What Makes a Genre?

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...

Digitally Displaying Distinctive Data

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,...

Categorizing Race and Music – a Map-maker’s Quandry

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...