Thesis submission ID 894 | created
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Rory James Corbett, A Self-Reflexive Clawhammer Banjo-ology
Volumes, pp.: Main body (55pp.) / Appendix I & II (18 pp.) Wordcount: 10000
Supervisor(s): Dr. Tríona Ní Shíocháin and Dr. Colin Maguire
Repository (online): https://www.academia.edu/37897563/A_Self-Reflexive_Clawhammer_Banjo-ology
General specialism: Ethnomusicology
Historical timeframe: 1843–present
Key terms, concepts: Dialectical Ethnomusicology; Hermeneutical Phenomenology; Clawhammer; A New Critical Organology; Subjugated Knowledge; Traditionality
Key terms, persons: Mick Daly; Joel Walker Sweeney; Dan Emmett; Frank Converse; Phil Rice
Key terms, places: New York; Cork
Key terms, genres, instruments: Banjo; Old-time; Blackface Minstrelsy
Abstract:
Two overarching strands constitute the primary aspects of this thesis. Firstly, in Chapters 1 and 2 I historicise the 5-string banjo and downstroke creative practice, in order to better understand the complexities of the various meanings generated by banjo performance over this period of time. Secondly, in Chapter 3 I undertake a project which through a creative practice model, as outlined in Chapter 2, interrogates the meaning of historical sources pertaining to banjo.
This nuanced understanding is framed through the combined theoretical lenses of spatio-motor cognition, and embodiment theory with a particular focus upon generating new understandings upon the conceptual importance of the technique known as drop-thumb. Participant observation and dialectical fieldwork are the methods used towards this end. Paul Ricoeur’s methodology for interpretation posits that the move from preunderstandings to new understandings takes place along a hermeneutical arc (Ricoeur 1981). Following Timothy Rice’s adaptation of Paul Ricoeur’s interpretive method towards a subject-centred musical ethnography, this arc encapsulates my initial engagement with the living tradition of Old-Time music in Cork today, the dialectical fieldwork undertaken in relation to rendering the “Grape Vine Twist” in textualised forms with the assistance of Ling-Wei Chua and Mick Daly, and then subsequently to be reinterpreted by myself.
Rory James Corbett, A Self-Reflexive Clawhammer Banjo-ology
MA, University College Cork, 2018
Volumes, pp.: Main body (55pp.) / Appendix I & II (18 pp.) Wordcount: 10000
Supervisor(s): Dr. Tríona Ní Shíocháin and Dr. Colin Maguire
Repository (online): https://www.academia.edu/37897563/A_Self-Reflexive_Clawhammer_Banjo-ology
General specialism: Ethnomusicology
Historical timeframe: 1843–present
Key terms, concepts: Dialectical Ethnomusicology; Hermeneutical Phenomenology; Clawhammer; A New Critical Organology; Subjugated Knowledge; Traditionality
Key terms, persons: Mick Daly; Joel Walker Sweeney; Dan Emmett; Frank Converse; Phil Rice
Key terms, places: New York; Cork
Key terms, genres, instruments: Banjo; Old-time; Blackface Minstrelsy
Abstract:
Two overarching strands constitute the primary aspects of this thesis. Firstly, in Chapters 1 and 2 I historicise the 5-string banjo and downstroke creative practice, in order to better understand the complexities of the various meanings generated by banjo performance over this period of time. Secondly, in Chapter 3 I undertake a project which through a creative practice model, as outlined in Chapter 2, interrogates the meaning of historical sources pertaining to banjo.
This nuanced understanding is framed through the combined theoretical lenses of spatio-motor cognition, and embodiment theory with a particular focus upon generating new understandings upon the conceptual importance of the technique known as drop-thumb. Participant observation and dialectical fieldwork are the methods used towards this end. Paul Ricoeur’s methodology for interpretation posits that the move from preunderstandings to new understandings takes place along a hermeneutical arc (Ricoeur 1981). Following Timothy Rice’s adaptation of Paul Ricoeur’s interpretive method towards a subject-centred musical ethnography, this arc encapsulates my initial engagement with the living tradition of Old-Time music in Cork today, the dialectical fieldwork undertaken in relation to rendering the “Grape Vine Twist” in textualised forms with the assistance of Ling-Wei Chua and Mick Daly, and then subsequently to be reinterpreted by myself.
Thesis submission ID 894