for debate. The
logical next question to ask is just what the meaning of a work is. “Even within a literate musical
culture such as the Western classical tradition the exclusive concentration on musical works and
the relegation of he act of performance to subordinate status us resulted in a severe
misunderstanding of what actually takes place during a performance. That misunderstanding has,
as we shall see, had in turn its effect on the performance itself – on the experience, that is, of the
performance, for both performers and listeners – an effect that I believe to have been more to
impoverish than to enrich it” (Small 1998:8). Much of Small’s dissection is either vaguely or
absolutely Marxist in nature, as the disentanglement of the power dynamics within the world of
music parallel Marx’s manifesto on an imbalance of power within capitalism.
Some argue that the textualist perspective best explains the commodification of music, in
that the compartmentalization of its creation becomes easily marketable (Duffins, 2007; Adorno,
2002; Bourdieu, 1984), placed neatly into the process of reification (Berger and Luckman, 1966).
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And indeed, some of the most prominent patterns relevant to this study are that of
regulation and rationalization within classical music, and the lack of such within old-time. Says
Turley of Weber’s historical analysis of Western music:
“Weber saw the rationalization of the Western cultures as the unique element that led to
capitalism’s rise in the West. [...] Nowhere was this more apparent than in the historic rise of the
Roman Catholic Church. Bureaucratization in the Church had a rationalizing/bureaucratizing
effect on the music the Church produced, and was eventually responsible for the music
‘conventions’ (accepted musical practices and rules for music writing and musicianship)
associated with European classical music. Example of this would be notational systems,
structured harmony, organized choirs, ensembles, orchestras, and the standardized construction
of instruments. A combination of processes led to the standardization of music notation,
standardized music instrument construction, and standardized performance that produced the
unique European music style we recognize” (Turley 2001:634).
Weber maintained that this ever-narrowing regulation has only intensified since the
Church put such processes in place; it is understandable that this mentality of ceaseless
proficiency would only grow, given a capitalist society centered on industrialization and
efficiency.
A Marxist understanding of capitalism is imperative for assessing this regulation within
classical music, where the abstract reality of pitch has been gracefully stuffed into twelve tones
on the piano, simplified, translatable chords, chord progressions, a systematic music theory
applied to Western sounds, and, of course, the act of placing the combed sonics on a stage as an
object and charging an audience to see it. This commodification seeps its way into the
transmission of classical music but also the classical music community, where, under a textualist
paradigm, the performers are empty vessels used for creating the music-as-object. A class
consciousness settles around the performers and the upper echelons of the ensemble – conductor,
board of trustees, composer – are the ultimate decision-makers. When asked to comment on the
difference between a solo performance and that of an orchestra lead by a conductor, classical
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musicians enjoyed the teamwork of the latter but the freedom and elation of grappling with
artistic content for themselves and being the ones to speak directly to the audience regarding
their intentions, interests and passions.
If the classical genre resembles a vertical capitalist hierarchy, old-time resembles fairly
directly a socialist model of organization. No profit is made, typically, by old-time musicians.
There is no individual or body of individuals who determines anything for other players, and a
decentralized, stable community supports a music with an almost entirely celebrity-free genre.
Pierre Bourdieu maintains that individuals’ preferences in a wide variety of cultural
goods – from music to groceries – are learned both within their educational structure and the
more general cultural tapestry around them. In surveying over 1,000 French citizens Bourdieu
determined that these preferences were “markers of ‘class’” and that, above all other items,
familiarity with and taste for certain musics corresponded to class most strongly. Not only is this
useful in identifying why musicians gravitate toward particular musics, but especially important
is it to note that a society’s elite, having utmost political sway, is the ultimate body legislating
the educational system’s structure and content. Bourdieu’s articulations of cultural capital also
supply language which conveys the collection of various of knowledge and their modes of
exchange, how they are taught, learned, or bought, and Bourdieu notes that the content-less
quality of music “makes it appropriate for cultural capital” (1984).
Though Bourdieu’s findings are largely reflective of class and cultural capital in the U.S.,
George Ritzer’s something-nothing continua provide a fascinating and astute encapsulation of
apt for our contemporary and globalized society. Something and nothing are the two principle
terms which can be applied to goods undergoing the complex shifts and subversions of today.
Something, Ritzer states, is “a social form that is generally indigenously conceived, controlled,
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and comparatively rich in distinctive substantive content.” Nothing is “a social form that is
generally centrally conceived, controlled, and comparatively devoid of distinctive substantive
content” (Small 2003:195). The model is as follows:
1. Unique (One-of-a-Kind) ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Generic (Interchangeable)
2. Local Geographic Ties –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Lack of Local Ties
3. Specific to the Times ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Time-less
4. Humanized ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Dehumanized
5. Enchanted –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Disenchanted
1. “Something is closely associated with uniqueness (being one-of-a-kind), while nothing is linked
to a lack of uniqueness, to that which is generic (interchangeable). That which is unique is highly
likely to be indigenously created and controlled and to be rich in distinctive substance. That which
is generic is likely to be centrally created and controlled and to be lacking in much, or even any,
distinctive substance.”
2. “Phenomena that are found at or near the something end of the continuum are likely to have
strong ties to local geographic areas while those at the nothing end of the spectrum have few, if
any, such ties.”
3. “We can differentiate not only among phenomena that are, or are not, specific to a given locale,
but also specific to a given time period. Those that are specific to the time period would tend to be
distinctive (and more likely to be something), while those that are more time-less would tend to
lack distinctiveness (and more likely to be nothing).”
4. “That which is something tends to be associated with deep and highly meaningful human
relationships, while nothing is linked to the relative absence of such human relationships: to
dehumanized relationships.”
5. “This final continuum tends to bring together all of that which has come before. That which is
something tends to have an enchanted, magical quality, while that which is nothing more likely to
be disenchanted, to lack mystery or magic.”
(Small 2004:20–35)
Ritzer positions various services, things, people and places on the plane and within four
points of extreme to represent changes in objects’ creation and definition. This is an entirely
subjective placement, and the multiple layers allow for a more thorough understanding of why a
certain good or service fulfills all the something requirements except for one. The concept is
useful for understanding the complexities of various musics and their communities.
The more recent approach to the relationship between music and culture is contextualism,
which asserts that all the aforementioned aspects of a music are the interwoven threads of a
process (Roy and Dowd, 2010; Bohlman, 1999; Small, 1998). Small establishes the concept of
“musicking,” maintaining that the sonics of a music are the result of – indeed, impossible
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without – myriad social interactions and trends. Small proposes that the wide reach of a music’s
conception, reliant on people’s social location and ongoing creativity, implies that music is in
fact musicking, a complex verb as opposed to a compact noun. This gives the term a certain
much-needed fluidity, projecting it to the full abstract status it deserves, as the integration of
music into society is strikingly clear in many domestic and worldwide cultures. This
understanding has enhanced knowledge of classical music performance (McCormick, 2009;
Khodyakov, 2007; Alford and Szanto, 1996) and jazz (Dempsey, 2008).
Not only does Small advocate for a perspective that would approach all genres as though
they were human processes rather than objectified occurrences, but he also vehemently
dismantles the textualist ideology, identifying the ways it has contributed to elitism and the
privileging of classical music, as well as having succeeded in simultaneously excluding all other
genres from equitable analysis. If the meaning is contained within the structures of the work,
then those without access to the orchestration are denied its meaning. He maintains instead that
the meaning of a music exists in the relationships of music-makers, not the lyrics and chord
structures as textualism does. Says Small:
“The act of musicking establishes in the place where it is happening a set of relationships, and it
is in those relationships that the meaning of the act lies. They are to be found not only between
those organized sounds which are conventionally thought of as being the stuff of musical
meaning but also between the people who are taking part, in whatever capacity, in the
performance; and they model, or stand as metaphor for, ideal relationships as the participants in
the performance imagine them to be: relationships between person and person, between
individual and society, between humanity and the natural world and even perhaps the
supernatural world. These are important matters, perhaps the most important in human life [....]
The act of musicking, in its totality, itself provides us with a language by means of which we
can come to understand and articulate those relationships and through them to understand the
relationships of our lives” (1998:13).
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Through the window of contextualism these scholars provide a deeper understanding of
the discourse musicians use, the meanings attached to music, the physical and emotional work of
practice, the life experiences that lead musicians to music, and how each of these elements,
according to both informants and scholars, are critical components of the genre.
Research Questions
Research questions guiding this study were alterations of Christopher Small’s directives
for theorists of contextualist musicking, designed in order to approach all music genres equally
and garner data which a textualist perspective could not. Through semi-structured interviews,
this research addressed the following queries:
1) Why is it that old-time music differs in its modes of musicking than classical music?
2) Why is classical music dominant over old-time music?
3) How can the disunity be mended?
Research & Sampling Methods
This research entailed ethnographic interviews with six Western North Carolinian oldtime musicians, six members of the Asheville Symphony Orchestra, and the orchestra’s
conductor. The communities were chosen primarily because they represent the extremes of the
textualist-contexutalist binary discussed by most explicitly by Small. Dozens of genres could
have stood in for old-time, but the particular genre was not only conveniently close to my home,
but steeped in a long history of unwritten music traditionally played by working class
Southerners – a suitable comparison to the stereotypically well-dressed, wealthy classical
musician.
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In order to arrange interviews with old-time musicians, I asked personal acquaintances
within in the community to suggest initial informants, and proceeded to lengthen my list through
snowball sampling (for gatekeeper letter, see appendix A).
I contacted orchestra members, as well as their conductor, through the orchestral artistic
administrator via e-mail. I was given a list of 10 potential interviewees, contacted each, and was
able to schedule an interview with six. Orchestral conductor Daniel Meyer was also contacted
via the artistic administrator (appendix A).
Due to the far-reaching nature of these diverse communities, I collected data through a
non-probability approach, first using purposive sampling, then snowball sampling. Several
musicians well-integrated into musical communities were scholars in fields related to
musicology and folklore, providing commentary with a historical overview of a genre and its
contexts. Developing a sampling frame for this research, especially for old-time music
informants, would have been impossible; many musical communities, especially those centered
around traditional genres, are composed complex familial webs as well as countless individuals
introduced to the music through non-familial connections. Despite the fact that certain genres
have geographical strongholds – the notion of a musical “mecca,” the idea that a music is still
“pure” or “authentic” in a certain place or among a certain community, is often spoken of – there
are dedicated musical community members scattered across the world. I gained written consent
for all interviews (see appendix C). All informants were above the age of 18.
While conducting interviews, I jotted notes on important questions, themes, intriguing
tangents and emphases which informants addressed. These jottings aided in my writing of direct
observation notes, recorded as soon as I left an interview. These notes chronicled my time with
informants and included more details regarding individuals’ perspectives on certain issues,
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explanations of emic language, and so on. I wrote analytic memos in order to place my findings
within theoretical frameworks and deepen my understanding of overarching trends within the
communities.
I established rapport with informants through in-depth interviews with individual
informants, lasting anywhere from an hour to three, typically averaging two. All but four
interviews were held in informants’ homes; the others, in cafes. By asking involved questions
and relating my own musical experiences and observations to theirs, I gained considerable trust.
This one-musician-to-another dynamic helped me delve, frequently, into informants’ personal
stories and feelings regarding their music, how it informed other significant aspects of their
lives–family, friends, values, workplaces, philosophies, and so on.
I held semi-structured interviews with musicians prominent in each community (see
research instrument, appendix D). Open-ended questions greatly informed the direction of my
research in unexpected ways, and I frequently asked individualized follow-up questions to solicit
additional information and clarify comments, taking the data in a variety of thematic directions. I
worked collaboratively with my informants to define the relevance and meaning of their musical
genre and its community.
Each informant granted me written and verbal permission to use their name and
commentary in my work. I stored all data in a password-protected electronic file on my personal
college account, and only I and my academic advisor have access to its contents. The data will be
destroyed when the research is complete (see appendix C).
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Research Instrument
This study aims to explore why it is that classical and old-time music communities render their
musics the way they do, what sort of social structures frame the community and, in turn, the
music, and how this structure shapes the community’s understanding of itself and other genres.
As discussing such abstract and personal processes can be analogous to one’s life story, my
research instrument was constructed to accommodate a variety of themes. Interview questions
functioned more as conversation-starters; informants were each asked how they came to their
genre, why they continue to participate, what sort of community forms around the music, how
they feel when they are with the community or creating music, etc. Such expansive queries
naturally uncovered a great spectrum of thoughts, experiences, opinions, assumptions and
beliefs. The themes on which informants dwelled during their interviews guided the direction of
the discussion, and instrument items often were adjusted on the spot to create a smooth thematic
segway, solicit a response to another informants’ complementary or contrasting words, or, as
some informants had particularly strong religious, political or personal convictions, to avoid
offense. (For my written consent script, see appendix C; for the research instrument, appendix
D.)
My data analysis was a process of identifying the themes, concepts, and patterns which
emerge from my semi-structured interviews. My research instrument, designed to allow
informants to identify the aspects of their genre they found most important, established how
some musicians defined their genre and how their relationship to the music informs the meaning
they attach to it. As I conducted open and axial coding, several new themes arose.
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I employed several coding strategies. Ideal type was used in order to note significant
similarities and differences between genres, especially since many musicians and listeners have
formed romanticized views of what a genre “should” be, and what is the “best” or “right” way to
achieve that ideal end. I also used successive approximation coding, as much of my research
hinged on individuals’ descriptions their genres. This aided in my refining relevant themes
related to definition.
Domain and scheme analysis were especially helpful in deconstructing stereotypes of
genres’ communities and the resulting formation of hierarchy. Paired with negative case method,
a more complete examination was gleaned of how genres’ distinguishing attributes gather
respective communities, and how these communities intersect, if at all.
Interlude: A Note on Genre Definition
At the outset of this study, I regarded one of my most important research items to be that
of the informants’ definition of the genre they pursue. Much scholarship addresses how to best
define what a genre itself is, and it seemed as though discussing genre during interviews would
establish preconceived notions of the music and its people, with contradistinction further
detailing one’s understandings of these issues. Such conversations appeared helpful for those
informants or readers unfamiliar with either the overarching concept of genre or the details of the
genres explored in this research – informants and any readers of this work – who seek clarity. It
seemed that immediate responses to the questions would address any assumptions a newcomer to
the concept might have through the outright dispelling of misconceptions by way of one
definition or by a more layered conversation addressing stereotypes.
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Genre, then, refers to people as well as music, as you cannot have a genre without at least
the most remote connection to a human being. Music moves and changes anastomotically, and
many informants equated the art form to language, which also was once far more microregionally specific. Genres can be exponentially expansive – non-person reliant, as with radio or
celebrities with no association to their millions of listeners – and impossibly exact – the source
becoming a particular individual, or even a certain period of that individual’s life, as one oldtime musician described:
RR: Does this old-time change from place to place? Can it be picked up and carried elsewhere?
JH: Well, it’s carried by the media now. […] It’s a pretty good parallel to biodiversity: if you have
isolation and you get a new species, you get a new biological community. And the same thing with
the cultural…it used to diversify by some kind of evolution, by slow-spreading word of mouth, the
telephone game, and it used to be that on the other side of the mountain, they played the tunes
differently than they did on this side. The difference between Galax and Round Peak – 15 miles,
20 miles – they played different styles. And it’s a very good parallel to regional accents. They’re
getting lost now. So the guys out in Seattle that I know are learning from the exact same
recordings I’m learning from, and if they’re paying attention, they’re playing them as close to the
same way I’m playing them. When we get together, we say, “Let’s play Luther Strong’s version of
[a given tune].” So we’re not even just playing a tune: we’re playing from a particular source. It’s
really different. There are pockets of people these days who have their own sound. There’s an
upstate New York sound. Maybe there’s an Asheville sound. People around Mount Airy and
Galax still play pretty close to the way they played there, only because they decided to.
RR: It complicates the conversation of genre so much. iTunes suggests genres for the music I
listen to; it’s always “World,” “Folk,” or “Other” – endlessly broad – but you can be endlessly
specific.
JH: [A friend said] it 40 years ago, and I didn’t quite understand it: ‘Tommy Jarrell’s ‘Cluck Old
Hen’ and Wade Ward’s ‘Cluck Old Hen’ – they’re two different tunes.’ And if you look at them
closely, they’re two different tunes. If you back up the level of abstraction, they’re the same tune.
If you take the style to be part of the tune, or the particular articulation of the tune […] there are
those who approach old-time music and say, ‘Oh, ‘Cluck Old Hen’ – [sings:] dee, dee, dee.’ And
that’s all they got, and they fill it out. There are others who know that Tommy Jarrell goes [sings a
specific ornament], and someone else goes [sings other ornament]. Those are two different tunes.
People have different degrees. Now from just the point of view of musicality, either one of those
Rudi 20
approaches might lead to really great getting-in-the-groove and musicality. But from the point of
view of authenticity and genre specificity, even saying Western North Carolina, the way Marcus
Martin played compared to the way Manco Snead or Fiddlin’ Bill Hinsley. […] From one point of
view you can say they’re from the same group. And look a little closer – they’re completely spread
apart. In any art. Look at the Impressionists: does Pizzaro look the same as Sisley? Well, from
outside, yeah, but if you start looking closer, the brushstrokes are different. […] We all have that
experience, in every kind of music we don’t know! ‘Oh, that Baroque music, it all sounds the
same!’ ‘Afro-pop? All the same.’ Until you get closer” (John Herrmann, Personal Interview,
2/2/2012).
I therefore employ no operational definition of neither old-time nor classical music, but
not for lack of trying; for my own edification and the clarity of this research, I asked each
informant to define the genre they pursued. But while I expected to gain a broad framework or
basic consensus, no such clarity or point of sufficient consensus surfaced – except for one
shining, all-encompassing tenet: subjectivity. It is this permeable premise that seems to be the
most reliable foundation of this study, as most definitions collected centered on very different
aspects of the music, if not eventually gaining an equal and opposite response within my notes,
illuminating a spectrum relationships and meanings associated with the music in question. These
particular data, which are certainly grounds for a sociological study of their own, are in fact so
contrasting and nebulous (that is to say, not too nebulous to dissect for the purposes of my
research) that employing one or patchworking my own definition based on my findings proved
counterproductive to the paper; while there are undoubtedly differences between the construction
of classical and old-time musics, this research argues that the more we seek regulation and
disregard relativity – the fluctuating binary of convergence theory – the easier it is to create and
promote misinformation, as well as whatever stereotypes might follow. I do not wish to negate
any existing definitions, only to stress that “definitions” is indeed plural, and that equality does
not mean a lack of diversity, but rather a celebration of it and rejection of prioritization.
Rudi 21
This said, this research also underscores the importance of accessibility in
destigmatization. This dual motive demands that no information is assumed to be common
knowledge, and also, more involvedly, that we strip ourselves of whatever assumptions we have
in the interest of promoting equality. What follows this paragraph, then, are the words of several
informants when asked to define their genre, as well as the added enhancing correlative, “...and
what makes it unique?” Responses were pared significantly in order to illustrate the ungraspable
horizon.
Regarding old-time music:
“It comes from an older old-time music which we learned from older people, pretty much my
grandfather’s generation. [...] It’s unique in its particularities but certainly like other folk musics in
that it’s a music people play for themselves and their communities. [...] The fiddle is the Celtic
music, which is a melody against a drone, usually; the banjo is from Africa and adds microtones
and syncopations and polyrhythms; the guitar is European and adds a harmonic structure” (John
Herrmann, Personal Interview, 2/2/2012).
“Yeah, I can define it. [...] Traditional music of the South prior to 1930 [...] String band music,
song ballads, instrument music [...] A classical string band would have been the Skillet Lickers
who played in Atlanta in the 1920s, where you had a couple fiddles...a guitar, and a banjo. They
played traditional music of their area of North Georgia...but that same music was played all over
the South and maybe all over the country” (Lewis Wills, Personal Interview, 2/3/2012).
“Traditional music that involves fiddling and is based in dance tunes, and where everybody plays
all together and people don’t take breaks. Back in the ‘20s, they put anything in – parlor organs,
clarinets, whatever. [...] There doesn’t have to be a banjo in it” (Hilary Dirlam, Personal Interview,
2/7/2012).
“Pre-bluegrass music or pre-commercial music. [...] The term ‘old-time’ came about in the 1920s
as a way for record companies to differentiate this music from the modern jazz music [...] People
have sung ballads and other things, but the main venue has been as dance music” (Phil Jamison,
Personal Interview, 2/10/2012).
“Oh, god. That’s horrible! I have very loose definitions...The way I think about old-time music is
traditional, rural, American music [on] commercial recordings from the ‘20s and ‘30s, and field
Rudi 22
recordings. It’s not just white music, and people differentiate blues and old-time...but there’s such
an overlap...and ragtime. [It’s] the annoying thing of I-know-it-when-I-hear-it. To me it’s an
aesthetic more than anything, because I would like to say it’s a repertoire, but that’s just not true
because people can play old-time repertoire in a totally non-old-time way. And people can play
other things in a very old-time way. [...] Having grown up with it, not just hearing my parents play
but listening to loads and loads and loads of old recordings, I...definitely have strong opinions
about things, but as far as defining it that specifically, I just don’t think I can” (Rayna Gellert,
Personal Interview, 3/21/2012).
And the same question of definition and uniqueness, posed to classical musicians:
“I don’t know how to give a straight answer. [...] You know you’re playing classical music when
you hear it. As long as it fits in one of the categories – baroque, classical, romantic, modern. [...]
You can hear pop music and tap your foot and say, ‘That’s cool,’ but that instant will also be out
the window pretty fast. But classical music, if you hear Mozart’s Requiem, it really strikes
something deep inside. I don’t get the same effect when I hear Lady Gaga” (Oleg Melnikov,
Personal Interview, 2/8/2012).
“Broadly speaking: it’s thought-ought, well-constructed music of the canon. [...] One needs a great
deal of training to be able to present this corpus or canon of music to others, whereas with other
types of music, there’s generally a lot less training needed, [not to] sound presumptuous or look
down on people. But it takes knowing the language” (Vance Reese, Personal Interview,
2/10/2012).
“Most of us think of classical music as...written in a serious vein for serious musicians...but then
there are some who are also not trained. [...] The classical era is pretty easy to define: Mozart,
Haydn...but classical music in general, that’s pretty hard, because there are going to be lots of
things” (Janet Barringer, Personal Interview, 3/5/2012).
“It...has a body of composers and performers [ranging] from the church composers of the Italian
Renaissance and the Netherlands, to the composers of the Baroque, like Bach and Handel, through
the Classical period of Mozart and Hadyn, and the Romantic in the 20th century and the 21st
century” (Daniel Meyer, Personal Interview, 3/1/2012).
Rudi 23
“Boys, Scoot the Chairs Back”: A Portrait of Old-Time Music
Introductions and pleasantries complete, I asked old-time fiddler Roger Howell the same question
with which I began every interview. He first looked at me incredulously, as it seemed ridiculous, given
our surroundings, but then, chuckling at my naïveté, gestured slowly around the room, pointing to the
dozens of fiddles, mandolins, guitars, photographs, prize ribbons and awards, records and certificates.
Covering every inch of the walls in the small instrument repair shop nestled between sharp ridges of
Madison County, the collection formed a tapestry of local heritage, of old-time music history. I scanned
what was unmistakably a constellation of a music-filled life, an anthology of song and story, and was
moved by the nature of this musicking – a musicking so clearly ingrained that I felt its presence even as
we sat in silence. Despite the visual manifestation, I had asked for the sake of consistency: “Are you a
musician?”
Still grinning and gazing at the photographs which hung on the walls in rows, Roger shrugged.
“What can I say? I’ve always played. Well, not always, but since I was 11 or 12. And I was always
around music” (Roger Howell, Personal Interview, 3/22/2012). For those first several years of his life,
Roger’s family lived in Yancey County. They then moved to Banjo Branch Road, where he still lives, and
where we met. He continued:
“The old people, that old generation...every one of them played something. The neighbors down there...up to
the head of the holler, the whole thing. They were called the Ball family, and they’re all kin. One of them
married into the Ball family, and she lived way over there, on that hill over there, you can hardly see it any
more. She was a banjo picker. Old-timey. She had a big old banjo. First thing I remember when I moved up
here, I was five years old. ’54. We’d sit out on the porch over here, just messing around, and one day I heard
her with that banjo, way over there. I said, ‘Oh, my goodness.’ I thought that was the prettiest thing. And she
was singing ‘Old Maggie.’ [...] I just sat there, crying like a baby. [...] [Music was] just part of growing up
here. Music’s just like anything else, like farming. Something you’ve done” (Interview, 3/22/2012).
Roger described how old-time was a fluid presence both in his life and that of community elders,
not particularly separated from everyday tasks or obligations, and a collectively assumed form of
gathering and ending each day. He recalled the story of an older friend:
Rudi 24
“They’d work in the field all day, and the boys, all seven of them, they'd get out and work. [...] They had
mules and horses, and they’d clear the land and put corn plum top of that mountain. When they’d come in to
eat supper, wore out, their daddy would say, ‘Boys, scoot the chairs back and roll out the carpet, and we’ll
play.’ And they’d play until it was time to go to bed. They’d go to bed a 9 o’clock, dark. And they’d play
every night. [...] And that’s their entertainment. They made their own entertainment. And that’s what I grew
up with. [...] Times were different back then. Music was just part of growing up here” (Roger Howell,
Personal Interview, 3/22/2012).
The degree to which Roger described old-time as woven into everyday life resounds brilliantly
with the local ties and personal relationships theorist George Ritzer requires of the something archetype,
laden heavily with human, place-, and time-based associations (2004). Roger was the lone native North
Carolinian with whom I spoke – notable because he grew up in the tradition, and did not come to it from
outside the culture – and he answered most every question by way of personal narrative, referencing the
actions and words of the elders who taught and influenced him. The connection to place and local history
that the music holds is quite evident in each of Roger’s comments, as well as felt by other community
members regularly.
In 1980, Phil Jamison moved to Asheville from his native New York in order to professionally
pursue clogging, a traditional dance form that accompanies old-time music.
[Old-time] music is still very much a part of the local [North Carolina] culture. When I told people in New
York state that I was moving to North Carolina to become a clogger, [New Yorkers replied,] ‘What?’ They
didn’t know what it was. But you get here, you talk to the cashier at Ingles, saying, ‘Yeah, I’m a clogger,’
and they know what you’re talking about. The music and the dancing is still very much a part of the culture.
Not that everybody does it, but people are aware of it. It’s in the radar” (Phil Jamison, Personal Interview,
2/10/2012).
Hilary Dirlam has been living in Madison County for decades as well, and came upon old-time
music in college in the North. She highlights the same interwovenness that Phil does, but from another
angle: “People care less what you do if you’re in a jam,” she said, referring to the local gatherings where
old-time musicians play together. “So you can mess around and experiment and switch instruments if you
want. Or you can get up and go into the other room and have a conversation; nobody cares. But you sure
can’t do that if you’re playing for a dance or in a concert because everything’s all planned out. There’s no
Rudi 25
planning in a jam except where you’re gonna meet and when” (Hilary Dirlam, Personal Interview,
2/7/2012). Not only do Hilary’s words illustrate the lack of rigidity or formality within the old-time
sphere, as musicians are free to float through the space as they please, but an activity where nothing other
than a general time and meeting space is decided upon is, in our fast-paced culture, an unusual activity
indeed. Groups plan detailed agendas of various events, be they meetings, vacation itineraries, or music
performances, on a daily basis, ensuring that that which has the potential for complexity, for ambiguity,
for tangent is able to be anatomized and arranged in a coherent order. An unscripted event, however, is
one we weave ourselves in and out of, understanding that it exists outside of us and, though we are
welcome at any time, it does not wait for us – a blank canvas. This sort of continuity is absolutely more
an abstraction than objectification as it has no material or temporal borders that epitomize it, and certainly
none comparable to that of an auditorium or concert hall, nor the logistics nor finances upon which a
physical space is contingent.
Roger aside, all old-time interviewees moved to Western North Carolina from another location,
and as each sketched the cultural backdrop that informed their musical genesis, stories told by non-native
Southerners focused less on local elders – neighbors, family members – whose wisdom and stories
imbued the individual’s own musical life. These are the stories Roger recalled so strongly, which he could
not leave out of any theme or question. This difference in communal integration is, of course, to be
expected, but the contrast is notable because it reflects the old-time community contemporarily: a music
which remains still quite close to its original sound and purpose but with musicians whose musical
backgrounds contribute to a steadily widening spectrum.
The first time he heard old-time music, Lewis Wills was in high school. There was “just
something about it that struck me. I couldn’t begin to tell you what it was,” Lewis had been playing music
for years by the time he began to pursue a graduate degree at UCLA, in the university’s venerated
folklore program. He was assigned the compilation of a descriptive discography for a tribute album to an
old-time fiddler. Lewis immersed himself in the music, as he was required to complete the project within
the college quarter, and he became more and more fascinated by the style. “I thought, ‘I can do this on the
Rudi 26
fiddle,’” Lewis recalled. “And I knew some of tunes anyway, so I borrowed a fiddle in the summer of
1968 and I just sat down and tried to figure out how to play it. I’d do the best job I could at scratching out
a tune.” He spent years practicing on his own before he “met a guy” who played the banjo and began to
introduce Lewis to a larger world of old-time musicians. “From then on, it’s just been a learning process
for me. It still is” (Lewis Wills:Interview February 3, 2012).
Several old-time informants described how they “met a guy” who in some way opened the door
to their old-time experience: A guy across the street played the music. A guy lent me his banjo. A guy
started a pick-up band on campus. At first notice, Guy seemed little more than a motif, but upon
reflection he became a pivotal character in this research, a sort of Robin Goodfellow hanging in the
shadows, eventually illuminating a keystone of the genre’s non-capitalist-prone structure. Old-time is
instead highly affected by micro-level interactions and relationships such as Lewis’s, aiding in the
transmission of cultural capital. Those who eventually integrate themselves into the community are thus
able to do so in myriad ways, whereas an orchestra would require a formal training by no means
necessary for participation in old-time – a training, of course, that generally entails significant cultural,
social and economic capital and therefore filters the population of a musical community. In this way, oldtime is now a diverse, international community. Its expansion is facilitated largely by an individual
meeting Guy, or many guys, and the subsequent transmitting of Bourdieu’s embodied cultural capital:
knowledge gained over time through relationships and conversations (1986). In Lewis’s case, it was a
micro-version of the process; in Roger’s, the same process occurred in a far more seamless, ingrained
fashion.
Newcomers to old-time – those interested parties who first stumble across the genre in a situation
outside of a local, community-oriented old-time music scene – undergo the learning process in nontraditional, albeit increasingly common, ways; lifelong old-time musicians such as Roger Howell grew up
playing music not only because he loved but also because it in the water, flowing freely from a local
spring from which Roger grew up gathering water. A newcomer, then, is new to town, and asks for
directions to the stream. While still quite far toward the something extreme of Ritzer’s something-nothing
Rudi 27
continuum, this new mode of learning not only the music, but the surrounding culture, begins, just the
smallest bit, to standardize the practice, as it makes explicit just how implicit the music ought to be and.
This ever-so slightly extracts a sliver of its enchantment, thus nudging the experience a degree closer
toward nothing. It appears, however, that the reason old-time has yet to fully cross over the nothing
threshold (though to be fair, anything placed anywhere on the quadrants is put there under an entirely
subjective rationale, and technology continues to dumbfound us with its exponential reach; therefore,
there are likely individuals who believe old-time has diverged that much from being something) is in the
content of the very advice being exchanged. Old-time informants identified two necessary objectives for
anyone fresh to the community.
The first is to acquire an instrument, attend jams, and be, quite simply, determined. The music,
informants maintained, is not a terribly difficult one to understand and keep up with at a very basic level.
“You could always learn to play three chords on the guitar,” John said. In this way the music is accessible
to a wide group of people – a genre occasionally referred to by some as “the people’s music” due
precisely to its availability and the resulting validation for a new musician. This is not to say it is an
altogether easy undertaking, however; even while playing those three chords, as John posits, one ought to
be exact and careful as to not disrupt the group’s concentration. “You have to keep at it in order to really
get in the groove,” he said. “Because it’s very simple, but it’s very exact. If you wanted to play old-time
music, you just need to hang out with people that play it. Get and instrument and start playing. [Quoting
country musician Bobby Bare’s song, “All American Boy”]: ‘Get you a guitar, put it in tune, you’ll be a
rockin’ and a rollin’ soon!’” (John Herman, Personal Interview, 2/2/2012).
Aside from keeping the music free of distinct authority figures or imposing regulation upon it, the
emphasis on trial-and-error-by-immersion learning also gives the music a social context, as one can hold
conversations with fellow players between songs, observe a wide variety of techniques across musical
instruments, and sit in a circle which does not prioritize players. It is relevant that not only is this how the
music is learned best, but that musicians in a mentoring role can identify clearly the impact of the equal
structure on the success and well-being of a newcomer.
Rudi 28
The second piece of advice informants articulated was even more emblematic of globalization
and how old-time music encounters a wide variety of shifts and trends: the notion that one ought to
familiarize oneself with a canon of music captured by technology. Perhaps this piece is a near-exposition
of the first, but it is noteworthy in its specificity.
Rayna Gellert is a professional fiddler and teaches private lessons. “The first thing I always say to
people who want to learn old-time music,” she said, “is to go listen to dead guys.” She that a connection
to previous generations it incredibly important, and it played a large role in her learning of the music. She
encourages others to explore the same library.
I just think it’s absolutely magical that we have these recordings of people who were recorded at a time
before they had access to recordings of other people. And so there are just all these wacky, idiosyncratic
styles of playing music. [...] I think that, aesthetically, there’s something you can get from those recordings
that you can’t get from any living person. There are only a few living people that I think are virtual dead
guys, but it’s so rare. I just don’t think there’s any substitute for digging through old recordings. [...] I’ve
gone through so many phases of being obsessed with different dead guys, just imagining who they are. [...]
That’s somebody I totally would have hung out with. [...] There’s “the idea of carrying something on and
bowing down to something that’s bigger than you. … I’m a big advocate for getting out of the way of the
music. If I learn a fiddle tune, I don’t think, ‘How can I make this fiddle tune mine?’ I think, ‘How can I get
totally out of the way of the fiddle tune and just let it come through?’” (Rayna Gellert, Personal Interview,
3/21/2012).
As Rayna articulates, field recordings level the temporal playing field, and one can, if willing to
momentarily bend their understanding of physics, imagine contemporary musicians uniting with the
tradition’s forefathers via some sort of technological wormhole, playing together on the porch and
swapping stories. This sort of abstract relationship with the music, including the notion of “getting out of
the way of the music,” renders and enhances its element of enchantment – the mystical glow surrounding
social forms within the something category, and which Ritzer sees as the culmination of unique, locally
tethered, time-specific, and humanized items (2004:20). It is also this fluidity, this notion without a truly
essentializing label, which is the sort of metaphysical existence that can easily be likened to the other
fluid-concrete binaries addressed in this paper (music, genre; pitch, distinct notes; fiddle hanging on the
wall, weekly, hour-long lessons, to name a few), and which flourishes in a culture where each individual
Rudi 29
governs their own exploration and execution of music and its associated emotions, free of an imposing
structure. Were old-time within a more rigid, capitalism-inspired framework, this Rayna’s connection to
her musical ancestors would almost certainly be co-opted and objectified much like, as Small asserts,
“those abstractions which we call love, hate, good and evil” (1998:2).
Above all, however, Rayna adds a cautionary corollary: inform yourself about, and engage with,
the canon of those who have come before, but do not forget to engage on a very personal, present level.
“I’m a huge fan of communing with the dead guys. But, I feel like it’s a little weird to just treat the music
as music, and not as part of something bigger. While I think the music is fantastic as music, that’s not all
it is, and when it’s removed from its context and the idea of connecting it with other people, I don’t know,
it feels a little empty to imagine it that way” (Rayna Gellert, Personal Interview, 3/21/2012).
“Make Sure that it’s in Your Fingers”: A Portrait of Classical Music
The Asheville Symphony Orchestra (ASO) gives one major performance a
month, presenting to an audience two to four pieces in the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium. These
evening concerts last approximately three hours and are bisected by a brief intermission when,
after the applause has died and the house lights crescendo back to bright, audience members are
free to stand and mingle, wave at the neighbors sitting a few seats back, discuss the piece still
fresh in their minds and ears, and stretch their legs, all before the lights re-dim and the
concertmaster – the violinist deemed most experienced and skilled, the facilitator between
conductor and orchestra, and the coordinator of ensemble logistics – returns to the stage and
leads the ensemble’s re-tuning for the performance’s second half.
Many musicians in the ASO are long-time residents of the city Asheville, and many
others travel from homes within a 200-mile radius. The week prior to a performance, the entire
Rudi 30
orchestra converges upon the city for daily rehearsals intended to tighten and polish what each
individual musician has been practicing on their own for the remainder of the month. Most ASO
members play in a smattering of other orchestras throughout the region, as each group constitutes
only a part-time job with a part-time salary. During the three weeks that they have not converged
upon the city for the rigorous preparation, members of the ASO – those who have not retired
from all other occupational obligations – juggle a variety of performances with different groups
and practice the selected repertoire.
I met Margery Kowal in her home just outside of Asheville one early afternoon. She has
played with the ASO for 38 years, 29 of which she spent as first chair of the viola section. She
told me of how she learned to play classical music:
“I came from a family that valued music a lot. My brother [is a] classically trained [pianist]. My
mom was a classically trained singer, and my dad didn’t play anything, but loved to play the
record player. I grew up listening to symphonies. I played piano from third grade to sixth grade
and then we moved to the DC area, and stringed instruments were available in the schools in
seventh grade. They came around to recruit for their string class and I had always been attracted to
stringed instruments. [As a child,] my family members talked about the fact that my grandfather
was a fiddler and would play at barn raisings, and I wanted that fiddle. I wished...to play the
violin, or I wanted to be a ballerina. Either one or the other. They’re both really elegant and
attractive to me. So when we moved East and I had a chance to play a string instrument at school,
I really jumped at the opportunity. I started in seventh grade, in school. It was easy for me; I had
piano background, a lot of ear training growing up, and I loved being in an ensemble. [...] I
babysat, did all kind of things so I could raise the money to pay for my own lessons. And I was
active in the local youth orchestra. I played in my church orchestra. I did all-state orchestra and
eventually majored in viola performance in college. I got a master’s of music education and I
taught orchestra in schools for 33 years” (Margery Kowal, Personal Interview, 2/8/2012).
Margery’s musical history was rich with classical music from early on, no doubt
providing her with a crucial background knowledge of the genre and its functioning – an
acquiring of cultural capital that strongly resembles Roger Howell’s – and her training regimen
Rudi 31
throughout school paralleled that of every other classical musician with whom I spoke. When I
asked her to describe Asheville’s classical music community, her notions of the music and the
people who comprised it, she depicted it with a similar continuity that old-time musicians
repeatedly referenced regarding their music, and one which I found with most other orchestral
players.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about that recently because I’m 60. I joined the orchestra when I was 22.
There are a lot of musicians my age and we’ve grown up together and the symphony has kind of
grown up with us. Now we’re aging and there’s a new generation coming in of musicians. All
these years, it’s been a small community. I knew every violinist who lived in Asheville. It’s not
that way anymore. [...] There are so many other musicians besides classical. [...] But my
colleagues, the ones around my same age, we have been very close friends and played a lot
together, not just in symphony but in weddings, church gigs. It’s really one of my families. My
orchestra family” (Margery Kowal, Personal Interview, 2/8/2012).
This discussion of a strong and emotional cohesion between orchestral musicians is
incongruent with the stern, clean-cut stereotype that some old-time musicians illustrated in their
discussions, or that which Small seems to reference when discussing the stratified classical music
world that textualism depicts. I asked Margery, who has played in multiple semi-professional
orchestras throughout the country, if the ASO was somehow different than others, especially
considering such a distinct stereotype society projects onto classical musicians. She described the
ASO as far more laid-back and kind than others with which she has played, and added, “I feel the
difference and I hear, from others who come and play with us, that our orchestra is very different
in that we’re friendly. We don’t have a lot of strife. In other orchestras I’ve been in, it’s very
cutthroat and not much fun.” She noted that the region of Western North Carolina – a lush,
mountainous landscape – seems to calm people, and that many musicians members feel lucky to
be there, but added that orchestral playing, as a full-time vocation, can be a strain given the
competition that flourishes in the highest of professional classical realms. “I think the reason
Rudi 32
we’re different is partly...that we don’t make our living with the orchestra,” she said. “It’s
something we all [at the ASO] enjoy doing. It’s a part-time commitment, so there’s no reason to
have jealousies or cutthroat attitudes. Although there are some people who have that, it’s just
built in, I think, with some people. Especially if they came from it” (Personal Interview,
2/8/2012).
The corollary Margery includes – “coming from it” – may well be the distinguishing
factor between those musicians who exemplify the role of a classical musician prone to the
valuation and regulation that old-time music frequently rejects, and the calm individual who
loves their music, and music as a whole, far more openly.
Lissie Okopny is a flautist with the ASO who spoke often of the rigor in various elements
of classical music. Especially enlightening comments made by classical musicians were in
response to my requesting a comparison between practicing and performing the music and hand.
Lissie explained:
“Practicing, you have to listen much more critically first to the technical things, and you’ve got to
drill, drill, drill. Just so much repetition to make sure that it’s in your fingers and when you get the
performance, you don’t have to worry about it. Because if you do, then it’s going to sound like an
étude and no one’s going to want to hear it. And thinking about music is really important in
practice as well, with phrasing and the musicality of it. Because you do have to plan all that stuff
out. But it doesn’t have to be as cohesive as when you're in performance” (Lissie
Okopny:Interview February 10, 2012).
It seems to be this restriction Lissie describes that is the “coming from it” Margery noted;
that learning the abstract within such a limiting structure contributes to a more evaluative and
dichotomizing music. Indeed, the requisite planning in classical music, be it a solo performance
or ensemble work, must cater toward today’s ever-rising levels of proficiency, and is in the
starkest possible way antithetical to Hilary Dirlam’s statement regarding old-time and its lack of
Rudi 33
premeditation. I asked Lissie just what it is she would like to be teaching but cannot fit within the
half-hour periods, and she spoke of how a musician can render best the turning of a phrase to
pull certain colors and textures out of a piece. Such is the state of institutionalized education in
general, let alone when imposed on abstract concepts such as “color” and “musicality” that
younger individuals need more time to comprehend. This particular method of acquiring cultural
capital is far less embodied than it is institutionalized and objectified – strict instruction with a
tutor, or expensive lessons which, when compared to old-time’s hinging on osmosis, seem
entirely capitalist in nature.
Not only are there educational circumstances which constrain musicians’ ability to
explore the full spectrum of musical potential, but the lessons learned during the years of such
training are projected onto the orchestra itself, with musicians being, ultimately, subject to a
conductor’s decisions. No informant discussed particular tensions with their current director or in
any direct way decried this aspect of the genre, but multiple musicians expressed in various ways
a vague or outright frustration toward operating within an environment so steeped in levels of
authority and evaluation. When asked to describe the feeling of disagreeing with a conductor’s
decisions and being required to comply, violinist Janet Barringer said, “It absolutely doesn’t
matter what you think! I’m just an orchestra player, I’m just being paid to sit there. It doesn’t
matter that I don’t agree. […] You do what they tell you to do, period. Whether you like it or
not” (Personal Interview, 3/5/2012). As a long-time teacher of music, Janet was a strong
advocate for letting students explore as much of music as they could, and to whatever extent they
felt compelled. She attributed her love of classical music to its beauty, but also the thrill of
teamwork, which she noted as lacking in many professions in today’s Western world.
Rudi 34
Margery echoed Janet’s statements and described the differences between performing as
a soloist versus an orchestral musician.
“I do play a little bit of solo work now and then, and my focus is entirely different. I’m much more
in tune to my audience – [and can ask myself] how I communicate a certain emotion? See, when
I’m in the symphony, I’m just a pawn doing what the conductor tells me to do. I don’t have any
creative power, really. I just try and do my job the best I can with my part. But if I’m in a small
group, a chamber group or playing with piano, it’s much more creative. Much more rewarding.
Recently I’ve chosen some solo pieces that I particularly like and then I can speak to the audience
before I play, tell them what I’m trying to get across, what the composer might have meant, and
what I’m interpreting, and that’s a lot more rewarding” (Personal Interview, 2/8/2012).
Mike Brubaker, a horn player for the ASO, conveyed the same intense feelings of
elation upon being his own musical decision-maker:
“I had some friends over the other day and we played horn trios and quartets. It’s hard to organize
because everybody’s time is difficult and because we live so far away. […] We get paid to play
music; therefore we don’t play with other people unless we get paid. And it’s hard to break that
down. […] The most fun I have ever had has been when we have no conductor and […] we’re just
all brass players, and we have a certain, if you will, vocabulary, an idiom to ourselves. […] We
know what we’re going to do and we’re going to do it, and it’s just amazing fun. But it’s hard to
organize that as a regular thing” (Interview, 3/22/2012).
And so it becomes apparent that, despite each musicians’ deep love for their medium, to
the most unfortunate extreme, an orchestra player is alienated by the weighty protocol restraining
their passion. The orchestra is a person-less yet inherently person-filled machine, and small
ensemble work a venue where a musician may enact their own artistic agency. When we reapply
Marxist philosophies to this dynamic, it becomes a firm example of the structure as alienating to
the musician, not an inevitable, natural determinacy. It is the solo performance that is described
as freeing and gratifying, whereas the orchestra is also gratifying and powerful, but more
concerned with contributing skill than personality.
Rudi 35
Oleg Melnikov has been a violinist with the ASO for nearly 12 years. As he lives in
Waynesville, North Carolina, and drives to and from each rehearsal, the two of us met in a café
just a few hours before the entire orchestra would begin its first rehearsal for Beethoven’s
Pastoral Symphony.
Oleg recalled how his father, a classical musician, one day returned home with a violin in
hand and asked his son if he would like to play with it. Oleg, who was five or six at the time, was
utterly thrilled by the idea and enthusiastically began to experiment with the instrument. At that
age, Oleg said, he had no sense of the work demanded of professional violinists, but he feels as
though the sound of the instrument caught hold for good. He tried many times to choose another
path, as the vast amounts of work weren’t enjoyable. “My fate was decided for me,” he said. “I
tried to quit many times, saying, ‘I did not sign up for this!’ I didn’t want to practice, I didn’t
want to do any of this work. I just wanted to have fun. And of course, it was too late. Many years
later, here I am, calling myself a ‘musician’” (Oleg Melnikov, Personal Interview, 2/8/2012). On
what he might impart to an individual just beginning a life of classical music, Oleg said:
“There’s a basic formula that applies to most people. There’s a little bit of talent. That helps,
especially in the beginning, but it’s not nearly enough to succeed. There’s so much more, so many
variables, so many things can go wrong, really. So the majority of success to the trade is work. It’s
just doing a lot of work. Thousands of hours. That would be my basic explanation to somebody
who’s about to embark on this journey. I would say, ‘If you’re really willing to do all this work,
it’s just important to understand.’ [...] It’s not going to be, all the time, a glorious situation. There
are some bad days. [...] I wish somebody had explained it to me; of course, I don’t think I really
would have understood all that, but anyway. My father always tried to be very strict with me. He
said ‘Yes, you will have to try to be better than the rest because if you aren’t better than the rest,
you won’t succeed.’ That’s why it’s a very competitive business. You’re either at the top or you’re
at the bottom. There’s virtually no middle” (Oleg Melnikov, Personal Interview, 2/8/2012).
Several classical musicians recounted being a young child presented with an instrument
and developing a nearly instantaneous fascination with its shape, texture and sound. This is an
Rudi 36
interesting slant on Ritzer’s discussion of enchanted goods which captures a person’s
imagination. One might argue that this is not an example of enchantment but rather a child’s
wide-eyed grasping for any new object in their midst – the hand of biology and psychology, a
learning of the world’s contents by physically grappling with them. But these two things do not
necessitate a nature-versus-nature binary; they go hand in hand. This child’s play reaffirms the
reality of a systematic process of objectification through which musical instruments and, in turn,
music and so many other intangible aspects of the world, go (and to one who would point out
that the violin is an object: it is a physical, personalized connection between human and music
and thus applies to the other four of Ritzer’s [2004] continua, as likely more generic a violin than
a unique violin within the unique/generic extremes; received and played in the home, within
local ties/non-local ties; given to him during childhood, in time-specific/timeless; given as a gift
by his father, in humanized/dehumanized). Watching a child’s seemingly naive enamorment is
not watching a naïveté at all, but observing an individual unconscious, due to their newness in
the world, of the object-status society has placed on a thing.
This is the very converse of John Herrmann’s earlier biodiversity image. (It is at this level
of analysis that many things and forces serve as metaphor for many others. I will try to both
simplify and expand each by separating them with slashes.) A genre/ecosystem alters when
introduced to new stimuli – perhaps a new species/culture, unusual weather/shifting ideologies.
In this case, however, we understand the initial contact from the stimuli’s point of view, as it
meanders along and plays with whatever intriguing thing it encounters. In this version, perhaps
the sequel to John’s depiction, society plays the role of genre/ecosystem, some massive force
which due to sheer strength and size is faceless, invisible, quick to pull you in and thus harder to
withstand, let alone actively challenge. This is the dominant, well-established and stable
Rudi 37
ecosystem already in place. By calling upon Ennis’s (1992) notion of genres as interflowing,
ever-evolving streams, the enormous weight and power of objectification becomes perfectly
clear, as the dominant ideology rolls like an all-powerful river, with a child (or whatever nonconforming species/folk genre) standing on the bank, either to remain in the margin or be swept
up as so much of the population has been. This is the all-or-nothing conclusion Oleg reached
early in his musical career, and a lesson his father had learned as well and found wise to pass on,
emphasizing a tradition.
When I asked Margery about any particular musical flavor the ASO might solely have,
she responded that musicians in the area are inspired by the physical environment and less
harried by the competitive nature of a full-time classical career. When I asked Oleg the same
question, his response was similar but more amplified, perhaps due to working with more
competitive international orchestras:
“You have to measure [orchestras] by the size of their budget. That’s what it comes down to. The
bigger the budget, the better the players, usually. Not always, but usually. The harder it is to get in,
more bells and whistles, there’s more nuance and things like that. […] When you’re talking about
the Atlanta Symphony you absolutely have to deliver the best performance. Absolutely the best.
But when you’re talking very, very rural community orchestras, you can’t compare apples to
[oranges]. It’s not the same kind of world...You just have to think of it as budget. Basically:
money talks” (Personal Interview, 2/8/2012).
Exit Étude: Communing with Each Other
The roots of social hierarchy are always deep and interwoven, and the same difficulty of
diagnosis which exists in society at large also holds true in music. And yet, upon holding
conversations and broadening our horizons, we see that one of the primary causes of inequality
begins when one collects whatever crumbs of knowledge they’ve picked up along the years and
carries it with them as though it’s trustworthy, not somehow tainted or premeditated. We insert
Rudi 38
ourselves into our art and the relationships we form around it, and it seems to make perfect sense
that Small was correct, and whatever our relationship to it – passive listener, active performer,
car-radio enthusiast – music is woven into, not tacked onto, our lives, and it teaches us.
“Every major social rupture has been preceded by an essential mutation in the codes of music, in
its mode of audition, and in its economy. […] It is not by chance that the half-tone found
acceptance during the Renaissance, at precisely the same time the merchant class was expanding;
[it] is not by coincidence that the unrestricted use of large orchestras came at a time of enormous
industrial growth; that with the disappearance of taboos there arose a music industry that takes the
channelization of desire into commodities to such an extreme as to become a caricature…that the
cautious and repressive form of musical production condoned today in countries with State-owned
property designates ‘socialism’…as simply the successor of to capitalism. […] Can we hear the
crisis of society in the crisis of music? Can we understand music through its relations with money?
Notwithstanding, the political economy of music is unique; only lately commodified, it soars in
the immaterial. It is an economy without quantity. An aesthetics of repetition. That is why the
political economy of music is not marginal, but premonitory. The noises of a society are in
advance of its images and material conflicts.
“Our music foretells our future. Let us lend it an ear.
“Music is prophecy. Its styles and economic organization are ahead of the rest of society
because it explores, much faster than material reality can, the entire range of possibilities in a
given code. It makes audible the new world that will gradually become visible, that will impose
itself and regulate the order of things; it is not only the image of things, but the transcending of the
everyday, the herald of the future. For this reason musicians, even when officially recognized, are
dangerous, disturbing, and subversive; for this reason it is impossible to separate their history from
that of repression and surveillance”
(Attali 2011:12).
Bound by a capitalist system, we are accustomed to cramming our everyday lives into the
insufficient, altogether suffocating, discursive formations. Though we tend to think that the arts
are the last vestige of freedom from such a constricting paradigm, we see that, at least for some
genres, this is not the case; and when one reincorporates Small’s notion that a music’s meaning
lies within each of its relationships, not its written self, we see a musical structure that is teaches
elitism, and more successfully so than other institutions since we expect it to be soaring above
such earthly troubles. But it is in fact our creation, albeit seemingly ethereal, and we are
Rudi 39
incorporated into the tones. Shall we recall Oleg as a boy, sitting on the living room floor,
enthralled by the curves of his new violin? All that Lissie hoped to spark within her students but
constrained by an outside force? Margery’s joy at connecting with her audience? The musics can
be entirely the same, but one has been placed within a structure that has successfully glorified it
but alienated its musicians, often, along the way. Musicians are proud of the effort they exert in
order to bring a unifying sound to the world, but without a continuity, a strength that is wide and
low as opposed to soaring higher and higher, we grow distant and alienated from one another,
stop seeing any commonality between genres, and indeed divide ourselves into vertical echelons
of credibility and skill.
As an occupation, classical music is hinged on the financial and the individuals who own
it. For those who don’t own the means of production, the field is one of intense competition and
stress, and though there are undeniable stages of gratitude and joy, the system mirrors capitalism
and commodification at large.
The higher one’s echelon in this structure of music, the more one sees music – out of a
competitor’s need – as black-and-white, right-and-wrong – indeed, right-versus-wrong, and this
dualism is one of the best ways to crystallize a hierarchy within the community an also stack the
genre against others, once again living out Marx’s philosophy.
If every individual, in every setting, approached a music as a process rather than objhect,
and sought not to study only what has been recorded on-page, but to hear the stories and thoughts
of those who create and contribute to it, we would have a clearer insight onto the items above –
our stereotypes and prejudices of others and their abilities.
A genre that does not seek the limelight, but is instead content to lean into a huddle and
play can, in that strong river of modernity, be cast aside as simplistic, not simple; backward, not
Rudi 40
rural; nuanced, not unskilled. This point is no binary either, however; with Ritzer’s model in
mind especially, we see myriad ways the world is growing larger and smaller, and in turn, music,
too.
Corralling a spectrum of pitch into distinct notes is comparable to channeling the ocean
of extant music into cohesive genres, requiring that a human musician adhere to a strongly
established musical tradition and execute the music with mechanistic self-extinction – a
musician who, by their very humanness, is replete with personal philosophies, experiences, and
habits that could potentially be engaged in any artistic pursuit. What finds a place within this
structure is the abstract commodified, and what falls through the cracks between categories, or
remains outside of the general paradigm, is subject to misunderstanding.
John Herman, in the midst of telling me what it was like to play old-time music, referred
to “the groove.” I asked him to explain, and instantly knew what he was talking about. In every
interview I held, I asked about the groove, and each informant began to smile instantly. The
groove is perhaps the most compelling aspect of musicianship, of art, of life, and the reason that
a paper such as this must, at times, push language in an inconventional manner – for, as John
says in this near prose-poem, music is above what spoken word can aheive. To be truthful, this is
the emotion I wanted to find across genres, to understand the importance of musical ecstacy in
others’ lives. And, so, one more call for subjectivity:
“The groove is beyond a bunch of ideas and thoughts and prejudices and all that.
It’s just here-now. There is a groove deeper than the groove, so to speak. You can
be absorbed in what you’re doing and what you’re doing could be something
that’s not as broad as it could be. Music, being non-verbal, even singing is nonverbal in a sense, even though there’re words used. Where you’re going is not
Rudi 41
about the ideas in the words, but the performance. Music, being non-verbal, is
outside of all the ideas you might have. You’re in this place together that’s herenow, having shed your ideological differences. To go to that place and experience
it is to give you a foothold in something outside of your prejudices and rigid
preconceptions. Some people never go to that kind of place so they’re inside the
bubble of their worldview. They never get out of it. To have something you do
that takes you out of your worldview in a non-verbal, non-idea sort of way
broadens your perspective and gives you the ability to relate to others. These old
guys [in SH] if they’d never done that, they might be just like, “this is the way.”
But having gone there, it’s bound to broaden you. I think that’s what happens”
(John Herrmann, Personal Interview, 2/22/2012).
Rudi 42
Options for Further Research
There are infinite ways one might study the relationship between music and culture, and
this is a fascinating time to be doing so. Branching from this particular body of research, some
related investigations might explore:
1) Similar semi-structured interviews with a much larger scope of classical and old-time
musicians, encompassing many different subgroups and echelons within each
community and analyzing both inter- and intra-community conversations that are but
briefly mentioned in this paper
2) The same query as above, but with a additional genres; rap and pop music were
frequently referenced and would prove an enlightening angle on mainstream society,
though truly any genre or micro-genre provides us with much to learn
3) An extensive study, quantitative and/or qualitative, of musicians at different
experience levels within one genre, in order to understand how a genre organizes itself
4) A thorough quantitative analysis of musicians’ language when discussing their own
work and others’, especially if asked to define both common and less common words
they might employ
Limits and Delimitations
My research instrument attempted to measure concepts and intangible processes that rely
very heavily on individuals’ life experiences, perspectives, and verbal communication. This left
room for occasional ambiguity and discrepancy as I sought to understand genres’ meaning,
context, and definition, especially given the notion that music is unfettered by language. The
only way we can discuss it is just that, and so there is always worry over subjectivity.
As with many cultural practices, there is frequently a notion–held by both informants and
researchers–that a newcomer will never fully understand a culture’s music. The validity of such a
Rudi 43
sentiment was of less concern than the possibility of it affecting informants’ interactions with
me: a music can be closely tied to one’s personal memories and emotions, and some musicians
are protective of the tradition and wary of outsiders. Rarely did I feel as though I was perceived
as naive or intrusive, but nevertheless, it was always a consideration approaching and throughout
an interview.
The groups I worked with are located in Western North Carolina, but each is part of a
greater worldwide network. Musicians learn their genre from their family, school, colleagues, the
Internet, and myriad other sources, and the associated meaning of the music could be altered
with a different combination of variables. Responses to my instrument would likely vary in other
regions, and therefore, findings will be regionally specific. Similarly, in receiving suggestions for
orchestral informants, I was provided with a list of individuals who the artistic director perceived
as likely willing to speak with me based on her understanding of them. This, perhaps,
automatically filtered my understanding of and experience with said community.
Significance of Study
Music and other art forms function as social mirrors, reflecting a culture’s stereotypes
and values in subtle, yet sometimes blatant, ways. By examining musicians’ emic language
regarding their music through the implementation of contextualist method, data can ascertain the
ways musical communities understand the relevance of their creations, how they differ from one
another, how inter-community conflict reflects conflict in the larger world, and what social
commentary music provides. This research places classical and old-time music on an even
playing field and addresses the same themes within each, adding to other new scholarship
Rudi 44
intended to bridge this gap. The study also addresses musical commodification in learning
environments and while playing.
Rudi 45
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Appendices
Appendix A: Gatekeeper Letter
To whom it may concern,
My name is Rachel Rudi, and I am a student at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa,
North Carolina. I am currently conducting my senior research project in sociology, analyzing
how communities form around certain genres of music and the values and meaning individuals
attach to their music. I am writing to request your permission to observe musical events and
interactions during the music festival/orchestral rehearsals/performances and interview
approximately five individuals on their experiences with the music and relationship to it.
My study will be published on the Warren Wilson sociology department website upon its
completion in May. I will protect the identity of my informants, as well as their affiliated
organization, by storing all of my data in a password-protected electronic file on my college
network account. No one other than me and my academic advisor will have access to the
contents of my data, and the interviewee’s name and identifiable characteristics will be omitted
from my published research. I will only use informants’ names if they give me written
permission to do so. My data will be destroyed when the research is complete. I have been
granted approval from the Social Sciences Institutional Review Board at Warren Wilson College.
Sincerely,
Rachel Rudi
Warren Wilson College
rrudi@warren-wilson.edu
(828)301-3969
Dr. Siti Kusujiarti, Academic Advisor
Warren Wilson College Sociology/Anthropology Department
skusujia@warren-wilson.edu
Appendix B: Verbal Consent Form for Informal Interview
Hello, my name is Rachel Rudi and I am a sociology student at Warren Wilson College
in Swannanoa, North Carolina. I am doing a senior study on the ways musicians form
community around genres of music. Would you mind taking 15 minutes to talk with me about
your involvement with this music and what it means to you? Would you mind if I used your
name, or prefer I maintain your confidentiality?
Rachel Rudi
Warren Wilson College
rrudi@warren-wilson.edu
(828)301-3969
Dr. Siti Kusujiarti, Academic Advisor
Warren Wilson College Sociology/Anthropology Department
skusujia@warren-wilson.edu
Rudi 49
Appendix B: Written Informed Consent Script for Semi-Structured Interview
My name is Rachel Rudi, and I am an undergraduate sociology student at Warren Wilson
College. I am studying the ways individuals within musical communities define and describe
their genre, the reasons they participate in their music, and how they incorporate music into their
lives. I seek your participation, (name of interviewee), in an interview for the purpose of my
research. It should take approximately an hour and a half.
The interview is not intended to be a strict question-and-answer session, but instead,
closer to a conversation; I am interested in your involvement with the music you pursue and the
aspects of it which you find most crucial to its perpetuation. Although I have general questions to
begin our conversation, I am mostly interested in what you find important about this music. I
encourage you to take the discussion in whatever directions you consider most notable regarding
your musical experiences and your musical community. I will ask follow-up or clarifying
questions when necessary.
You are free to not answer any of my questions or end the interview at any time. I will
record the interview and transcribe our conversation for my research, but you are in control of
the audio recorder: you may turn it off, or tell me to turn it off, at any point.
If you wish, I will maintain your confidentiality by omitting your name and identifiable
characteristics in my paper. I will also maintain the confidentiality of your affiliated
organization. All of my data will be stored in a password-protected electronic file on my college
network account. No one other than me and my academic advisor will have access to the
contents of my data. My data will be destroyed when the research is complete. If, however, you
give me written permission to refer to you by name, I will do so.
Please check your answers to the following questions:
Do you agree to this interview?
Yes: _____ No: _____
Would you like for me to maintain your confidentiality, or may I use your name?
Please maintain my confidentiality: _____
You may use my name: _____
Are you over the age of 18?
Do you have any questions:
Yes: _____ No: _____
Yes: _____ No: _____ (If “yes,” what are they?)
Are you ready to begin the interview?
Yes: _____ No: _____
Interviewee signature: ___________________________________________
Date: _____________________
Interviewer signature: ____________________________________________
Date: _____________________
Rachel Rudi
Warren Wilson College
rrudi@warren-wilson.edu
(828)301-3969
Dr. Siti Kusujiarti, Academic Advisor
Warren Wilson College Sociology/Anthropology Department
skusujia@warren-wilson.edu
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Appendix C: Research Instrument for Semi-Structured Interview
1. Are you a musician? What does that role mean to you?
2. Do you play, sing, or listen to a certain genre of music more than others? If so, how and why?
3. How do you define your musical genre?
4. Is this genre important to you? Tell me how.
5. Is your genre somehow unique? If so, how?
6. Do you participate in a community that is formed around this genre? If so, could you describe
that community?
7. Do you have a particular role in that community?
8. Tell me about this musical community.
9. How did you learn this music?
10. Do you have family or friends who participate in this music? If so, does this affect your
relationship with them? How?
11. Tell me about your relationships with others in this musical community.
12. How do others learn this genre, in your experience?
13. What are the most important things a newcomer ought to know about learning this genre?
14. Do you think that there is a “right” or “best” way to create this music? Can you explain it to
me?
15. In your opinion, what is required of a musician to make this music?
16. Do you think there is a “right” way to play this music?
17. People play this genre all around the world. Does the sound change according to the place
where it is created or community creating it?
18. Some musicians maintain that their music sounds “best,” or is most “authentic,” either in a
particular part of the world, or when it is created by specific people. Do you think this
true of your music? If so, what is that place or community, and what makes it different
from others?
19. Is this music ever performed for an audience? If so, does it change in such a setting? How or
why, in your opinion?
20. Have you noticed if this genre affects other aspects of your life–relationships, thought
processes, etc.? If so, which aspects, and can you describe music’s affect?
21. What would be different in your life without this music?
22. Do you think that the people in your musical community would be in your life without this
music?
23. In your experiences participating in this genre, have you seen the music change over time? If
so, how? Has the community changed? How?
24. What do you think about when you play/sing/listen to this music?
25. What emotions do you experience when you play/sing/listen to this music?
Thank you so much for your time.
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