by hynes1 | May 22, 2018 | Emily Hynes
What defines a genre of music? Who gets to authoritatively determine that their definition is correct? When discussing folk song, it already is difficult enough to find a way to securely define it. Then, when we aim to divide the category up further, even more...
by hynes1 | May 22, 2018 | Emily Hynes
Every song collected has a story. Consider where it came from – perhaps a 12th c Scottish farmboy hummed a song to himself that later was heard in a field in Kentucky, passed down from plantation owner to slave. Consider who sang it – was it a child,...
by hynes1 | May 22, 2018 | Emily Hynes
While researching the Dorothy Scarborough book On the Trail of Negro Folk-Songs, I ran into a genre of music that Scarborough discusses in-depth: folk songs in America that are associated with black singers, but have their roots in European sources. These songs were...
by hynes1 | May 14, 2018 | Emily Hynes
During the process of mapping, we must figure out how to categorize our data. Shall we look at it chronologically? Shall we see how many times a song was performed, and where a song was performed? Given the nature of my research on Lomax and Scarborough’s music...
by hynes1 | May 14, 2018 | Emily Hynes
On an adventure we go, to the American south, where folk songs and tunes await! This spring, I’ve been conducting research on folk song collecting in the American south. Thus far, I have cataloged all of the songs from John and Ruby Lomax’s 1939 Southern...
