Listening, Learning, and Connoisseurship in Old-Time Music
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CATCHING THE “WILD NOTE”: LISTENING, LEARNING, AND CONNOISSEURSHIP IN OLD-TIME MUSIC Joseph Edward Decosimo A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of American Studies. Chapel Hill 2018 Approved by: Glenn Hinson Louise Meintjes Andrea Bohlman Bernard Herman Elizabeth Engelhardt © 2018 Joseph Edward Decosimo ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Joseph Edward Decosimo: Catching the “Wild Note”: Listening, Learning, and Connoisseurship in Old-time Music (Under the direction of Glenn Hinson) As we approach the century mark for audio recording projects that began documenting traditional music forms in the southern U.S., it is worth interrogating the profound ways that old commercial and field recordings shape contemporary performance practices and understandings of these genres, especially as copies of older recordings circulate widely and unexpectedly and accumulate new meanings. This project examines the ways that sound recordings and technologies mediate contemporary performance practices, aesthetics, and social relationships in the context of Old-time music, especially among Old-time practitioners in East Tennessee, a site long associated with the genre. An ethnography of listening, learning, and performance practices among expert Old-time musicians, this dissertation brings conversations about the splitting and circulation of sounds from their sources to bear on long-standing concerns about modes of transmission of traditional and local knowledge. Thinking about the transmission of traditional music as a process thoroughly imbricated with sound technologies yields new questions, stories, and understandings about Old-time music making and the study of expressive culture. This project traces a circulatory flow that runs from Old-time’s emergence as commercial and field recordings into the learning, listening, and performing bodies of contemporary musicians and, then, back into the realm of recorded sound as contemporary experts make new recordings. Based on the author’s experience as a performer/researcher, and on fifteen years of iii fieldwork with expert musicians around Chattanooga, Tennessee, and beyond, this project reveals the intensely creative processes of emulation that lead to masterful performances on fiddle and banjo, the intimate relationships that form between players and between listener/learners and sound recordings, and emergent forms of connoisseurship. As this project foregrounds and interrogates the role of sound technologies in mediating and sustaining local forms of expressive culture, it invites researchers to consider carefully the entangled relationships between technologies, aesthetics, and masterful performances in contemporary traditional art forms. Rather than dismissing artistic projects that draw on recordings as less authentic than projects built around face-to-face learning, this project invites researchers to recognize the creative labor and social relationships that form as mediated repertories and styles return to embodied performances. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project would not have been possible without the generosity of my fellow Old-time musicians. Members of this music community have been generous conversation partners and have refined my thinking about this music. They’ve inspired me as both a researcher and a musician. My fiddling mentors Charlie Acuff and Clyde Davenport taught me much about fiddling and generously shared their music with me. In Tennessee, Bob Townsend, Charles Higgins, Tim Higgins, and Matt Downer shared their music and stories with me. Beyond Tennessee, conversations with Shay Garriock, Alice Gerrard, and Joseph Dejarnette inspired portions of the project. I am grateful to all of these folks. Their voices and music make this a much richer project. David and Mary Winston, Dwight Rogers, Gail Gillespie, Cleek Schrey, John Herrmann, Mike and Marcia Bryant, Brett and Pan Riggs, Lyle Werner, and countless other musicians have offered invaluable encouragement and insight. I can’t begin to name all the Old- time musicians who have inspired and shaped this project. Many thanks. Likewise, I am deeply appreciative of my community of researchers and writers. Glenn Hinson invited me to write and think creatively, opening space for me to explore this music and my own experiences as a music maker. Louise Meintjes provided essential encouragement and feedback. Jeff Todd Titon offered thoughtful input. The Department of American Studies at UNC, its folklore program, and writing workshop in Duke’s Cultural Anthropology program provided support and community along the way. This project might never have reached its conclusion without the encouragement and eye of my writing partner Jay Hammond. v Lastly, my family has been supportive beyond measure. In particular, Kasey Poole Decosimo has patiently endured the writing process, reading over drafts, listening to raw ideas, and offering suggestions with patience and grace. Thank you. Likewise, Charlie Poole Decosimo has been a delightful companion throughout. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................... x CHAPTER 1: LEARNING TO LISTEN AND LISTENING TO LEARN ............................. 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1 What is Old-time? ..................................................................................................................... 11 Guiding Concerns and Questions .............................................................................................. 19 Method and Approach ............................................................................................................... 23 The Site: Chattanooga, Tennessee ............................................................................................ 26 The Sociality of Listening in Old-time ..................................................................................... 31 Connoisseurs of Old Recordings .............................................................................................. 32 Activities of Connoisseurship: Listening, Learning, and Emulating ........................................ 33 The Aesthetics of Connoisseurship: Oldness, Offness, and Liveness as On-ness .................... 38 Overview ................................................................................................................................... 40 CHAPTER 2: MEDIATING OLDNESS: OLD FIDDLES, OLD FIDDLERS, OLD FIDDLING IN 1920S CHATTANOOGA ................................................................................. 46 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 46 Part I: Old Fiddling in the Air and in the Paper ........................................................................ 50 Part II: Old Fiddling in the Body .............................................................................................. 63 Part III: Old Fiddling on the Stage ............................................................................................ 71 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 76 vii CHAPTER 3 NEW POSSIBILITIES FOR OLDNESS: LISTENING, PARTICIPATING, AND MAKING OLD-TIME MUSIC LIVE IN CHATTANOOGA, 1995-2017 ................... 80 Oldness Revisited and New Possibilities .................................................................................. 80 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 82 Part I: The Mountain Opry, Walden’s Ridge 1995-2001 ......................................................... 89 Part II: Local Sounds, Energies, and Affects .......................................................................... 103 Part III: The Great Southern Fiddlers’ Convention ................................................................ 107 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 123 CHAPTER 4: WINDING AND UNWINDING THE CLOCK: EMULATING, OSCARIZING, AND GROOVING AS RELATING ................................. 126 Winding up .............................................................................................................................. 131 Part I: A Biography of Social Relations ................................................................................. 135 Part II: Process (or a Biography of a Groove) ........................................................................ 149 Winding Down ........................................................................................................................ 161 CHAPTER 5: “BAD NOTES” AS GOOD INTONATION: CULTIVATING A CONNOISSEURSHIP OF OFFNESS AS ON-NESS .......................... 165 Introducing the Bad Note ........................................................................................................ 165 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 166 Rounding off the “Sharp Edges”: Anxieties about