Music in Rural New England Family and Community Life,1870-1940 (REVISITING NEW ENGLAND) - Hardcover

Post, Jennifer C.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1584654155 ISBN 13: 9781584654155

Publisher: University of New Hampshire Press, 2004

Synopsis

Before 1940, residents in rural New England communities listened to and performed music in limited social spheres - the home, neighborhood, village, or work place. Few opportunities existed at that time to bring new music into the community or to share local music more widely. When commerce and the media began to dominate the music scene with the phonograph and, later, the radio, exchanges among musicians and fans transcended the local and broadened spheres of influence and radically altered the musical landscape. Drawing upon interviews and archival primary source materials, this book presents new insights into the musical practices and traditions of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century rural Northern New England - a context that includes traditional ballads and hymns and, surprisingly, popular songs and commercial dance music. Jennifer C. Post lets the voices of ordinary people - the participants - tell us about their music and cultural history. Their stories are infused with issues of concern to ethnomusicologists, historians, and social scientists about landscape and community, gendered expression, imagined traditions, and historical representation.

About this title

About the Author

JENNIFER C. POST, Assistant Professor of Music at Middlebury College, is Faculty Curator of the Ethnomusicology Archives and of the Helen Hartness Flanders Collection of Folk Music.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of New Hampshire Press
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1584654155
• ISBN 13: 9781584654155
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256