<p> This study examines Nicaraguan music before and after the 1972 Managuan earthquake for evidence of changes in Nicaraguan national identity. Central issues are indigenous groups, colonialism, Catholicism, and communism in Nicaragua. A total of four musical examples are analyzed, three songs dating before the earthquake and one from after. These songs provide evidence for changes in Nicaraguan national identity. The study concludes that the earthquake brought about an increase in public exposure to indigenous Nicaraguan music. Indigenous Nicaraguan musical styles have been incorporated into modern Nicaraguan popular music, which in turn has influenced Nicaraguan national identity as a whole.</p>

<p> This auto ethnography examines how a timid young boy grew up to become a confident music composer and how he developed a method of auto ethnographic songwriting. Through a process of systematic narrative inquiry and hermeneutic analysis, the study uncovers personal insights in self-awareness and in compositional technique. The study examines how the author reacted to personal and professional failures, regained emotional equilibrium through creative expression, and developed a method of transforming spoken text into complete songs. The study also considers how educational practices and cultural expectations in the late twentieth century American affected the composer's musical upbringing and sense of belonging. Additionally, the study recounts how the composer trained his own mind and body to perceive tempo and syncopation in order to compensate for a lack of an innate sense of rhythm. The study illuminates the transforming effect that acts of creativity had on this individual's belief system and how they helped him sustain his enthusiasm for life.</p>

<p> Cajun and Creole traditional music evolves, as does any living tradition. Taking this music into consideration from the perspective of &laquo; oral poetry, &raquo; a concept defined by Ruth Finnegan and Paul Zumthor, this thesis studies the aspect of singing in Cajun and Creole traditional music through transformations affected by recording technology (Zumthor&rsquo;s notion of &laquo; mediatized orality &raquo;) with respect to the actual sociolinguistic context in Louisiana. First, we study the transformations occuring in songs from the traditional repertoire, through various audio renderings of the same songs. Second, we look at the way new songs, created in the traditional frame, address the lyrical content through old and contemporary themes, including the use of French language and bilingualism. This discussion is informed by interviews conducted with targeted musicians concerning their linguistic perceptions and respective artistic approaches. Thus, we eventually discover how, in addition to being a dance genre, Cajun and Creole music plays an essential role in the continued existence of French language in Louisiana.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on May 13, 2009). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-08, Section: A, page: 3267. Adviser: Ruth Stone.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-10, Section: A, page: 4418. Adviser: Mary Ellen Brown. Title from dissertation home page (viewed May 19, 2008).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Oct. 5, 2009). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-02, Section: A, page: 0649. Adviser: Ruth M. Stone.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-05, Section: A, page: 2108. Adviser: Richard Bauman. "Title from dissertation home page (viewed Jan. 12, 2008)."

<p> This dissertation looks at the popular American folksong revival in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan region during the Cold War and Civil Rights era. Examination of folk revival scholarship, local media reports and cultural geography, and the collected interviews and oral histories of Washington area participants, reveals the folk and blues revival was a mass mediated phenomenon with contentious factions. The D.C. revival shows how restorative cultural projects and issues of authenticity are central to modernity, and how the function of folksong transformed from the populist, labor oriented Old Left to the personalized politics of the New Left. This study also significantly disrupts often romantic scholarship and political narratives about the folk revival and redirects the intellectual attention on New York, Chicago, and San Francisco towards the nation's capital as an overlooked site of cultural production. Washington's "folk world" of music clubs, coffeehouses, record collectors, disc jockeys, performers, folklorists, and folk music aficionados drove folk music studies towards context and cultural democracy, but the local insistence on apolitical, traditional, and rural forms of folksong as the most genuine reinscribed racial and class hierarchies even as they enhanced Washington's status. Washington, D.C., shifted the loose folk revival "movement" into permanent cultural institutions and organizations, and the city gained a cosmopolitan reputation for authentic folk music that intermingled with its regional culture and identity as the nation's capital and site of public protest.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, 2004. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-01, Section: A, page: 0291. Adviser: John H. McDowell. Title from dissertation home page (viewed Oct. 12, 2006).